Confronting Your A nx iety 87
Optimizing Your A nx iety
A well- known principle in psychology, especially to
those of us who treat and research anxiety, is the Yerkes-
Dodson law (Yerkes and Dodson 1908). It’s a simple, yet
important, concept with regard to how you manage your
anxiety. Recall from the introduction to this book that
anxiety is generally thought to be a helpful and adaptive
process. For example, if you want to obtain a high grade on a
test, physiological and mental arousal will motivate you to
study the subject material; however, if you have too little or
too much arousal, your performance on the test will be
adversely affected and likely decrease. Take a moment to
review the graph of this relationship shown in figure 3.2.
HighStrongLowWeakPERFORMANCEAROUSALFigure 3.2. The Yerkes- Dodson Law
Research on the Yerkes- Dodson law has found that dif-
ferent tasks require different levels of arousal for optimal