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When you’re anxious, your mind is filled with nervous thoughts or fears about what may happen in the future. It’s a flood of “what if’s”: What if I forget my lines? What if I don’t make friends in my new city? What if something is wrong with my health?

For many of us, these fears ebb and flow. But for others, the anxious thoughts are a chronic, arduous cycle that seems impossible to turn off.

These days, many psychologists and neuroscientists are framing anxiety in a new way. Instead of treating worry as random or emotional, new research shows it might actually be the result of a planning system that's working too hard, or in the wrong way.

When you plan a holiday celebration, try to finish a work project, or prepare for an important interview, your brain imagines possible future scenarios and chooses the best way to move forward. Usually, that type of thinking is how we stay safe and prepared.

But in people with anxiety, this “planning system” becomes biased or overactive.

Planning begins too early, or too often, or for threats that are quite extreme or improbable.

They may not be able to stop seeking the "perfect" solution. Or they may focus on unhelpful details such as how to sit or breathe during a job interview rather than what they are going to say.

A combination of overplanning and misplaced focus leaves the brain mentally exhausted, or stuck in a loop of worry without feeling more prepared.

Thanks to new neuroimaging tools, scientists can view how the brain “pre-plays” future actions. This research gives us a view into how people with chronic anxiety plan at both conscious and unconscious levels.

Studies found that anxious individuals more often . . .

Understanding those hidden biases helps explain why worry can feel logical but never-ending. The brain keeps “debugging” plans that were never realistic in the first place.

The good news? Your brain can recalibrate, no matter how long it's been stuck.

Takeaways

Thanks to current research being done in psychology and neuroscience, in the not-too-distant future, we’ll be able to have personalized tools that can identify and rebalance “planning biases,” helping us all think—and live—with less anxiety.

Sol TV Creator Melissa Impett shares a tool to help cope with anxious moments. Sometimes our memories can be our greatest comfort. Shifting to thoughts that make us feel good, even just a little bit, can make such a difference.

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