A Little Anxiety Can Make You a Lot More Productive

Lots of people think you need to be calm and comfortable to get good work done but the Yerkes-Dodson Law says different.

Photo by Diane Picchiottino on Unsplash

I stopped taking anxiety medication again and — surprise, surprise — I’m more anxious.

Part of me thinks that this on-again, off-again relationship I have with medication is self-deceptive and self-destructive. I get dangerously anxious or depressed, I get on medication, I feel better, I convince myself I don’t need medication, and the cycle starts over. But it’s not quite that simple.

There’s a period when I first come off medication where I feel great. I feel driven. I’m a little anxious but it’s that anxious voice inside my head that tells me to do difficult things. And I like doing difficult things. In fact, taking on big, outrageous challenges is the thing I like most about myself.

I am not an anti-medication person. I do hit periods of anxiety and depression that become so severe they warrant medication. Medication has likely saved my ass more than once in my life. But there’s definitely a downside to it.

It takes the anxiety away but the drive goes with it. I become docile and content with that but, over time, it breeds its own kind of anxiety — the…