Behavioral Anxiety

Daily Meditation #127 — 6/29/2022

“Eh….I’ll get em tomorrow” are words of death to peace of mind.

Anxiety pervades our lives. It has a saturating and dissolving effect on our ability to focus and feel positive emotion — anxiety is like an acid to our well being.

Here’s the thing:

One of the greatest negative effects on our levels of anxiety is avoiding what we should be doing. “Your soul knows when you’re falling short of your potential and it saps you of joy.”

Truly simple but life-altering behaviors are rooted in the fact that doing the behavior reduces overall anxiety…whereas avoiding or not doing it will leave your anxiety high or make it worse.

What are some of them?

1. Wash, dry, fold and putting away laundry in the same day. Leaving it between stages (or living out of the unfolded-in-basket) has a very subliminal draining effect.
2. Making your bed. Even just tidying the sheets when you wake up.
3. Cooking at least one meal each day, start to finish. Even if you ate a donut at work, caved and got ice cream for a snack, or indulged elsewhere, you know you at least had one homecooked meal.
4. Walking 10,000+ steps every day. If you physically cannot, then talk to a doctor, but start at 500 and aim to add 50–100 every day. Moving just a bit more each day gives you momentum both in physical and mental states, but also makes you want to eat better.
5. Read 10 minutes every day.
6. Try a new language 10 minutes every day.
7. Take 10 minutes after eating to wash the dishes immediately and to clean up. Like the laundry, leaving the crumbs and dishes have a sapping effect.
8. Take the remaining cash after shopping, stick it in an envelope and tuck it away each time, untouched for the year. Save it for Christmas or an emergency, etc.
9. Spend a dedicated 10 minutes each day with your spouse, just talking.

There are obviously more, and I am certainly not your mother.

You need to get the initiative to reduce your anxiety with small, simple behavioral changes. But, as you start “doing things the right way,” you’ll find momentum which will help propel the behaviors forward.

As for the “Where am I supposed to find time for all this?” argument you’re likely brewing — if it is important, you will find time.

I’d guarantee you sit and enjoy Netflix for at least an hour many days.
Or game 2–3 hours every night.
Or watch pornography.
Or scroll FaceBook or the news for 60+ minutes, cumulatively, on toilets at home and at work…

Just replace some of that time with some of this time.

What little behaviors you are lacking now do you want to change to greatly reduce your anxiety?
For me? Cleaning up after cooking!

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These are distillations from my coming book “YouDaimonia: the Ancient Philosophy of Human Flourishing.”