How Anxiety Leads To Bad Choices

If you suffer from anxiety, it could be messing with your decision-making! Here's how.


Read More:
Anxious people more apt to make bad decisions amid uncertainty
"Highly anxious people have more trouble deciding how best to handle life's uncertainties. They may even catastrophize, interpreting, say, a lovers' tiff as a doomed relationship or a workplace change as a career threat."

What Anxiety Does to Your Brain and What You Can Do About It
"Anxiety is a natural, normal response to potential threats, which puts your body into a heightened state of awareness."

Anxiety and the Brain: An Introduction
"It should come as little surprise that your brain is the source of your anxiety."

Decision-Making
"Decisions. Decisions. Each day you make thousands of them. Many - what to eat for breakfast or what to wear to a friend's party - have few, if any, long-lasting consequences. Others - whether to stay in school or look for work - can have a huge impact on the direction of your life."
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[xXIronManXx]

As a person who suffers from anxiety issues, I can tell you how difficult it is to make important decisions on the spot.
It sometimes affects me so much that I try to avoid those situation by being alone.
:(

[tessat]

Of all my disorders, anxiety, in my experience, is the most stupid.  I have gotten anxiety attacks over triggers that I just don't CARE that much about.  I've lain staring at the ceiling, unable to sleep with my heart racing and my stomach churning and been bored silly about the subject.  Thank goodness for medication.  I am of the opinion that some anxiety disorder is more physical than psychological.  I am not a worrisome person so I find anxiety attacks to be frustrating and energy sapping.  No doubt, this irritation fuels the attack.  

[Hyacinth]

This is something I've intuitively discovered recently. I have a tendency to avoid looking back on memories where I've screwed up to avoid beating myself up so as a result I don't learn from them.

[RCmies]

Holy shit this sounds familiar. I'm having very hard time making quick conclusions when its a stress situation, or when someone asks my opinion on something idk, my mind usually just goes empty and I can't get anything out, and I acknowledge it and it makes me feel so angry at myself. Then I say "I don't know" like a robot. Then after 5 mins when I've called down and thought about it I could have an opinion with good explanation and yeah... Guess I'm just slow. I wish I could do something about its at least as hard as getting rid of smoking especially because of social pressure n shit, its hard to change and I can't. Whatever

[morlandi]

It's ironic to see a video about anxiety when where I live it's 4AM and I have to be up at 6:30 if I don't want to miss any of my classes, and I can't sleep precisely because of my anxiety. At least reading some of the comments makes me not feel so guilty since apparently I'm not alone. But it sucks anyways, not having control of something other people apparently have.

[oAvalono]

Needs more research. Personally, having a bipolar, angry, narcissistic parent taught me & my siblings, that fear/anxiety is the proper response. They would use intimidation in the face of any disagreement, so the safest response was fight, flight or freeze.

[honeycider]

I think this is pretty true! I've had Generalized Anxiety Disorder officially for 2 years now, my psychiatrist told me that unfamiliar changes are common triggers. And I totally see this kind of bad choice situation in my life. Great video.

[sarahsant]

I have OCD, and I have a lot of trouble trying to make decisions, especially non-obvious and/or trivial ones. If I have two or three choices, I'll usually choose all of them if I can. I'm one of those people who can take longer to order at a restaurant than I do eating - so at fast food places and such, I typically have to let several people go in front of me before I make a choice (which is the less-of-an-asshole way to go). People are so funny - they go, "oh, no, it's fine, we aren't in a hurry, " but they don't usually expect that when I say "go ahead of me :)" what I mean is "I take 15 or 20 minutes to make trivial decisions and I'm sure you don't want to wait behind me in line."

The other option, of course, is to have a go-to choice when I feel I'm taking too much time. For all the stores at which I'm "a regular, " I have a mental list of products/options I can just pull from when I can't or don't want to make a decision.

[ActionLandFilms]

Well, it's nice to be able to obtain some scientific understanding of why I myself have quite intense anxiety, but it'd be nicer if there were research on overcoming those barriers...

[jalonibolds]

I have severe anxiety and if there was a queen of making bad Decisions it would be me😞I always end up looking stupid or making things worse and I just want to overcome this issue

[Maximiliantravels]

How about constant anxiety + OCD + bipolar + panic attacks from time to time + constant suicidal thoughts? Sounds like a winning combination eh....

[SXRMHWK]

Substances mess with your decisions as well, stay sober especially if you have the alcoholic gene + or an addictive personality. Take in consideration the aftereffects thc stays in your system for a month and alcohol still affects several days after drinking.

[Trexpass]

I don't know why but this video made me relaxed like crazy...

[canids]

A maxim I grew up with is to "never make a decision in a crisis". Keep that in mind and you will make better decisions.

You're forgetting the age and experience factor. With those you get to a point where you realise it probably isn't all that important anyway.

[rtswift]

they say your body goes through the same things(increased heart rate, butterflies in the stomach) when you are excited and anxious. it's just one has a negative mentally behind it while the other has a positive.

[ryantroy]

I have found this to be the most accurate description of my my anxiety.

[shadfurman]

Who are we if not our brains?

The brain is a programmable computing device. Programmable. Start decoding it's syntax and program your self.
I rarely have panic attacks, but I often have debilitating anxiety. One of the ways I've found to program my brain is breathing. Depending on what is causing the anxiety I'll either do box breathing (4 seconds in, hold 4 seconds, 4 seconds out, hold 4 seconds) to calm myself, or warrior breathing, (hard and fast through the nose, relax out the mouth... don't pass out) to ramp myself up. If I'm having trouble getting rid of an anxiety provoking thought, I'll shift my eyes back and fourth while INTENTIONALLY focusing on the thought; it usually dissipates in a minute or so.
Theinine for mild anxioty, phenylbut for severe anxiety (not sure if the phenylbut does much... just started experimenting with it).

Your body is YOUR body. Take ownership of it and learn how it works.

This was one of the few videos on DNews without a rediculous/misleading hype element. Thanks Amy! :-)

[ToadGuardMK]

It's gotten to the stage where my fam just thinks I'm really dumb when I make decisions without thinking them through. I always promise I'll change but... I don't. For years, I've been the same and it's eating me up as I was told Im running other fam members mental health .... They're giving up on me.

[uzairrampage]

I can’t even make intuitive decisions like whether to express the date as 15th April or 15 April. Before General anxiety disorder, I used both these formats interchangeably intuitively and randomly without even thinking about it.

[rawstarmusic]

Since people with anxiety make more mistakes, they get more trouble which leads to more anxiety. It's possible to see how that is.