Anxiety and the Element of Time and Speed

There is an element to anxiety that is frequently overlooked, and that is the element of "time and speed".  It underlies a majority of events that provoke anxiety because it is the key trigger that pushes someone to feel like they need to go faster than they feel safe or comfortable with, and it prevents an individual from having the time to use their contemplative skill of thought to prepare for a situation.

When no preparation time is given, situations are done spontaneously and without forethought.  This can work well if you are someone who is quick on your feet and quick thinking, but most likely you got that way with exposure and practice.  Springing into action with a sharp and immediate awareness of what to do, and doing it, is truly a gift and can also be a developed skill when paired with repetition and practice.

Let's look at a few examples of how time and speed play out when it comes to anxiety:  

First, when someone is nervous driving on a particular road or highway, one of the things playing a factor is how fast things are going and the lack of time to slowly piece together what is happening in such a fast-paced environment.  With time and practice, drivers get use to the demand for speed and develop skills about how much time they need to take an exit, signal and turn a corner, or even stop before reaching a red light.  For those more experienced drivers, these tasks are not the worry, as they might worry that something is going to "suddenly" happen, like a blow out, or sudden accident, or other tragedy they didn't see coming.  So for that kind of driver the anxiety might be more of a "what if" worry that grows arms and legs and becomes a raw danger signal to the body that something bad could happen if speed is not gained or lost.  This triggers the fight or flight in the body, and anxiety symptoms are felt.

Another example of time and speed in relation to anxiety, is the nervous cashier who can see a line forming and knows that the pace of work can only be done so fast.  Perhaps customers are getting impatient and they want the cashier to go faster, thus leading the cashier to begin to worry someone is going to get mad, cause a scene, or begin to demand faster service.  Again, the fight or flight begins to kick in causing shallow breathing, tense muscles, and danger signals in the cashier's body as a full stress response takes place.

Finally, there is the example of the boss who wants an employee to meet a quota, demanding that an employee finish a certain number of tasks, items, or goals by a certain time frame.  Or fill so many orders in one hour, or complete so many entries in the computer in a day, or finish so many tasks before going home, and so on.  In this case, the pressure is on to go faster and faster as stress and anxiety levels rise.  

When we don't have the time to gather our thoughts and contemplate our response, anxiety symptoms climb.  Other examples are things like the demand for an answer before we actually have one developed in our mind, the pressure of being tail-gaited and the insistence that we drive faster than we want to or that the speed limit allows, or another driver honking immediately when the light changes green to tell us to hurry and get going.  

There will always be times in life when we need to keep a particular pace, hurry a bit more, or crank up our attentiveness to a situation so we can act quickly.  There was a time when paying cash was considered a gift in comparison to standing and writing a check?  Yet, now if you don't just swipe your card to pay, the impatience all around you is expressed in the eyes of onlookers.  So if you find that the pressure to go faster and faster is starting to cause a rise in your symptoms of anxiety, then finding ways to approach daily tasks with a new sense of permission to go it a little bit slower, combined with the use of relaxation exercises and the challenging of beliefs which tend to convince you that you must constantly go faster and faster, can have a direct impact on lowering your stress and biological symptoms of anxiety.

Yes, it's true that the world is getting faster and faster, and because of it, anxiety is increasing all over the world.  So keeping up on the increasing need for relaxation techniques is going to be key to adapting to this changing world.  In addition, here are some key words and phrases to look for in your everyday language:  fast, faster, suddenly, out of nowhere, enough, not enough, not enough time, speed up, hurry, in time, late, pressure, slow, slower, get going, in a rush, pushed, pulled, get to it, get going, quickly, get it finished, reach the marker, and faster pace.

Practicing tasks that force you to move steadily and calmly (but not too slow or fast) will give you the skills you need to keep a steady pace without panicking that you are not going fast enough.  It's very difficult to stay calm and steady right at the immediate time of a stressful event, but practicing slow steady relaxation in the midst of stress can improve your ability to stay calm under stressful conditions and without pressure to go faster.

Think of the example of a driver in a hurry who comes across a row of geese crossing the road.  We all know that the moral and ethical thing to do is stop and wait for the waddling lovelies to cross the road.  We have no choice!  The geese will eventually cross the road, in their own darn sweet time, of course.  But we are forced to go at a pace that is not what the world was demanding of us 15 seconds ago.  In that moment you can feel the pressure of a fast-paced world demanding that you go faster, but a present moment situation focus has a more calm and relaxed practice.  And this is the idea--the calm in the midst of the storm.

Here is a very brief video of a Zen walking-meditation called Kinhin, in which you work at a steady pace to practice developing a sense of concentration and present moment focus.  It is typically used by practitioners between rounds of seated meditation in order to stretch the body or just move it around a little before sitting down again for another round of prolonged seated meditation.  It's this kind of developed concentration that can be taken with you out and into a fast-paced world where it is very difficult to use at first, but with practice you can get better and better at facing the insistent speed demands of the world so they don't overwhelm you.  The intention is not to walk this slow out in the real world and make people try to get around you, but to use the slow pace of Kinhin meditation practice to sharpen your focus using a pace that works for you when you are out in that fast-paced world.

We know that the world will not stop pressuring us to go at the faster and faster pace it wants.  You can keep up or resist, and the choice between those two isn't what really matters.  What matters is where your mind is during any of these speeds.  Is it still present despite the tail-gaiter, or long line, or bosses demands?  Is it still at homeostasis, having steady breathing, a steady heart rate, and a steady mind?  Or is it wrapped up in meeting the unrealistic demands of a world that's going too fast?

"Adopt the pace of nature.  Her secret is patience".  Ralph Waldo Emerson