No COlour black and white
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HEALTH JOURNAL
By MELINDA BECK |
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When Fretting Is in Your DNA:
Overcoming the Worry Gene
January 15, 2008
Worry warts often believe they inherited their tendency to stew from their parents. Biology does play a role, research suggests, but there are things you can do to break the cycle of agonizing.
Researchers at Yale have identified a gene mutation for "rumination" — the kind of chronic worry in which people obsess over negative thoughts. It’s a variation of a gene known as BDNF that’s active in the hippocampus, an area of the brain involved in thinking and memory. In a study of 200 mothers and daughters published in the journal Neuroscience Letters last month, the Yale scientists found that those who had been depressed in their youth were more likely to be ruminators and to have this particular variation of BDNF.
The discovery adds to a growing body of evidence that depression involves an inability to control negative thoughts, not just excess emotion, says psychologist Susan Nolen-Hoeksema, one of the Yale investigators. And just because rumination has genetic roots doesn’t mean it’s inescapable, she says. "People can learn to stop these thought processes and have better emotional health."
Some successful professionals find that worry works for them. Imagining everything that might go wrong, and preparing for it, is known as "defensive pessimism."
"I spend all day thinking of ways to gain an advantage over my adversaries, and I assume they’re doing the same thing," says Victor Bushell, a partner at Bushell, Sovak, Ozer & Gulmi LLP. "If that was your job description, wouldn’t you be worried?"
Other people use worry as a kind of magical shield — if they worry that the plane will crash, it won’t. It doesn’t, ergo, they have to worry on every flight.
Worrying also seems to be part of some people’s personalities. "I’ve been furrowing my forehead forever — you could pick me out in kindergarten," says Pam Abramson Grisman, who runs a custom-writing business in Mill Valley, Calif. "These days, I worry about my parenting. Prior to that, it was focused completely on the workplace. Prior to that, it was, ‘Am I cool enough to live?’ "
But worrying is wearying, she says: "It’s like chronic pain, and ultimately it doesn’t shield you anymore. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Then you have a heart attack."
Chronic worry can, in fact, lead to a variety of health issues, including headaches, gastrointestinal problems, high blood pressure, anxiety and depression, studies have shown. Rumination, which focuses more on past events than future what-ifs, has also been linked to binge eating, binge-drinking and self-harm. Ruminators may be subconsciously trying to stop their harmful thoughts, says Dr. Nolen-Hoeksema. "Disengaging is really, really hard — you see that in their neural activity and in their behavior," she adds. But studies have shown that doing something distracting for just 10 minutes can break the cycle and help people tackle problems more effectively.
Techniques from cognitive-behavioral therapy can also help worriers stop the kind of thinking that just makes them miserable.
"It’s all about finding the balance between productive and unproductive worrying," says psychologist Robert L. Leahy, director of the American Institute for Cognitive Therapy in New York City. "Say to yourself, ‘Is this worry leading to a To Do list?’ If it doesn’t lead to some action on your part today, set it aside."
He suggests literally reserving 20 minutes a day to worry. If you can postpone worrying, you are exercising control over it, rather than letting it control you.
And learn to accept some risks. "Worriers feel a tremendous intolerance for uncertainty. They get the idea that worrying can eliminate it. But you can’t prepare for everything," Dr. Leahy adds. He also suggests a simple "exposure" technique: Practice saying or writing whatever you fear most, such as, "the plane is going to crash" or "I’m going to lose my job." "Repeat it over and over again slowly, like a zombie, and the fear will begin to subside," he says. Eventually, "you’ll just get bored with it."
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Are You An Alcoholic: Postscript
I received a great deal of reader mail on last week’s column, Are You An Alcoholic, including this email from a research and communications manager at Join Together, a project of the Boston University School of Public Health that provides resources for addiction professionals and hosts AlcoholScreening.org:
The link to AlcoholScreening.org [that was published on WSJ.com] generated more than 8,000 completed screens. In the past, people who have screened themselves on AlcoholScreening.org have done so because they are concerned about their drinking. The people who came to the site as a result of your link seemed to have come for the same reason. We thought you might be interested in the results over the past couple of days:
• The average age of people completing the screen was 36.
• 62% were male/38% female.
• 84% have binged (five or more drinks for men or four or more drinks for women on one occasion) in the past year.
• 9% received "Green Light" results, meaning that their drinking was in safe limits.
• 26% received a "Yellow Light." While their screening results did not point to probable dependence, they had binged in the past year or they exceeded the recommended amounts for weekly consumption.
• 65% received a "Red Light, which means that their screening pointed to possible alcohol dependence.
