So as many of you know I read a lot online. There are great resources for people with anxiety it’s completely worth your time looking for them. That said there is plenty of dubious news online around anxiety. It’s part of the capitalization of the corona virus. Now again, I want to stress there are plenty of great resources out there but be careful what you read and what you take to heart.

As an example there are articles like the one I found here that are simply fluff pieces.

From the article: “In one study of 30,000 Americans, those who had the highest levels of stress were 43 percent more likely to die only if they also believed that stress was bad for their health. In contrast, those who experienced high stress but didn’t view it as harmful were the least likely to die compared to any other group in the study — including people who experienced very little stress.”

Seems harmless right? Now if you look at it closely, the entire paragraph is constructed around one idea, that how you view stress determines your outcome. If that wasn’t obvious in of itself it assumes that you have the ability to dictate how stress impacts you.

The great failing of articles like this is they fail to make the logical leap to the cascading effect of stress. It can lead to anxiety, which can lead to depression. It assumes that you have the ability to “view” stress in more than one way. Not everyone does. Stress is like a gateway, and ya I suppose if you can think of it differently at the outside the gateway leads to another path.

If you can’t the path moves you forward and once you step through the gateway it’s incredibly difficult to step backward and embark on the alternative route. Essentially this article boils stress down to a simple concept of how you chose to look at it. If it were only that simple, if only millions of us didn’t already have anxiety disorders and other mental health issues. Yes, then this would be simple I would think differently and have a different outcome.

I’m going to try that with pain next, I’m going to stub my toe and think that the pain is really an orgasm.

I know we went pg-13 there for a minute but if I could just think differently don’t you think I would have tried that? I shouldn’t be too critical here, coverage I a positive thing and more outlets talking about stress and anxiety is a net positive. Perhaps I am being too cynical but my instinct tells me that many of these articles are attempts to capitalize on a pandemic, which is sinister IMHO.

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