🏃‍♂️💨 TLDR

• Situation: I've been stressed and anxious at work and it's limiting my creativity and motivation
• Nudges: stress reappraisal and affirmations delivered via sticky note and daily journaling sessions. Here are two examples:
  • Reappraisal Message: “Ambiguity is the first step to learning. You cannot learn without first finding something you don’t know and engaging with it.”
  • Affirmation Message: “I enjoy the challenge of doing things I am not yet good at”
• Effectiveness: Shockingly effective. I didn't think this would work, but I can feel myself growing less stressed and more able to deal with constructive criticism.
• Scientific Concepts: Cognitive Reappraisal, Affirmations, illusory truth bias, Neuroplasticity​

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👋 Story Time!

Hey friends,

The unknown can be an adventure or make us feel lost—it all depends on how we frame it.

When I’m tinkering with code or my home lab, I'm always adventuring. Every direction is an exciting opportunity to find something new to try. My relationship with the unknown in work settings, however, is tumultuous and, lately, I’ve been feeling lost.

As a PhD student, exploring the unknown is literally the job description, and typically, I love that. But, when I’m stressed, the ambiguity of my work petrifies me. Not knowing how to be productive and reporting back to my supervisors without concrete progress is terrifying. I feel as if I’m being evaluated, and poorly at that.

Therein lies the problem—the perception of evaluation and the stress it brings.

How we respond to ambiguity and uncertainty is highly dependent on temporary factors like stress, how much sleep we’ve gotten, how confident we feel in our skills, if there’s an impending deadline, etc. In my hobbies, there’s no evaluation, no deadlines, no reason not to take my time with the adventure. But, in my work, I feel like I’m constantly being evaluated and always behind — even if it’s not true. I impose stress on myself, and in-doing-so, rob myself of the joy of exploring.

So, for the past few weeks, I’ve been trying out a pair of nudges to help me reframe my stress and anxiety around ambiguity. The first is Reappraisal - a pillar of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) that involves changing the way you think about a situation to alter its emotional impact. The second is Affirmations — positive statements used to encourage self-empowerment, foster positive thinking, and reinforce belief in one’s abilities, values, or goals.

I use reappraisals to align the thing I fear, ambiguity, with something I value, learning. I combine that with affirmations to remind myself that I have the necessary ability to learn from exploring the unknown. Essentially, first I see how the problem is actually an opportunity to get something I value, then I convince myself I have the ability to extract that value.

🫸 Nudges

🧠 Reappraisal

That’s just academic-ese for “teaching yourself to see the bright-side of any situation.”

Imagine two people, Bob the cynic and Sally the optimist, both miss the bus on the way home from work. Bob is pissed off and grumbling about how he’s going to be late. Sally, on the other hand, pauses, looks up at the sky and grins while saying “well, at least it’s nice out. It’s great to finally get some sun, eh?”

For the cynics out there, me among them, this sounds cheesy. Deep down, though, we all wish we could be a little more like Sally. It doesn’t take a scientific study to know — the science does confirm it, though — that Sally is happier. To make matters worse, the cynics also often tell themselves that Sally was born like that, she’s a naturally happy person, and they are not and can never be. Lucky for us, that’s bullshit.

What Sally is doing, isn’t lying to herself or denying the truth that she’ll be home late, she’s simply choosing to focus on how her current situation achieves some other goal — in this case, getting some sun. The thing is, we can do this in almost any situation.

That’s one of the big takeaways of Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy — the most successful treatment for depression and anxiety to date. The way we think about a situation can change how we feel about it, and the way we think about it can be practiced.

Applying Reappraisal

Currently, I’m responding to ambiguity like Bob the cynic. I see Goal A: “Make demonstrable progress on a research paper” and the ambiguity makes it difficult to see the path to that goal, so I feel negatively. On the other hand, I could focus on Goals B and C: “learn something new”, and “develop the skills to become a great researcher.” When I focus on Goals B and C, ambiguity is not only NOT a bad thing, it’s a fantastic opportunity to grow my research skills.

To reinforce this, I’ve been using sticky notes on my monitor and notebooks, and have set myself the IF-THEN rule that “IF I feel stressed because I don’t know the answer to something, THEN I will read one of the sticky notes.”

