Lost in work: why it takes your mind off stress and anxiety

Have you ever found yourself completely immersed in your work? So much so that you left all your worries and concerns behind?

Only to come rushing back as soon as you got home, put your feet up on the couch to catch a break.

Can’t you leave me alone? You may have yelled in silence at your thoughts.

But to no avail. The more you tried to relax your mind, the more the thoughts came. Having no option, you drink to drink and company. Let me drown my thoughts if nothing else works.

So what is going on?

To use a scientific term, functional anti-correlation. Yes, I also had to look that up.

The concept is simple. Different parts of your brain compete for attention. In this case, a part of your brain called the task node network or TNN and another part known as the default node network or DNN.

Simply put, your TNN is focused on getting things done. It shuts down the noise, allowing you to focus on the task at hand.

Fortunately, since the brain cannot differentiate between hunting an animal for food or writing an essay, you get to focus.

It is survival.

As soon as your task is done, your busy day at work, for example, and you sit down to rest, your DNN kicks in.

The role of the DNN is to build and consolidate memories, process information, analyze and sort things out for future reference. It is trying to protect you from making mistakes in the future.

Naturally, it takes on this role when you don’t have much else going on.

You call it stress and anxiety caused by a rush of all the thoughts that were bothering you.

The worse possible thing you can do is to drown it out. Its like dunking your head in water because you dont like what you see around you.

The answer?

Teach yourself to process these thoughts. They are only there to help you survive.

Reach out to me on twitter @rbawri Instagram @riteshbawriofficial and YouTube at www.youtube.com/breatheagain