So my new mystery novel comes out on Saturday on Amazon and I could not be more thrilled!
I say this because I’m also feeling quite trepidatious about it, and I just read a very interesting study that you can reduce anxiety by embracing it as excitement. This sounds a little too simple to be effective, but many studies have been done that show that people who replace the words “I am so nervous” with “I’m so excited” can actually transform their anxiety into thrill.
Is this true?
Could it really be so simple?
I am well-acquainted with the powerful effects of anxiety as it has been an overpowering part of my grief journey. Ever since my father died, my marriage imploded and my best friend committed suicide, I get random anxiety attacks where I’ll be reading a book or driving down the road feeling fine, and all of a sudden my heart squeezes and I can’t breathe. I feel like I just did a long sprint at full speed. At first, I thought I was having a heart attack, but when I visited my doctor and my heart was fine, she told me it sounded like panic attacks. Apparently, when a person experiences extreme trauma, the body feels like it’s under attack and it thinks it has to save you by making you fight or run. It does this by filling you with adrenaline, but when it goes on for a long period of time, the body no longer knows when it’s attacked and not attacked, and starts shooting cortisol into the bloodstream at random times, producing random panic attacks. They are scary, as in I have to pull my car over and get out and put my hands on my knees and breathe. I practice breathing techniques from all my years of yoga to calm my system. This trains the body to stay calm and breathe even when things are hard. The problem is, it doesn’t always work. Sometimes the primitive part of the brain overpowers the rational part that says “BREATHE!” and now I’m in full panic attack.
So I was curious to read about transforming anxiety into excitement with a few simple words, my first thought, this can’t be true. Anxiety is so powerful, how could saying a few simple words change it? Could it be that easy?
Harvard Business School Professor A.W. Brooks, says it really IS that easy. In one study, she put people through anxiety-inducing activities and had some subjects say aloud “I’m nervous” before beginning and some say “I’m excited”. The “I’m excited” group performed better on every task.
https://hbr.org/2013/11/how-to-make-use-of-your-anxiety-for-positive-results
The simple leap makes sense when you look at the physiological symptoms of anxiety: your heart beats faster, you breathing amps up, the same symptoms of excitement. Trying to calm yourself down is harder because you are working against what is already happening. But saying you are excited works WITH what is already happening.
Soooooo, I’m so excited!!!
My book is not perfect, and will probably never be “done”. I wake up in the night thinking, “OMG! What was I thinking? No one will care! No one wants to read this drizzle! You can’t write!”
Then I calm myself down with a muffin, and then the voices start up again, “You need to add a few chapters, more character arcs, it doesn’t make sense…”
But I get up, show up, and throw it out into the world and hope that it finds readers who get a kick out of the story. Because honestly, I’m not trying to write the next Ulysses. I’m writing the book I would want to read, a book that would entertain me. If someone told me they were reading a mystery book that takes place in New Orleans where the detective is a middle aged ex-burlesque dancer, I would be so thrilled!!
So that’s what I am—thrilled!!
If that’s what you want to call my heart pitter-pattering a little faster, okay then. Writing a book is scary and wonderful. Sending it out into the world in all its imperfect glory is an act of madness. Do it anyway!!
