Martha Beck knows anxiety can be debilitating. Controlling it starts with this simple step

Shift Your Mindset is an occasional series from CNN’s Mindfulness, But Better team. Evidence shows a kind of toggle effect between creativity and anxiety, she explained in her new book, “Beyond Anxiety: Curiosity, Creativity, and Finding Your Life’s Purpose.” “When one is up and running, the other seems to go silent.” Our brain’s natural programming makes it easy to slip from calm into catastrophizing, wrote Beck in her book. So, mounting a defense against the “infinite, subtle and powerful” cultural forces that amplify our anxiety demands that we nurture new brain pathways to cultivate “curiosity, wonder, connection, compassion and awe.” She shares strategies designed to soothe anxiety, which she describes as a “frightened creature in your brain,” while liberating the creative genius inside us all. Martha Beck, sociologist and author of "Beyond Anxiety: Curiosity, Creativity, and Finding Your Life's Purpose” Rowan Mangan Martha Beck: People have always been anxious. Once you’re in an anxiety spiral, it’s hard to get out; natural brain function leads to an unregulated feedback loop that tends to make anxiety increase indefinitely rather than subside.