Aim higher, reach further.

Anxiety Can Bring Out the Best

Researchers Prescribe Just Enough Stress to Ace Life's Tests; Too Little Is Lazy

Anxiety gets a bad rap, but a recent brain-scan study found that just the right amount of worrying has some serious upsides. Melinda Beck has details on Lunch Break.

You have an important presentation tomorrow but your heart is racing and your mind is serving up a steady stream of what-ifs: What if I'm not fully prepared? What if it goes badly? You're running out of time. The last thing you need is all this anxiety.


Somewhere between checked out and freaked out lies an anxiety sweet spot, some researchers say, in which a person is motivated to succeed yet not so anxious that performance takes a dive. This moderate amount of anxiety keeps people on their toes, enables them to juggle multiple tasks and puts them on high alert for potential problems.

The Sweet Spot for Success

"Coaches and sports psychologists have always known that you don't want your athlete to be relaxed right before an event. You need some 'juice' to go fast," says Stephen Josephson, a psychologist in New York City who has treated athletes, actors and musicians.

It can be tricky to achieve. Some overly optimistic people and those with attention-deficit hyperactive disorder may lack enough anxiety to take action. Others—mostly procrastinating perfectionists—must create anxiety-producing situations in order to get anything done.

Regulating anxiety is also difficult because humans' ancient threat-detection system hasn't kept pace with modern man's ability to fret about the future, ruminate about the past and imagine all kinds of terrible scenarios, says Dennis Tirch, associate director of the American Institute for Cognitive Therapy in New York. So the body's primitive fight-or-flight response kicks in even when the threat at hand is a daunting social engagement or a 20-page report.

Of course, too much anxiety can be painful and destructive. Anxiety disorders affect about 40 million American adults—18% of the population—in a given year, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. Only about one-third of them seek treatment. The disorders run the gamut from panic attacks and specific phobias to obsessive-compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and generalized anxiety disorder, a random kind of worry described as free-floating and relentless. Sufferers also have a high incidence of depression and physical ailments, including migraines, high blood pressure, heart disease, digestive disorders and chronic pain, according to NIMH.

The terms anxiety and stress are often used interchangeably, although stress includes anger and frustration, while anxiety is typically worry and unease.

The notion that moderate anxiety can be beneficial goes back at least to 1908, when Harvard psychologists Robert Yerkes and John Dodson posited that arousal (as they called it) enhances performance—but only to a point. When anxiety gets too high, performance suffers instead.

The Yerkes-Dodson curve—an upside-down U shape—is still taught in psychology courses, and modern neuroscience has helped confirm it. Studies have shown, for example, that the brain learns best when stress hormones are mildly elevated.

High anxiety can make even simple tasks more difficult, says psychologist Jason Moser at Michigan State University.

In a study published earlier this month in the International Journal of Psychophysiology, he and his colleagues monitored the brain activity of 79 female and 70 male students while they performed a letter-identifying exercise. The students performed equally well at first, but the women who identified themselves as highly anxious had to work harder at it. Those subjects showed far more activity in a part of the brain—the anterior cingulate cortex—thought to be a center of anxiety. And once the worrying women started making errors, they made them at a higher rate than the other subjects, suggesting that the extra effort the anxiety caused was taking a toll, Dr. Moser says.

How do you find the sweet spot between anxiety that energizes and anxiety that paralyzes?

Most therapists see more patients suffering from too much anxiety rather than too little, although withdrawal and lack of ambition can be a hallmark of depression. Dr. Josephson says that overly optimistic people with ADHD often have an insufficient sense of urgency to get things done. One form of treatment is what he calls "motivational interviewing: stressing the negative future consequences of not finishing and explaining that once the task is through, they'll feel a sense of calm and relief," he says.

Another group of people can't get anything done without some level of anxiety. "There are people who subconsciously set life up to give them a thrill, by always being almost late, nearly missing a deadline, spending more than they should," says Marianne Legato, a professor of clinical medicine at Columbia University in New York. "I call them fretters."

Stimulants like caffeine and cigarettes create the physical sense of anxiety artificially by constricting blood vessels and raising the heart beat.

