Are You Anxious? What Are the Uses of Anxiety, if Any?

I am an anxious person. I like things to go well, especially social situations, and I put energy into trying to keep everyone around me comfortable. When that doesn’t work, I get anxious. Heck, I get anxious just thinking about all that. I’m a pro, like many of you I know, at imagining all the ways things can go wrong. And getting anxious about that.

Which led me to wonder: what, if any, are the uses of anxiety? A good deal of human effort is put into alleviating the effects of anxiety, especially around its manifestations in performance, whether public speaking, artistic performance, or various kinds of testing. But can anxiety be helpful?

First, a 2016 study suggests how anxiety may work, and thus what’s unhelpful about it. It causes the brain to perceive new stimuli, whether or not they are the same as a previous one, as anxiety-provoking. So, in other words, the anxious mind reacts to more things with anxiety than a non-anxious brain. Anxiety is powerful, and it molds the mind to find more things anxious rather than less.

Great. I’m feeling anxious already. What, then, could be good about this brain problem? It turns rather a lot. First, anxious people, perhaps not surprisingly, have fewer fatal accidents as teenagers. Hah! I only had one, as readers of my 2014 book Power Cues know. Second…