How does anxiety affect decision making?

Anxiety is usually described as a phenomenon belonging to the field of emotions; a set of psychological processes that leads us to feel anguish, stress against possible sources of danger, and even nervousness at the idea of ​​making a good first impression when meeting someone. None of these insights are very misguided, but by themselves, they only explain part of what it really means to be anxious.

And it is that anxiety goes beyond the emotional: it also affects how we think, how we make decisions and, ultimately, how we reason. And it is that what we call "reason" is not a part of our mind totally separated from our feelings and state of mind, as much as there are metaphors about the struggle between "the brain and the heart".

At the moment of truth, elements such as anxiety are totally intertwined with our way of string together thoughts and draw conclusions from what we know about the world and ourselves themselves. Therefore, in this article we are going to focus on how anxiety affects decision making of people.

• Related article: "Are we rational or emotional beings?"

The interaction between anxiety and reason

Anxiety is, above all, a product of certain mechanisms of adaptation to the environment that were developed by our ancestors in response to the need to survive in changing and potentially dangerous environments. Virtually all animals with complex nervous systems have the ability to experience anxiety, unlike plants or those that barely move (such as anemones), because to exist they need to be able to react quickly to signals that they are at risk.

Currently, our well-being as human beings does not depend so much on the avoidance of physically dangerous situations but on the fact of not missing opportunities to maintain or improve our standard of living, materially and psychologically through self realisation. However, the ability to feel anxiety is still there, leading us to be aware of those problems or risks that must be addressed as soon as possible.

And since anxiety is a response to situations that require us to take action quickly, it cannot be said that it is a problem, or an unpleasant experience; In most cases, it is much more than that, and it is useful to us. For example, it is part of those things that motivate us to hurry so as not to be late for a job interview, or to study for an exam, etc.

Thus, it is not surprising that anxiety goes hand in hand with decision-making and our way of thinking, generating new knowledge or hypotheses from which to behave. This psychological and emotional element guides us towards certain values ​​or towards others, influences when it comes to deciding our priorities, leads us to have a more or less optimistic view of our abilities and skills, etc. Let's look at it in more detail below.

• You may be interested in: "Types of Anxiety Disorders and their characteristics"

How does a high level of anxiety influence our decisions?

Anxiety interacts with our way of reasoning and making decisions in many ways, especially taking into account that each individual lives this experience in a somewhat different way from the rest of the humanity. But if we broaden the focus and focus on general and habitual behavior patterns, It is observed that the most frequent interactions between anxiety and decision making are following.

1. It leads us to focus on short-term problems

Anxiety makes it easier for our attention to be focused on what can happen to us in minutes, hours or days view, leaving behind the issues that can affect us on the time scale of months and years.

This is because predisposes us to be in a state of attention to signs that we can do something quickly to avoid a certain situation (missing an important phone call, not escaping from a place in time, etc.).

• Related article: "How to better manage your time at work: 12 tips (and what to avoid)"

2. It predisposes us to remain in doubt

Anxiety is based above all on the avoidance of harm or loss, and therefore, when we are very anxious It can take a lot to make an important decision, because that could lead to failure.

It is common for us to postpone again and again the moment of choosing one of the options we are considering and move from ideas to action.

• You may be interested in: "The 'paralysis of analysis'; when overthinking it becomes a problem "

3. Make it easy for us to think about our flaws

The anxiety leads us to focus on our insecurities, to not trust ourselves and relax. This often causes us to underestimate ourselves, or even to behave assuming that we are bad at what we are trying to do.

• Related article: "Low selfsteem? When you become your worst enemy "

4. Makes us prefer to avoid losses to have options to win

Usually when we are very anxious, we adopt a conservative mindset, contenting ourselves with the idea of ​​not losing. Therefore, in this state (and compared to other less anxious people) we tend to reject opportunities to gain a lot at the risk of losing a lot too.

5. We prefer to think alone

Being very anxious, social interactions tend to be annoying, for "overloading" us in a situation that already overwhelms us emotionally. So when anxiety is high, we generally prefer to think alone, without having to come to a conclusion agreed with others (which does not mean that we do not ask them for advice in a timely manner).

• Related article: "The 8 advantages and benefits of loneliness"

To do?

These are some tips that can help you with anxiety:

• Make sure you get enough sleep to be able to face the challenges of day to day with your nervous system at 100%.
• Don't drink caffeinated beverages after mid-afternoon.
• Structure your tasks and responsibilities by assigning them hours of the day.
• Get regular exercise.
• Practice Mindfulness.
• In case you notice that the situation is over you, go to psychotherapy.

Do you want to have professional psychological support?

If you are interested in having psychological or psychotherapeutic assistance, get in touch with us and ask us about our face-to-face sessions (in our center in Barcelona) or online by video call.

On Psychotools We serve people of all ages, as well as couples, and we also offer personalized trainings Mindfulness and psychopedagogy, neuropsychology, job / professional coaching or reports services experts.