Living with a constant anxiety buzz crosses the line into a disorder when people can't turn it off, or when it interferes with functioning. "Ask yourself: Is it causing significant impairment in my life, and is it causing significant distress?" says Dr. Tirch.

Anxiety is also dysfunctional if it is causing physical tension in the body, or if it is generated by a constant stream of self-criticism, which can be self-fulfilling. Being unable to sleep or relax without alcohol or medication are also red flags.

"Needing a glass of wine to relax is disconcerting," says Dr. Legato. "If you need solace at the end of the day, you are torturing yourself in some way."

Anxiety is especially self-defeating when people focus on the fear itself, rather than the task at hand. The best way to stay in the "sweet spot," Dr. Moser says, is to channel the anxiety into productive activity—like studying and acing the test. "I tell a lot of my patients that Nike really has a great slogan—Just Do It," he says.


"If you have to take Xanax to get on the elevator, you never learn that the elevator isn't something to be afraid of," says Dr. Josephson. "You have to embrace the anxiety to overcome it."

That is often how psychologists help performers overcome stage fright or athletes snap out of a slump. Relaxation techniques such as meditation and deep breathing can bring a toxic level of anxiety down, but harnessing it can ultimately be more effective. Rehearsing a scenario repeatedly can help manage and defuse the fear.

"We'll say to athletes, 'You're going to be anxious. Great. Channel it and use it," Dr. Josephson says. "Being willing to feel some anxiety and not running away from it is huge."

Write to Melinda Beck at

Janet Kahler
Janet Kahler subscriberprofilePrivate

Absolutely agreed--you have to go through it. And if you can, that's a game-changer!

Kathleen Duke
Kathleen Duke user

Those graphs look so nice and sciency -- until you realize there are no axes, let alone units. Anxiety is a subjective experience, and I expect most employees feel that they're getting just plenty of it at work, in this "right"-sized, post-globalization, offshoring-happy, bubble-bust-bubble-bust economy.

herman unanski
herman unanski subscriber

Didn't Mel Brooks make a movie about this? "High Anxiety?" If you want to increase anxiety, cut down on your sleep, works wonders for performing on tests, surgeries, making watches, etc. If you don't get enough sleep for a long enough period, it will turn you into a basket case afraid to leave your bedroom!

Jose Calabro
Jose Calabro user

Working 14 hours a day is good. Anxiety is good. Zero vacation days a year is good. Increased productivity for a lower wage is good. Not being with your own child after birth and minding the corporate bottomline is good. Working as a Wal Mart greeter at 75 years old is right, even if it takes diapers to do so. The zombies are freaking out if the likes of Romney will walk through the front door tomorrow, "streamline" their business, and fire them. Yet they are trained like good little Capitalist lemmings that being anxious, overworked, overtired, and having the last drop of blood squeezed out of them can "bring out the best" in them. What a joke.

Anne McGuire
Anne McGuire

Life under the productivity-treadmill labor glut.

Cortisol (produced by anxiety) is a poison. Basically what the article suggests is that controlled poisoning of oneself is a good thing.

Pamela Cheney Angle
Pamela Cheney Angle

What a disservice this article does to those of us who suffer from MEDICALLY LEGITIMATE anxiety disorders, which stifle rather than boost productivity.

Don't you think we get tired of hearing "Why can't you just relax?" Now we've got to hear, in addition, "But it's GOOD for you! The WSJ says so!"???

Shame on you, WSJ.

Jeffrey Allen Miller
Jeffrey Allen Miller

"....If you need solace at the end of the day, you are torturing yourself in some way."

I love that out-of-touch deduction because it places the blame on the person who is just trying to survive the problems created by our over-stimulated, extremely selfish society.

I thrive on high anxiety... and while that is not particularly healthy, it will kill me by age 60, one has to look at the larger issues of ''the average, middle-aged, white professional.''

1) I am a top performer in the firm; 2) Work an 80 hour standard week; 3) No vacation since 2003, and I work Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years days too; 4) I earn $50K in Manhattan, or less than half the market rate of other MBAs with 20 yrs corporate experience; 5) Can't afford a physical or medication so a doctor visit is out of the question, mortician yes; however, that won't be my problem or on my dime.

