Our daughter, Abby, is an eventer. Don’t worry if that means nothing to you. It meant nothing to me ten years ago either. Eventing is one of the equestrian sports you’ll see in the upcoming Paris Olympics, and it involves three phases: dressage, cross country riding, and show jumping.

We first put Abby on a horse when she was four. It seemed like the thing to do having just moved to Kentucky. We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into at the time, but today our family consists of one high-schooler, two dogs, and an Irish Sport Horse named Colin.

Ch-ch-ch-ch Changes

This summer brought big changes. We moved Colin to a new barn, with a new instructor for both kid and horse. It was a difficult decision, and although we feel very good about our choice, the transition was stressful.

Just as things began to settle down, the new instructor said what we had suspected for several months: she was quite concerned about Colin’s health. She saw behaviors that suggested he was in pain and recommended a trip to the equine hospital. Our local vet concurred.

A Positive Outcome

A couple weeks later, after a thorough exam by a top equine vet and a couple precisely placed steroid injections, it looks like Colin is going to be just fine. At the time, I could not see that. I felt anything but fine.

I will be the first to admit that I tend to ruminate, but I would not characterize myself as anxious, and I was caught off guard when I found my anxiety level at redline.

When an emotional response is disproportionate to the corresponding stimulus, it is a clue that we need to look deeper.

Champagne Problems

Ultimately, my anxiety appears not to have been warranted. Yet my mind had gone immediately to worst-case scenarios, and in the equestrian world, I didn’t have to look far to find validation. Horror stories abound.

Colin is part of the family, so hopefully anyone who has ever cared for an animal (or their child) can empathize. Still, I am well aware that these are champagne problems.

That’s kind of the point.

Some level of anxiety was justified, but the intensity of my reaction was not. I had to ask myself, what was really going on? Why such a disproportionate response?

The Anxiety Equation

I am an engineer, so I began to think of my anxiety level as an equation:

In this admittedly oversimplified mental model, anxiety increases when the terms in the numerator go up, and/or when the terms in the denominator go down.

When I began to view my anxiety level this way, I started to understand why it had spiked. Let’s examine this one factor at a time, and look at ways we can keep them all in control.

Perceived Threat

What matters is not how big the threat really is, but how big we perceive it to be.

I perceived the threat as very serious, and I had data. I can cite some truly awful outcomes, career or life-ending injuries and illnesses, and monumental vet bills. It can happen. But in retrospect, I was “awful-izing.” My mind was amplifying the threat well beyond what was reasonable, justifying that perception by recalling horror stories, while disregarding the even-more-numerous examples where the issue was minor.

To counter this, I forced myself to consider that the equine vet could just as likely find that the issues were minor and manageable.

Awful outcomes in the past are easily brought to mind. Balance them by recalling all the times things turned out okay. These are harder to remember, but usually larger in number.

Time

From the initial concern to veterinary diagnosis, I had about two weeks to worry, and during that time my anxiety only increased. Acute stressors challenge us with their intensity. Chronic stressors wear down our defenses.

The time variable seems to interact with the two terms in the denominator. Anyone who has dealt with a cancer scare or diagnosis understands “scan-xiety.” We have little control over the situation, and the time between scan and result offers lots of time for worry, slowly eroding our ability to cope.

Take action and compress the duration of anxiety-inducing situations if that is possible. Often, however, we cannot control the timeline. The antidote is to stay in the present as much as possible. Keep noticing that, right now, nothing bad is happening.

Perceived Level of Control

In the equestrian world, it is said that the more control the human has over the horse, the better the human feels, but the worse the horse feels. Horses hate loss of control just as much as people do. 

I am not a vet, and once we had gotten the earliest available appointment, there was little else I could do but wait. My perceived level of control went down, and that contributed to an increased sense of anxiety.

Focus on what you can do instead of dwelling on all the things beyond your control. Sometimes there is little we can do, but often we have more options than we initially realize.

Perceived Ability to Cope

This is the variable that really got me. I was depleted. Numerous other events over the prior six weeks, none of which were remarkable in isolation, had cumulatively worn me down. Defenses weakened by a random confluence of circumstances, my resilience was compromised, and I tipped over from reasonable concern into disruptive levels of anxiety.

Challenges and stressors are inevitable. We cannot avoid them all, so we must be prepared to cope. Prioritize your mental and physical health, take time for rest and recovery, and invest in supportive relationships. Doing so will pay dividends when times are good, doubly so when they are not.

It is our perceived ability to cope that is often the most distorted. We are much more resilient and adaptable than we give ourselves credit for. Humans make it through unimaginable hardships. That doesn’t mean they are easy or desirable, but anxiety often has us imagine that they are unsurvivable, and that simply isn’t true.

You are stronger than you think.

Beware the Pile-On

My engineering education also taught me that catastrophes like plane crashes, building collapses, or financial meltdowns are rarely the result of a single devastating failure, but rather a coincidence of multiple, smaller vulnerabilities.

That is what I experienced.

Every variable in the anxiety equation went the wrong way simultaneously. I awful-ized and thus increased my perception of the threat. I had a couple weeks to ruminate. I had little ability to personally control the situation, and all this happened at a time when my ability to cope was compromised.

Small Changes for the Better

A final benefit of reducing anxiety to its individual terms is that it becomes apparent that we need not create a tectonic shift in any one area. A little improvement in each of the four variables can leave us feeling a lot better.

Manage your perception of threats. Act quickly when you can, and stay in the present when there is nothing more to do. Take time to take care of yourself, and remember that you are stronger than you know.

Good luck. We are here to help.

Until next time,

Greg