Blog Short #268: Your Inner Alarm Won’t Stop Going Off. Here’s How to Turn It Down.

Photo by RODOLFO BARRETTO on Unsplash

Is this you?

You’re at work finishing a small project that’s not due for a week, yet you feel a nagging urgency to get it done right now. As you work, the rest of your to-do list crowds in, each item demanding the same immediate attention. The workday ends, and you’re already ruminating about evening chores, tomorrow’s agenda, and what you may have forgotten to do. Once home, you zoom through your nightly routine – dinner, dishes, laundry, getting the kids to bed – all at the same relentless pace. You finally collapse into bed. And then you dream about everything you still need to do.

Sound familiar? If so, you might be plagued by something called chronic urgency. It’s more common than you think, and it’s debilitating.

You likely think of this as anxiety, but it’s different. Anxiety is the feeling. Urgency is what’s driving it. It’s the alarm that screams, “Emergency! Hurry!” – whether the situation calls for it or not.

Fortunately, you can tame it and get relief. I’m giving you six strategies to use that work. But first, let’s get a better idea of what it is and where it comes from.

What It Is

We’ll start with what it isn’t.

Chronic urgency is not the same thing as being busy. It’s a persistent state of mind that permeates everything you do.

No matter the external circumstances, you feel behind, as though you’re not doing enough. And you need to go faster.

Psychologists often refer to it as “hurry sickness”, a phrase coined by cardiologists Meyer Friedman and Ray Roseman, when they noticed these tendencies in some of their heart patients.

The key difference between being busy and feeling chronic urgency is that the feeling lives inside you, not on your calendar.

Where It Comes From

Chronic urgency has historical, personal, and environmental sources.

Personal

Perfectionism is often present.

Perfectionism happens because your identity is tied to your performance, which puts a lot of pressure on you to achieve excellence and perfection in all your endeavors.

There’s no let-up to this internally propelled drive. It’s like walking through a landmine and hoping you don’t make a misstep and blow yourself up.

To a lesser degree, yet still present, is the need to feel productive. Busyness in these instances is a defense against feeling inept and unworthy.

With both perfectionism and compulsive productivity, you may have grown up in a family where achievement was rewarded and required. Anything less was considered failure.

Historical

If you experienced emotional, physical, or sexual abuse as a child, or grew up in an environment filled with chaos and uncertainty, you’re more susceptible to chronic urgency as an adult.

This includes things like:

• Carrying adult responsibilities as the oldest child
• Living with a depressed or volatile parent
• Moving frequently
• Navigating divorces and difficult step-parents
• Being in foster care
• Growing up around substance abuse.

All these experiences create hypervigilance and fear, keeping you on high alert. You’re always waiting for the other shoe to drop.

As an adult, that alarm system keeps running even when there are no threats and nothing to fear.

Environmental

Now we get to “hustle culture” and the belief that you’ve got to push yourself through any and every obstacle that presents itself, whether you have the emotional energy or not.

You’re plagued by FOMO (fear of missing out), which urges you to spend every waking moment staying on top of your goals and activities so you don’t end up at the bottom.

To make things worse, people have constant access to you via text and email.

It’s common practice now for your supervisor or boss to email you after hours and on weekends. There’s an expectation that you’ll respond 24/7.

Boundaries are blurred or nonexistent. And if you balk, there may be repercussions. You’re passed over for the next promotion or given the cold shoulder, but not so blatantly that you can confront it.

Work becomes everything, busyness is king, and relaxation is for sissies.

You need to prove you’re a rock star. It’s an all-or-nothing proposition, and it destroys your nervous system.

Six Ways to Start Changing It

The good news is that even though these patterns evolve over time, they can be reversed through intentional use of strategies that challenge them. Here are six that I’ve practiced myself and used successfully with my clients.

1. Name it as soon as you notice it.

Becoming aware of how often and under what circumstances you feel urgency is the first step.

