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Key points
- People who suffer from anxiety can try new coping strategies to achieve different outcomes.
- Since anxiety might be associated with a particular place and time, one solution is to travel.
- Since language is central to thought and emotions, learning a new one can allow someone to mentally reframe.
Anxiety is a worldwide issue. In the United States alone, the statistics are staggering: As many as 40 million people struggle with some kind of anxiety disorder. And according to the U.S. Census Bureau's Household Pulse Survey, in just 2023, 32.3 percent of Americans reported having anxiety symptoms.
Is anxiety a distinctly American disease? And is anxiety a modern phenomenon? The answer, to both questions, is of course no. In fact, anxiety has been with humans since time immemorial and Eastern scholars have long discussed anxiety disorders.
For example, in the 9th century, an Eastern scholar named Abu Zayd al-Balkhi published his magnum opus: Sustenance of the Body and Soul. In it, Balkhi argued that anxiety is triggered by an imbalance in brain chemicals. As such, he posited a holistic treatment—what we today call holistic healing, where we approach the problem from all different angles.
I lived in the Eastern part of the world for most of the first two decades of my life. Then, I immigrated to the United States where I have been studying for the past decade. I consider my role as a cultural intermediary and conduit between the East and West. As such, I will outline three strategies that people in the East may use to cope with anxiety.
Some elements of this Eastern tradition are predicated in folklore since it mostly operates as an oral tradition. Therefore, the Western concept of "peer review" doesn't apply; instead, the mere fact that the idea has become well-known is seen as a signal of its efficacy.
1. To change the brain, change the tribe.
In many Eastern countries, the tribe is a powerful force. Where I lived in Yemen, people belong and live inside big tribes. If someone is experiencing anxiety, then the leaders in the tribe may recommend "changing their tribe"—which could mean moving from one city to another, or otherwise completely changing their circumstances. By changing the tribe (or the environment), we can change the brain.
In an American context, this could mean moving from city to city, from college to college, or from state to state. Changing one's social circle and day-to-day experiences could change the neuropathways that are triggering the anxiety.
This Eastern strategy is predicated on the ideas, long accepted in the social sciences, that humans are social animals and that many of our internal emotions are often socially constructed. To change that emotional anxiety, we may have to change our external environments.
As a personal example: When I was younger and living in Yemen, I used to be extremely anxious during class. I struggled to participate because my authoritarian teachers often punished students for getting the answer wrong.
However, in American classrooms, I found that my teachers encouraged students to participate. I began to talk more in my classes because I realized that I was living in a new context. If I had not changed my environment, I would have not, in this sense, changed my brain.
This is just one example among many of how changing the environment often leads to significant change. It is a common strategy in the Eastern world, one of several collected in Sustenance of the Body and Soul.
2. To cognitively reframe, learn a new language.
Human language is closely intertwined with how we think and feel, and many bilingual speakers intuit this fact. I am a bilingual Arabic and English speaker, and I feel I can intimately understand the impact of those languages on my emotional circuitry.
There are feelings that I can only feel when I speak and think in Arabic; the feeling of shame, for example, is extremely powerful in Arabic emotions. I cannot adequately articulate my feelings of shame in English because I do not have sufficient language to do so. Likewise, there are some emotions that I find I can only articulate in English; for example, the feeling of pride is much easier for me to express using English words, perhaps due to the powerful influence of individualism in American culture.
Because monolingualism is so entrenched in the U.S. (80 percent of Americans only speak English), learning a new language can be a good strategy to change how we think about our world and allow us to cognitively reframe our situations. Let's return to the example of shame. In Arabic cultures, failure is often associated with shame. When I gave the wrong answer in my classrooms in Yemen, I was punished and experienced shame. But in American culture, I have learned to see failure as a necessary prerequisite to success, and while many Americans feel shame after experiencing a failure, the experience is not necessarily associated with shame.
3. Real change starts from within.
This is not to be confused with the first strategy; instead, this strategy essentially argues that the desire for change must come from within the person. They must want to address their challenges and take whatever steps are necessary to do so.
This can be difficult for anxious people in particular because anxiety colors how they see the world. Often, however, someone reaches a kind of low point in their anxiety journey that leads them to conclude that they must make a change. At that point, they have an opportunity to capitalize on that low moment and channel that frustration into meaningful action.
But change is neither linear nor fast. Instead, change is circular and slow. The journey of change goes through multiple phases until the person gains emotional mastery over their anxious thoughts and feelings, rather than being controlled by them.
In Conclusion
Anxiety is a formidable foe, sucking the joy out of life for many people. To cope with anxiety, we should not limit our approach to any particular tradition.
I argue that Americans would behoove themselves to try some Eastern strategies as they cope with anxiety. We need to tackle the predicament of anxiety holistically and from all different angles, thereby ensuring emotional mastery over our anxious thoughts.
If you have been struggling with anxiety, consider changing your tribe; learning a new language to cognitively reframe; and bringing the desire to change from within.