''Out of touch'' most people are in the U.S. with what is really going on in 2012... So, excuse me just a little when I use my middle finger (insert virtually) to express disagreement that seeking solace at the end of each day means that I am torturing myself... I need that hour of time to relax, before spending another hour online cruising job boards and networking to get out of the naziregime in control since corp. layoff in 2004.

Despite all the odds in this city though, coupled with the lack of professional jobs, opportunity and luck -- I do carry on just famously and expect nothing from anyone. I should get a prize for something or another...

Ranjit Singh
Ranjit Singh

Brilliant deduction! Surely deserves a nobel for what ive known since i was a kid.

William Wilson
William Wilson

In my opinion when faced with a challenging task people with completely normal brain function experience “calm alertness and focus” rather than true anxiety. Anxiety per se is almost always counterproductive and a sign of some degree of brain dysfunction. Some individuals are more prone to anxiety based on their genetic background.

We now believe that diet can also play a role in anxiety. Excessive fructose from sugar and HFCS can trigger insulin resistance. When you throw high glycemic carbohydrates into the mix your brain is subjected to magnified glucose spikes. Over time these glucose spikes can trigger a type of mild brain dysfunction we call “sugar-brain”. People with sugar-brain start to crave sweet and starchy food pushing them to consume more of the processed food that is frying their brain. People with sugar-brain can also develop mild brain dysfunction symptoms like anxiety, mood swings and poor impulse control. Because their brain no longer properly auto-regulates fat stores they also tend to store excessive body fat at any caloric intake.

Over time sugar-brain can transition to a more serious illness called Carbohydrate Associated Reversible Brain syndrome or CARB syndrome. People with CARB syndrome can develop up to 22 brain dysfunction symptoms that can interfere with their ability to function and they continue to store excessive body fat. Learn more at

david crow
david crow

The author concludes that some anxiety is helpful to meet life's "tests".
But what is the way to the happiest life?


Yay, more BS from psychologists to support corporations that want to keep their employees on the edge, since they need every excuse they can find.

More from the plutonomy about the precariot to follow.

Frank Roso
Frank Roso subscriber

Gosh, then my professor in graduate school (Guidance and Counseling) 40 years ago was correct: "Anxiety is a good thing." I think he came to that conclusion without doing a long study. Imagine that.

Denis Grady
Denis Grady subscriberprofilePrivate

Oh well,

More junk science from junk scientists.

Stats must be wrong--50% pay no tax--lazy or too anxious?

Norm Levy
Norm Levy subscriber

Not too little, not too much-

A little dab helps in a clutch.

Bradd Schiffman
Bradd Schiffman subscriber

Unfortunately, some places I've worked concluded that if a little fear is a good thing, a lot of fear must be much much better....

James M. Smith
James M. Smith

"Researchers Prescribe Just Enough Stress to Ace Life's Tests"

There's no such thing as "just enough". If you aren't laying awake at night, you're slacking. As my maanger would say, get with the program of get out the door.

William Clark
William Clark

You need to smoke some weed. You wouldn't feel so anxious.


50% pay no tax... should get the award next year for "Lie of the millenium."

Every single working american pays FICA, which is used in general rolls.

About 25% of the richest 1% pay $0 to FICA.

FICA is roughly the same size as FIT (Federal income taxes).

The wealthiest 1% pay 30% of FIT and less than 1% of FICA. The 99% pay 99% of FICA and 70% of FIT.

The rich are as ever, tax evaders, here and everywhere else.

No lie is too easily disproved to be tried by their lackeys.

James M. Smith
James M. Smith

Never underestimate the value of fear as a motivator. The hardest-working people I've ever seen were those who were trying to keep from getting laid off.


You're right, it does motivate people to change jobs.

One thing the corporatists haven't seemed to notice is that job "engagement" has fallen off a cliff.

Employees don't care about their jobs and switch job 10 times more often than they did 30 years ago.

If employers intended to lower engagement and retention this much, they should probably have removed all reasons for employees to stay with the company (retirement benefits or job security).

For all these psychologists who want to have corporations pat themselves on the back, the one over-riding truth is that you get what you pay for. If you don't pay employees for loyalty through retention and job security, they will leave your company at a moments notice and in the lurch.

......and they do......

Show More Archives

Popular on WSJ

Editors’ Picks