Drawing on her original psychology and neuroscience research, Tracy makes the case for embracing this secret superpower. She’s the bestselling author of Future Tense: Why Anxiety is Good for You (Even Though It Feels Bad). In it, she argues that anxiety is our brains’ response to uncertainty: it arises when there’s potential for bad, but also great potential for good.
By embracing anxiety as a feature, rather than a bug, of being human, we can use our worries to imagine, plan, and persevere through our uncertain (but hopeful) futures. “Anxiety is actually a useful part of being human,” Tracy told Lavin. “We can build skills in a virtuous cycle of anxiety—it just takes practice.”
Watch Tracy explain three steps that we can take to leverage our anxiety:
