The Problem is You Are Habituated to Anger and Worry. Can You do Something About it Quickly?

One of the landmark experiments in psychology was Pavlov’s experiment on his dog. It opened up the field of study of mental conditioning, conditioned behavior and habit formation. In very crude words, here is what Ivan Pavlov did.

In his experiment, he would ring a bell for his dog. And every time he did that, he gave the dog something to eat. He repeated this combination — ringing the bell followed by food — a few times. As a result this, the dog started salivating whenever the bell was rung, even if no food was given. The dog was conditioned to respond to the ringing of the bell.

Pavlov continued the experiment further. This time upon ringing the bell, he stopped feeding the dog. Soon the dog stopped salivating every time the bell was rung. The conditioning was reversed.

This experiment was later refined by many experimental psychologists. Subsequent research led to deep insights into study of habit formation.

The subject in Pavlov’s experiment is famously called Pavlov’s dog.

The question I want to pose is: Are we humans like Pavlov’s dog? Do we form habits like that? If so, can we reverse our conditioning of worry and anger?

There is One Difference

There is one striking difference between Pavlov’s subject and humans. As humans we are more intelligent. We can think. We can make a choice.

Unfortunately the fact that we can think, is the source of our worry & anger. If we were exactly like Pavlov’s dog, things would have been pretty straight forward. We could have easily unconditioned ourselves of worry and anger.

But we continue to worry.

The problem is we have no control over our thoughts and judgements. This means we don’t know what we are going to think next. We could think anything. And we have no idea.

Judgments happen in a flash. Followed by a loud thundering of the thoughts. And the emotions come pouring down. And we have no control over this process.

This is How We Get Habituated to Worry & Anger?

Pavlov’s experiment gives us a hint as to why humans are habituated to worry so much.

This is what happens.

Imagine you had big fight with someone and that person got the better of you.

We all have this one person in our lives — who has insulted us or abused us or made us feel bad in public or caused some harm to us or made us sulk. We just can’t stop thinking about this person.

When you think about this person, you feel a sense of loss. It irritates you, it annoys you. It burns you from inside. You can’t forget or forgive.

Just like Pavlov’s subject, every time you see this person, it creates an automatic conditioned emotional response in you.

Can avoiding this person decondition your response of anger like a Pavlov’s dog?

It can — to some extent.

But, this is where, you and me, we go beyond Pavlov’s subject.

The Problem are Thoughts

If you were to close your eyes right now and remember this person, you will start reliving the experience of the insult all over again; without actually seeing that person in reality. Just remembering will infuriate you. Sometimes just a hint of that person is more than enough to create the reaction.

What can you do, then? Maybe you should control those thoughts. Can you do that?

No. Can’t happen.

This is the thing about thoughts. You can’t control them. You can’t just say I will avoid this thought. Because when you do that, you are actually remembering the thought.

This means the more you try to control a thought, the more it will get reinforced. And once reinforced, that thought will have the power to erupt anywhere anytime unannounced.

The Reason Why 99% of Humanity is Infuriated and Worrying Right Now

You might be enjoying a perfect date with your girlfriend or boyfriend with nice music in the background and full moon in the sky. And suddenly you remembers this person’s face.

It pops up in your head because may be the waiter who is serving you has a similar mustache as that person or same name or same eyes. Or, it is the waterfall or the smell of barbecue. It could be any weird reason. Or, there might not be any explicit reason. The thought just popped. Out of habit.

What happens next? Your automatic emotional response is triggered. Suddenly you are off. Cool moon feels cold. The barbecue fire feels like raging fire. The sound of the cutlery feels like daggers cutting your stomach. The nice garden grass pricks like thorns.

Your date wonders what happened to you? They ask you politely “Did I do something wrong? Did I say something wrong”.

Thoughts can pop in your head anytime, uninvited. The bad ones even more.

This is the reason 99% of humanity is worrying & anguished right now.

We all are. We don’t know when that person we hate will pop-up in our head. And we start re-living that pain all over again.

This happens with situations also. Suppose, you have a situation in your life that is troubling you. It is hard not to remember it. Even if you want to forget it, you can’t. The more you try doing that, the more you reinforce the thought of it. Now it keeps popping up in you head again and again, creating emotional reactions. It freezes you. It freezes your growth in life.

This is how we get habituated to worry.

What Can You do Then?

There are a few options. Here let me list them down in decreasing order of effectiveness and difficulty. Most difficult & foolproof option being the first.

1. You could avoid judgements in the first place.

2. You could stop your thoughts or control them.

3. You could somehow delink your emotions from your thoughts.

4. You could find a way to calm down your emotions.

If you could avoid judgements, then it would be a miracle. There wouldn’t be anything left to worry about. Because you are not judging anything.

But you know judgements just happen. Rather all of us, have already gone past this option. We have already judged. And we will continue to do so in future as well. And I don’t think we will be in a position to abandon judgements anytime soon. So, the first option is ruled out.

You have seen that controlling thoughts also doesn’t work. You have seen it in your life. I don’t think it needs any proving. If you try to do it, you might end up in an asylum. So option 2 is also ruled out.

This leaves us with last two options. Delinking emotions from thoughts and calming them down.

Can You Control Emotions?

No. You cannot control your emotions. So how are you going to calm them down or delink them from your thoughts?

This is where your body comes into picture. If you notice keenly, every time an emotion rises, you feel it as a sensation in your body. Mostly in your heart, stomach, throat or head. This sensation is the proof that you are feeling an emotion.

When that sensation is unpleasant, that’s when worrying starts. The unpleasant sensation does another thing — it constricts your breath. Making it shallow.

Shallow breath, unpleasant sensation and thoughts — they make up a feedback loop. Binding you in worry.

So what is the way out?

You Can Do Two Things

First. Take deep breaths. Keep taking deep breaths till the constriction in the breath starts to ease out. Don’t be in a hurry. Take your time. Do it for 5 minutes or 10 minutes. During this time, the worry loaded thoughts might come back and sensation rise. This will constrict your breath again. Never mind. Break that constriction of breath by taking deeper breaths. This is how you can reverse the feedback loop of worry.

If you continue for sometime, you will observe that the sensation begins to ease out.

Second. Observe the sensation itself. Keep your attention on that unpleasant burning sensation while you breathe. This will also weaken the feedback loop.

In both the techniques don’t be in a rush to get rid of the sensations. Take your time. If you try to rush, the breath will constrict again, which will strengthen the worry loop.

The idea here is not to forgo or fight the thoughts directly. But to first take care of your emotional response through attention and breath.

You can’t get rid of the person from your head or the situation out of your life. But at least you can de-link the thought of the person or situation from that awkward sensation.

Here is the 3rd Most Important Thing

The other thing that you can do is to meditate regularly. Not just when sensations bother you or when you worry. But regularly.

Meditation in general makes your emotions more stable. It delinks the emotional responses from thoughts. In addition, it calms down the thoughts.

But meditation must be practiced regularly. It is the most effective way of breaking worry feedback loops and preventing creation of new ones.

Summary

If you want to get over the habit of worrying, don’t try to control your thoughts ever. Thoughts are meant to be like waves; rising again and again; uncontrolled. That’s what they are.

If you try to control thoughts, it will mess you up. No point doing that.

The trick is to make use of your breath, observation and meditation.

I hope next time you come across that person who insulted you, you can give them a smile without reacting inside; without getting irritated. More important that smile is not getting irritated.

If you can do this, you would have broken the habit of worry and anger.