Areas › Worry and anxiety › What worry does
When the alarm takes over, the reasoning part of you goes quiet for a while. That is not you losing your mind. It comes back on its own.
People often frighten themselves twice: once with whatever set them off, and again with the sense that they have lost control of their own head. Knowing the thinking part temporarily hands over makes the second fright much smaller. Expect to be poor at arguments and decisions while it is away, and leave anything that matters until it is back.
Qur’an and Sunnah
God wishes to lighten your burden; man was created weak (Quran 4:28). Being easily overwhelmed is treated here as part of how we are made, not as something to be ashamed of.
يُرِيدُ ٱللَّهُ أَن يُخَفِّفَ عَنكُمۡۚ وَخُلِقَ ٱلۡإِنسَٰنُ ضَعِيفࣰ ا
God wishes to lighten your burden; man was created weak
Qur’an 4:28read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
A meta-analysis found that people high in repetitive negative thinking show measurable difficulty controlling what sits in working memory, which offers one explanation for why clear thinking is so hard to reach at those moments. It describes an association pooled across studies rather than proving that the worry causes the deficit. It does fit the everyday experience of not being able to move your own attention.
Zetsche U, Bürkner PC, Schulze L. (2018). Shedding light on the association between repetitive negative thinking and deficits in cognitive control - A meta-analysis.. Clinical psychology review doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Knowing the loss of clear thinking is temporary keeps you from panicking about the panic.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.
Near this one
Listen to the tone, not only the content. Sorrow and flat negativity about someone's online world can be the clearest reading of their mood you will get.
The worst symptom is not always the one that costs the most. Ask what actually stops you doing things, and start there.
Anxiety is not a malfunction. The alarm is doing what it was built to do, which is get you ready for something, and the trouble usually starts with how long it stays on rather than with the fact that it switched on.