How Do You Distract Yourself From Anxiety?

Photo by Lane Smith on Unsplash

Let’s look at it a bit differently.

It is not anxiety and fear that can hold you back or motivate you. It is the interpretation of anxiety and fear that can have an effect. Hence, if you interpret anxiety and fear as positive then you can use it to motivate you.

Now, how do you interpret it positively? Isn’t anxiety and fear all bad? That’s what you are probably wondering. Well, every progress in the world has its roots in anxiety and fear. When Thomas Edison went about burning 5000 bulbs till he got it right, it was his anxiety that carried him forward. Anxious to know what would work and why the current one didn’t work. If he didn’t care enough, he would have just given up. When you are called for an interview, it is your anxiety that lets you be alert and prepare well. If it wasn’t for that, you would just do a mediocre preparation. So, you interpret anxiety as something that is needed to push us forward.

Now, let’s talk about fear. Our fight or flight response system is rooted in fear. It is to alert us to be watchful. As Andrew Grove from Intel said - “Only the paranoid survive”. Fear is needed to be dissatisfied with the current state so that you want to make a change. Without fear, we would just be “ok” with the way things are.

There you go, reframe anxiety and fear as positive and this reframing will let you use it to motivate you. Once that happens, you will find that you don’t need to distract yourself from anxiety.