How to Survive the Latest Financial Crisis

Headlines scream of crisis. Newscasters quote dire warnings from experts. TV news channels repeatedly run video clips showing the worst of the situation; the repetitions magnify the apparent crisis bringing on panic attacks. The public worries and tunes in continuously, hoping to find answers and hope, but usually finding only more reason for anxiety.

This cycle could describe the latest financial crisis, the most recent hurricane threat, a new and frightening environmental report, or health agency projections of a frightening disease.

How to Survive a Crisis

What is one to do when faced with a threatening crisis? Recognize that worry and anxiety are a result of fear. And fear is generally about some future event that may or may not occur. Fear is rooted in the belief that the dreaded future event is possible, perhaps even likely, and the result of that event, should it occur, will be negative. So fear is a concern for the health and safety of self or loved ones.

The worried person can survive the latest threatening crisis, avoiding the stress and frustration of worry and its accompanying damage to health, by remembering the following facts.

• Most feared events do not occur. A person wanting to stop living in fear can experience this by listing the events feared over the past six or 12 months and noting how many actually came to pass.

If you want to test your memory, try to recall what you were worrying about one year ago today. ~E. Joseph Cossman

• The future is uncertain. Despite the dire projections of talking-head experts on TV, no one really knows the future. The so-called experts may have more experience than the average person, but that doesn't necessarily translate to accurate future projections.

I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened. ~Mark Twain

• Even if a feared event does occur the result may not be negative. As with the uncertainty of a future event occurring, the result of its occurrence is also a future projection, with no greater certainty than that of the original event itself.

Somehow our devils are never quite what we expect when we meet them face to face. ~Nelson DeMille

• Humans have a negative bias. Faced with the unknown and uncertain, humans tend to project the most severe outcome. Though this bias was helpful to early human survival and evolution, psychologists recommend conscious attention to the known facts of a situation as a way to counter a negative thinking tendency.

The Future Is Uncertain

Remembering that the future is uncertain, that TV experts are making educated guesses, and that most feared events do not occur will help prevent the panic and anxiety attacks of fears over the latest potential crisis. But if you feel anxiety coming on while captured in the latest news crisis, deal with news-induced worry by focusing instead on the common tasks and events of your normal day.

Learn to minimize fears with HOW TO HAVE A POSITIVE ATTITUDE

Avoid Panic and Anxiety

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