Overcoming Attention Biases 49
W hereas worry tends to be oriented toward future threats,
rumination tends to focus on past experiences. Just like
worry, however, prolonged rumination often results in more
a n x iet y.
As figure 2.1 shows, when people are highly reactive to
their thoughts and circumstances, increases in attention
lead to greater worry and rumination, which eventually
result in higher levels of anxiety. The figure also shows that
when people don’ t feel a strong need to be reactive, increases
in attention aren’t related to the use of worry and rumina-
tion, thereby reducing overall levels of distress. Let’s con-
sider how this model applies to your everyday life.
If you suddenly realize that the deadline for a difficult
work project is sooner than you thought it was, you might
feel a sense of distress. Your mind might bombard you with
negative thoughts and worries (for example, The project will
probably fail because of me, Something will go wrong , and every-
one will be disappointed in me, and I’m going to get fired.). By
cultivating a nonreactive stance toward these anxiety-
provoking thoughts, however— specifically, by leaving each
thought as it is and accepting it as something that doesn’t
require an immediate response— you will be less likely to
feel the need to worry about every little detail of the project.
Moreover, the emotional distance nonreactivity creates will
help you refrain from dwelling on the meaning of past events
(such as how you ended up in this situation) and the nega-
tive feelings they arouse.
In the rest of this chapter, we will explore the role of
attention in anxiety in greater detail. We will also describe
the first skill for outsmarting your anxiety and provide
detailed instructions and exercises that will help you more
mindfully attend to your anxious feelings.