Worry is a natural emotion that occurs when we feel threatened. However, many of our worries are unfounded, sapping our energy and deflecting our attention from life’s real problems. In a recent
New York Times article, Boston author
David Ropeik makes the case that most of us don't know how to worry. Although we often underestimate how risky something really is, we are even more likely to overestimate the dangers of taking actions that would actually help us. In other words, when it comes to evaluating the risk-benefit ratio of our actions, we do a pretty poor job. This is because, Ropeik argues, our brains are wired to worry first and think second. This quote from the work of NYU neuroscientist
Joseph LeDoux sums it up in a nutshell: “connections from the emotional systems to the cognitive systems are stronger than connections from the cognitive systems to the emotional systems.”