The anxious mind

The lead article in next Sunday’s New York Times Magazine is entitled, Understanding the Anxious Mind.

They always run the lead article early. Here’s the web address for this one: nytimes.com/2009/10/04/magazine/04anxiety-t.html?_r=1&em.

In the most general sense, it’s an exploration of the old nature-nurture dialog. With the rapid advances in brain biology, there’s a lot of research going on concerning the question of inherited traits. We know physical traits are inherited. It’s accepted that I’m 6’ 4” because I’ve got tall uncles. Does that mean some personality traits are hardwired too?

This became fascinating for me when we had our children. Virtually from the womb we thought we saw inherited psychological traits. Was that fact or merely over-interpreted projection? That’s what this area of research is about.

And for me, this particular article is very personal. That's because it focuses on one aspect of trait inheritance: anxiety.

One of the key discoveries of my life was that I, unlike most other people around me, wake up afraid every morning. It doesn’t matter what’s going on in the day, the first waking experience is fear.

Isolating that fact allowed me to explore, understand and create strategies to deal with a lot of other factors in my life — and understand why I feel that way so much of the time. This was a central piece of information for me.

That’s what this article is about. For those of you who find compulsive anxiety foreign territory, this article may help you get some insight into a friend or loved-one's behavior. For those of you wired more like me, this research is fascinating — and perhaps invaluable.