Each time you notice it, stop and acknowledge it. I’ve found it helps to choose a word or phrase that captures it and say it. I have two:

• You’re moving too fast! Slow down!” – when I find myself racing through something.
• “You’re grasping! Take a moment!” – when I’m chasing time or catastrophizing.

By using the same phrases repeatedly, you get good at catching yourself. This helps break up the runaway feeling of alarm.

2. Practice being slow and deliberate.

Once you’ve caught yourself feeling and acting with urgency, proceed slowly and very deliberately.

To do that, focus your attention on small movements, slower steps, taking breaths between thoughts, and doing one thing at a time.

When you do something slowly with full attention, you actually do it faster. It’s a paradox that research has shown to be true.

It’s like the story of the hare and the tortoise. The tortoise plods along slowly and consistently, while the hare shoots out of the gate and wears himself out so he can barely get to the finish line and loses the race.

When you work single-mindedly with slower, deliberate movements (mental or physical), you conserve energy, protect your nervous system, and make better use of all your faculties to get you to your goal.

This practice works as well when you’re in the kitchen making dinner or writing an annual marketing strategy for your company.

3. Build in micro-pauses.

Add in small intentional pauses between transitions from one activity to another.

Before you get out of your car, sit for two minutes. After a work meeting, do a round of square breathing​ before diving into another task. After 60 to 90 minutes of deep work, take a 10-minute break before transitioning to a new activity.

In other words, build in micro-pauses throughout the day.

Small changes like this help rewire your brain, calm your nervous system, and create emotional space.

Urgency feeds on relentless speed, which provides no windows for intervention.

4. Ask yourself, “Is this situation actually urgent?”

This question is the dividing line between busyness and true urgency.

Some people simply enjoy being busy, but don’t feel urgency unless it’s truly warranted. People who have a sense of chronic urgency apply that alarm indiscriminately to every situation.

By asking the question, you pull your attention in, slow it, and examine the validity of the feeling. You access your thinking brain while cooling your emotions.

And the more you practice it, the better you train your mind to automatically question your emotional alarms before taking action.

Often, the answer to the question is that it’s not urgent. That realization is freeing and relieving.

5. Rest is protective too! And your body knows it.

Taking a nap, talking to friends, having dinner with family, watching a favorite TV show, or reading for fun are activities that require you to be present.

They’re also productive. They nurture you, enhance your relationships and social connections, and cool your nerves.

Build these activities and rest periods into your schedule. Put them on your calendar if need be, and call them productive. Because they are!

More is not better when it comes to stress. Push yourself too hard, and your productivity lessens. In addition, your relationships suffer, as does your sense of well-being.

6. Identify your sources of chronic urgency.

Using the three categories – personal, historical, and environmental – examine where your sense of urgency comes from.

Most of us are already aware of some environmental stressors, but you may not have considered the personal and historical ones, especially the latter.

Obviously, no one can redo their history, nor should you try. But identifying stressors you grew up with helps you understand how you came to feel a sense of urgency that seeps into your everyday life.

You need to see it to distinguish between what was then and how it is now.

If you were the oldest child, avoiding one parent’s anger and soothing another parent’s depression while protecting your siblings, you felt responsible for everyone and had no choice in the matter. You adapted.

But that’s not true now. You don’t have to hold everyone up. Challenging these internal beliefs helps you clarify reality and change patterns that are no longer adaptive or in your best interest. The same applies to learned perfectionism.

Take a serious look at it, and if you need help, seek it out.

Urgency has a place, but it shouldn’t have a starring role.

We all need some urgency. Otherwise, we’d do nothing.

Urgency is a tool you use when you need it to motivate you. You have control over how and when to use it. It shouldn’t be an ongoing state of mind that controls your every waking (and sometimes dreaming) moment.

The key is applying the right amount to get you moving when you need it, and then shutting it off when you’re ready to recharge and relax.

You’re the director, narrator, and editor of your movie. So take over!

That’s all for today. Have a great two weeks!

All my best,

Barbara