I didn’t know this — maybe you did — but Nov. 17 is officially “Coping With Uncertainty Day.” I can’t figure out if this came about through an act of Congress or was the brainchild of a greeting card company, but you can send e-cards and even coffee mugs to mark the occasion.
I really think we need more than a day. In fact, last year could be the “Coping With Uncertainty Year.” (And no doubt, the commemoration will continue into this year as well.) Like so many others over the past year, my family faced job insecurity, investment losses and were even touched by the Bernard Madoff scandal.
The year ended up with our jobs safe and our investments no worse than anyone else’s. But the feeling that life is increasingly chaotic and fragile remains. Most of us may intellectually agree with Benjamin Franklin that “nothing is certain except death and taxes.”
But we still believe — and this is particularly true of the baby boomer and younger generations — that for the most part we’re in control. And when that belief crumbles, we often do, too.
In fact, researchers have found that uncertainty can sometimes take a greater toll than bad news.
Sarah Burgard, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Michigan, has for several years looked at how perceived job insecurity affects people’s health.
Drawing data from two separate longitudinal studies — the Americans’ Changing Lives survey and the Midlife in the US survey — Burgard and her colleagues looked at almost 3,000 employed people below age 60.
The subjects were divided between those who were worried about losing their jobs and those who were not so concerned. The survey was adjusted for gender, education and income, as well as for those who were more anxiety-prone in general and for those who had lost jobs in the past and, therefore, might be more worried about it in the future.
Based on how participants rated their own physical and mental health, the academics found that people who felt chronically insecure about their jobs reported significantly worse overall health in both studies and were more depressed in one of the studies than those who had actually lost their jobs or had even faced a serious or life-threatening illnesses.
“Chronic stress is extremely damaging to your health,” Burgard said. “I’m an academic and I’m going up for tenure. I know what uncertainty is. You’re unable to make plans, unable to take action. You’re waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
Of course, not everyone reacts the same way to uncertainty. There are gamblers who get a charge out of playing the odds and thrive off risk. And there are some who may not love, but at least can tolerate, insecurity.
And then there are those considered by researchers (and maybe some others as well) to be neurotic. That’s not a clinical definition, but refers to people more anxious or easily stressed out, said Jacob Hirsh, a graduate student at the University of Toronto who has studied how different people respond to uncertainty.
Hirsh was the lead author on a study, published in the October issue of the journal Psychological Science, which found that those considered higher on the neuroticism scale would prefer knowing something for sure — even if it’s negative — than not knowing.
In the study, 41 young men and women were given a personality survey to assess if they were more laid back or more anxiety-prone. Then they were fitted with electrode caps that measured brain activity as they completed different tasks.
Hirsh and his colleagues looked at neural activity in a part of the brain called the anterior cortex, which is involved in conflict, uncertainty and monitoring errors.
During the research, the participants were given a plus sign, meaning they performed the task well; a minus sign, meaning improvement was needed; or a question mark with no further explanation.
Those considered more neurotic demonstrated more brain activity in response to the question mark — unclear feedback — than to the negative feedback, while those who were considered less neurotic were not bothered by the question mark response, but were upset by the critical feedback, Hirsh said.
Robert Leahy, director of the American Institute for Cognitive Therapy and a clinical professor of psychology at Weill-Cornell University Medical College, New York-Presbyterian Hospital, said the problem is that “people who are anxious tend to equate uncertainty with a negative outcome.”
Leahy pointed to one study of students who predicted negative outcomes for various concerns, like an exam or a relationship. But follow-up studies found that 85 percent of the outcomes were neutral or even positive.
In addition, said Leahy, who also wrote The Worry Cure, people underestimate their ability to cope with a bad situation.
“You can’t just say don’t worry and everything will turn out fine — people will think you’re an idiot,” he said. “But there’s productive worry and unproductive worry. Productive worry is thinking about something you can do in the next 24 hours.”
That could mean re-examining your investment portfolio, getting a real fix on your checking and savings balance or putting your resume together. Unproductive worry, on the other hand, Leahy said, is fretting about whether the stock market and entire economy will decline by 25 percent — something you can’t do anything about.
There are ways to keep your sanity even in a world that seems increasingly crazy. Don’t obsessively watch television or check the stock market online because people who are already worried tend to overvalue negative information, Leahy said. That’s known as confirmation bias.
But don’t just stick your head in the sand, tempting as that may seem. If you have a real concern that can be addressed in a concrete way, “get as much information as possible,” said Jerilyn Ross, president of the Anxiety Disorders Association of America and author of One Less Thing to Worry About, to be published in April.
If you’re worried that you’re going to lose your job, don’t avoid the boss.
“Try and find out what is really going on,” she said. “Knowledge is power.”
Also, put all this in some sort of context and remind yourself of the historical realities that many of us have been too eager to ignore in recent times. Markets have always gone up and down. So has real estate. Most jobs nowadays, are, in reality, temporary, and in any situation people should be trying to improve their skills.
Finally, Leahy said, try and put money in perspective.
“Your portfolio is not simply financial, but a life portfolio,” he said.
Although it’s easy to nod and tune it out when you’re told that money isn’t everything, it helps to really focus on what is important in life besides making money, like your family relationships, friendships and your role in your community.
“You are not just a consumer product,” he said. “It will sound corny to some people, but if your life portfolio is greater than your financial portfolio, then you’re diversified.”
It’s not going to be an easy ride, especially for those of us who lean toward the high anxiety end of the spectrum. But the good news is that we have almost 11 months to prepare for the next “Coping With Uncertainty Day.”
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