What, Me Worry?

This is a repost of a favorite. Enjoy!

I don’t mean to toot my own horn, but I am brilliant. In fact, I’m practically a genius. I know, I know. Sounds obnoxious, but I read a study to bear this out. The study, from SUNY Downstate Medical Center, finds that worrying may have evolved along with intelligence. In fact, researcher Jeremy Coplan, MD, professor of psychiatry, SUNY Downstate, and his colleagues found that both high intelligence and worry are consistent with brain activity of the nutrient choline in the subcortical white matter of the brain. They think this suggests that intelligence and worrying co-evolved in humans as a means to protect the species.

Frankly, while I’m practically a genius, I’m not educated in the nuances of nutrients of the brain and can’t really explain their mechanisms to you. I can tell you that I am a worrier and, while I don’t think that I worry excessively – I’m not THAT smart – my husband and daughters are likely to disagree. My husband will tell you that I worry about anything and everything, especially when it comes to my grownup daughters. I worry if they don’t call. I worry if they call too much. I worry when they travel. I worry when they have to work late hours in empty offices. However, in my defense, my worrying is completely logical. I would never worry about something uncontrollable like whether the weather will affect our plans. Oh, wait a minute. I do worry about that. But I don’t worry about silly things like whether or not my outfit is appropriate for a particular event but, while I’m on that subject, I have a wedding to go to in a few weeks. Should I wear long or short? And if everyone’s in long and I’m wearing short, will I look out of place?

When my girls were in college, I would worry if I didn’t hear from them every day. If I’d call, say at 3 PM, and hadn’t heard from them by 8 or 9 PM, my mind would go to what I call “the dark place.” It’s a place filled with the most horrible “what ifs” a person could imagine. My husband would tell me I was being silly and not to worry. But that didn’t help. I couldn’t dispel the images that haunted my brain. As a person who’s practically a genius, my mind can fill with images that would rival any Wes Craven movie. The only way I was able to turn them off was to call my friend, who’s a genius in her own right and had a daughter of her own in college. She’d walk me out of the dark place  with logic and understanding. As I said, she’s a genius too and there were many times I had to rescue her from the dark place. The following day we’d laugh about it and say how silly we were but the dark place lurked around a future dusk and my brain would fill with Cravenesque imagery once again.

Dr. Coplan says, “While excessive worry is generally seen as a negative trait and high intelligence as a positive one, worry may cause our species to avoid dangerous situations, regardless of how remote a possibility they may be. In essence, worry may make people ‘take no chances,’ and such people may have higher survival rates. Thus, like intelligence, worry may confer a benefit upon the species.”

Imagine the following scenario: a bunch of cavepeople are sitting around a newly made fire chewing the fat, and I mean that literally. In the not too faraway distance, they hear the roar of a wild animal. That’s probably redundant since, at that time, all animals were probably wild. But this is the roar of a definitely unfriendly wild animal. The cavepeople continue eating and grunting and scratching. (Isn’t this exactly how you picture cavepeople too?) But one of them – for the sake of familiarity, let’s call him Sam –  becomes wary of the sound. Sam is the most intelligent of the group. He was the one who figured out how to make fire, sharpen sticks into weapons and draw on cave walls. The other cavepeople didn’t like him very much. They thought he was a snob and an elitist. They ostracized him and wouldn’t let him share in their feasts. So when Sam heard the roars of a nearby wild animal, he worried that the animal wasn’t friendly, might in fact be hungry and might want to nibble on a tasty morsel of caveperson. Sam went to the dark place, literally. He headed for the nearest cave. And sure enough, just as soon as Sam found refuge in the dark place, a lion emerged from the brush and carried off two of the cavepeople while the others looked on and continued scratching. Sam survived the onslaught, found a mate who worried about wild animals as much as he did, procreated and raised little cavechildren who worried also. Their progeny were never carried off by wild animals or burned by fire. They never fell out of trees in an effort to outwit gravity and attempt to fly. They worried about the safety of their children and encouraged hobbies that utilized their brains and creativity like painting instead of skydiving and reading instead of extreme skateboarding. And they guided them into careers that, while challenging and utilized their brains, didn’t pose too many physical threats. I daresay that Dr. Coplan, the author of the study, may very well be one of Sam’s very great great great grandchildren. Wouldn’t surprise me one bit.

So I, in an effort to protect the species, worry. Is that such a terrible thing? I think not. To date, none of us has been carried off by wild beasts, fallen off the side of a mountain or broken any bones in an attempt to run with bulls or any other species of herding animals. When my girls were little, I worried about their safety and taught them to avoid precarious activities. We eschew jumping out of planes for the sheer thrill of it, avoid diving in the depths of the sea for the sheer fun of it and refuse to spend unprotected nights under the stars for the sheer awe of it. But now I worry, have I cheated my children out of some of the more adventurous aspects of life on this planet?

Intelligence and worrying evolved together to ensure the continuation of the species. This study validates me with a satisfying explanation of why I worry. But now, if I could only stop, I’d be much happier. But I don’t know how.

I’m practically a genius, but I’m not THAT smart.

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