Anxiety is catching

Photo by Fusion Medical Animation / Unsplash

Have you noticed that emotion is contagious?

The way a stressed colleague puts everyone on edge.
Or the way a family member gives off a grumpy vibe.
Or the way a friend’s sadness can prick tears in your eyes.

It’s like emotion is not just something inside us. It’s airborne. It’s in the atmosphere.

It’s a bit like an energy field that you can sense as soon as you walk into a room.

And it’s a bit like a virus that you can catch and then spread around.

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Murray Bowen called this kind of contagious tension “chronic anxiety”. And he made some groundbreaking insights about the ways that humans spread anxiety around.

At the beginning of Ted Lasso Season 3 anxiety is heavy in the air.

Ted farewells his young son who is heading back home to be with his mum in the USA. And the guilt he feels about his parenting choices infects how he feels about his work.

But Ted is not the only one who is anxious.

The media are predicting failure for the football team Ted coaches. The previous season ended on a jubilant note as AFC Richmond scraped its way into the top tier of the English Premier League. But the club’s ability to perform at this higher level is being questioned.

And so it’s no surprise that Richmond’s owner, Rebecca, is starting to stress.

“Everyone has us finishing last.”

It seems the feeling is contagious. Ted's players catch it just by scrolling through their phones.

And as so often happens as anxiety spreads, it starts to colour everything. It’s as if they’re all wearing worry-coloured glasses.

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Anxiety is like a lens which changes how we see and make sense of events around us.

And so when Ted takes his team on an admittedly novel team bonding session - down into the city’s sewers - the headlines almost write themselves:

“AFC Richmond goes down the sewer.”

They have become the butt of every joke.

Which of course gives their opponents a chance to ratchet up the pressure.

Enter Nate.

Nathan "The Wonder Kid" Shelley is Ted’s former protege and Richmond’s former assistant coach. He was the strategic genius behind Richmond’s success last season but left in a huff of self-entitlement, convinced that he had not been given the acclaim or respect he deserved.

Now he’s the Head Coach at West Ham FC, the club recently purchased by Rebecca’s slimy ex-husband Rupert.

And he can't wait to serve up his revenge - the dish is still steaming as he doles out increasingly generous portions to a salivating media pack.

Journalist: Why is everyone expecting Richmond to finish 20th this season?

Nate: Probably because there’s no 21st team.

Ooft.

Journalist: What do you think of Ted leading AFC Richmond down the sewer?

Nate: Makes sense to me. They probably love to train in a sewer because their coach is so shitty.”

You can almost feel the anxiety at Richmond as it spreads like a virus, infecting everyone's ability to see objectively, think clearly, and act thoughtfully.

In this episode Rebecca is particularly vulnerable to catching it. Not only because it's her club being dumped on - but because it’s her ex-husband’s club which is doing the dumping. She is a strong woman who can tolerate a lot of pressure. But in her eyes it is Rupert who is making her look bad. And she can't tolerate that. She is so sensitive to what Rupert thinks of her that she is quickly infected. And then she tries to pass it on to Ted.

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That's what we do with anxiety. We spread it around as we try to make ourselves feel a bit better.

So when Ted walks into Rebecca’s office she dumps her anxiety onto him:

“My team is projected to finish last and my manager decides to skip training and take my players to the sewer!”

Will he catch it?

Rebecca: Did you hear what Nate was saying?

Ted: Yes ma’am

Rebecca: Are you planing on addressing it?

Ted: No Ma’am.

Rebecca: Everyone is laughing at us! You. Our team. Me. Rupert is laughing at me! And I am begging you - please - fight back!

Every word, every facial expression, even the tone of Rebecca's voice sends waves of emotion rushing towards Ted. Molecules of anxiety get airborne and are looking for somewhere to land.

Will he catch it? How will Ted respond?

To be continued…

Sorry about that. We’ll get to Ted’s response in the next blog.

For now I want to focus on the way anxiety spreads.

One psychologist (Dr Bill Roman, Guy Shrink Podcast) whose podcast I’ve been listening to describes it like this:

“We get it from those who got it.”

In every group of people there are tensions. People get sensitive to one another - to opinions and expectations - to attention and lack of attention - and to each others' distress. People ignore each other, disagree with each other, gossip about each other, and get in each others’ way. We push and pull. We butt heads. We bite our tongues. We try to please. We fish for approval and praise.

All this generates pressures which swirl around like an airborne disease. Or like the big brown globs in a sewer system. Nobody wants that to land on them. So we react. We get defensive. We flee. Or - perhaps - we fight back.

Whatever form our anxiety takes, when we react to the energy in the room instead of acting thoughtfully, we are in danger of spreading anxiety around.

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Our anxious reactions infect others with anxiety. And their anxious reactions will do the same. It’s like a chain reaction.

It makes me think of that experiment where hundreds of mousetraps are set with ping pong balls and laid out on the floor. It only takes one ping pong ball to set off a trap. But it reacts, setting off two traps which in turn set off more traps.

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Anxiety is contagious.

Dr Michael Kerr summed up Murray Bowen's thinking like this (Kerr & Bowen, Family Evaluation, 1988, p.55):

“The emotionally determined functioning of the family members generates a family emotional “atmosphere” or “field” that, in turn, influences the emotional functioning of each person.

Bowen was talking about how anxiety spreads in families but we see it happen in other groups too. In our families, workplaces, churches, and community groups we react to anxiety in other people and they react to anxiety in us. Which is why despite our best intentions our anxiety often makes bad situations worse.

So...

What has this got you thinking about?

What kinds of situations have you been in when you could feel the anxious energy in a room as soon as you entered it?
Who in your life are you particularly sensitive to? Have you noticed whether you are more sensitive to their attention (or lack of), their approval (or disapproval), their distress or their expectations?
How do you tend to react when you feel pressure to think or act in a particular way?
What is one thing that helps you get a bit of perspective when anxiety is increasing inside you or in those around you?

Please share your thinking in the comment box below.