compulsion to worry correlates tightly with depressed mood
There are some very interesting notions about depression from an ev-psych perspective here, the gist of which being that depression is "effort to reconstruct models of the world so that future action can lead to payoffs, in part through stripping away previous valuations that led to unwelcome outcomes". As a result depression results in "suspension of behavioral activity accompanied by very intense cognitive activity".
In somewhat more detail,
Depression should be precipitated by (1) a heavy investment in a behavioral enterprise that was expected to lead to large payoffs that either failed to materialize or were not large enough to justify the investment; or (2) insufficient investment in maintaining a highly valued person or condition that was subsequently lost (possibly as a consequence); or (3) gradual recognition by situation-detectors that one's long-term pattern of effort and time expenditure has not led to a sufficient level of evolutionarily meaningful reward, when implicitly compared to alternative life paths (the condition of Dickens' Scrooge).
In other words, depression is the manifestation of the brain calling a "Halt, melt and catch fire" event.
What I've been wondering for some time now is whether the causation can go in reverse - i.e. whether intense thinking about your life's overall strategy can be recognized by your brain as "that mood" and actually trigger the emotional ensemble associated with depression.
I can't think of any sensible advice, though. What I tend to do about decisions (mostly minor) that are waiting on further information is to put them into my GTD system with an appropriate "decide by" date, and annotate them with information as it comes in. I find this a big help in offloading concerns from conscious thought. I have no idea how that system would cope with a life-changing decision.
What I've been wondering for some time now is whether the causation can go in reverse - i.e. whether intense thinking about your life's overall strategy can be recognized by your brain as "that mood" and actually trigger the emotional ensemble associated with depression.
You know, this is something that we can test. Keep some measure of mood for a while - randomly sample "how are you feeling" on a 1-5 scale, say, (or better, on one of these). After a couple of weeks for calibration. spend a couple of weeks where you write out hopes, f...
I currently face a pretty major life decision. After some careful analysis, I've concluded that my final decision depends on the answers from some queries that I have made, but whose answers I won't receive for days or perhaps weeks.
In the meantime, I've had great difficulty not obsessing over the pending decision. It warps my priorities and kills my motivation; I'm doing less, with less vigor, and enjoying it less. I've noticed, in the past, that compulsion to worry correlates tightly with depressed mood; given what I know about the mind, I assume that each can cause the other.
In general, this connection seems to make changing one's mind painful, and probably conditions people to hold their ideas with certainty, rather than uncertainty. As such, ways to stave it off should be of major use to this community...
I know some things to do to stave off a depressed mood (e.g. get exercise, eat well, talk to friends, achieve small-but-satisfying goals). I don't know any ways to avoid the compulsion to worry about an uncertain future decision, except, possibly, to notice the worrying and tell myself, verbally, that uncertainty is ok. Which brings me to my
Question: Does anyone know any methods for avoiding fruitless worrying over properly-uncertain facts or actions?