The Reappraisal sticky notes read:

1. “Uncertainty is just the feeling of learning happening. You’re doing this degree because you love learning.”
2. “Your supervisors are not here to evaluate you, they’re here to help you learn.”
3. “Ambiguity is the first step to learning. You cannot learn without first finding something you don’t know and engaging with it.”

Even writing it out feels cheesy, but man does it help.

❤️ Affirmations

Again, as a cynic, affirmations feel ridiculous, and are embarrassing to do. Standing in front of the mirror repeating phrases like “I am calm and curious in the face of ambiguity” is mortifyingly lame. However, if the science has good backing for why affirmations work (expanded further below), that’s enough to convince me to give them a try.

To apply these affirmations, I use the same sticky notes and IF-THEN rules as the reappraisals. I cycle between these 3 affirmations.

1. I am calm and happy when I find uncertainty in my work
2. I enjoy the challenge of doing things I am not yet good at
3. I have the skills I need to learn new things and problem-solve on the fly

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🧑‍🔬 Science — Why does it work?

If you're interested, here's some scientific backing for why Affirmations and Reappraisal work.

Reappraisal

Cognitive reappraisal leverages two concepts to make real changes to the way you see challenges over time: cognitive appraisal theory and the principle of neuroplasticity. Cognitive appraisal theory tells us that our emotional responses are not direct outcomes of events. Instead, our emotional responses are a product of our personal interpretation of these events.

This is where reappraisal steps in. Reappraisal gives us an opportunity to re-evaluate our initial, automatic, interpretations. Recall Bob our cynic and Sally our optimist. If we tend to have a negative outlook on things, like Bob, we can catch ourselves and try to shift our outlook closer to Sally's less fixed view. This can change the emotional impact of a situation.

But, nobody's entire outlook on life changes overnight (psychedelic experiences not-withstanding). Instead, reappraisal works best as a practice we do over time. We can't rely on always catching ourselves making a negative and automatic appraisal of a situation, instead what we want to do is practice the more positive appraisal so that it becomes the automatic one. Overtime, we don't just mimic Sally, we become more like her. This is where the next concept comes in — neuroplasticity.

Neuroplasticity, the brain's ability to reorganize itself by forming new neural connections throughout life, is a big part of what makes the “seeing the bright-side” practice possible. The brain's adaptability means that with consistent practice in reappraisal, individuals can literally change the structure and functionality of the brain, modifying the neural pathways involved in emotional regulation.

Integrating these insights, cognitive reappraisal is more than a psychological trick; it's a method of rewiring the brain to enhance emotional resilience and well-being. Through the lens of cognitive flexibility, it encourages the development of a skill set that helps you deal with a wider range of situations in a healthier way. This doesn't just have implications for individual moments of stress or disappointment but can fundamentally alter your approach to challenges for the better, just like I'm trying to do with uncertainty.

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Affirmations

First off, there is a wealth of past research on affirmations partcularly as applied to undergraduate students. I think a good representation of this is David Creswell et al's Self-Affirmation Improves Problem-Solving under Stress. Creswell et al show that students who self-affirm were more able to solve problems under time constraints with an observer watching. That sounds a lot like what I'm dealing with, so affirmations seem like a strong choice for me.

Affirmations sound cheesy, but the concept is grounded in solid research. Numerous studies have shown that regularly practicing affirmations can improve our self-esteem, motivation, and overall well-being. These affirmations work by reinforcing our self-identity and values, providing a psychological boost when we need it the most.

Just like with reappraisals, we don’t have to lie to ourselves. In my case, I may be panicky and anxious when dealing with uncertainty at work, but in my hobbies I approach it joyfully and curiously - clearly I have the capacity. I use my affirmations to remind myself of my capacity.

Diving deeper, I think there’s some grounding in a cognitive bias called the illusory truth effect. The illusory truth effect is a well-studied phenomenon that shows the more often a person hears a statement, the more likely they are to believe it’s true, simply due to familiarity. That’s completely regardless of if it really is true.

Affirmations, to some extent, are just a way to leverage this bias to help you believe true, positive things about yourself. Apply them over time, and you’re more likely to believe them.

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Cheers,
Nathan Laundry
Monday, April 8th, 2024