Relationship Between Anxiety Disorders And High Intelligence
“Ignorance makes happiness” . This popular saying is, as several studies show us, supported by various partial proofs. According to an article from Lakehead University in Canada, there is a relationship between anxiety disorders and high intelligence. An almost direct link between these bright, analytical minds and excessive preoccupation and social anxiety.
We recently spoke in this space about the apparent correlation between creativity and bipolar disorder. However, it should be clarified that this does not mean that people with exceptional IQ or remarkable creative potential have a psychological disorder. Quite the contrary.
Science, and especially the psychology departments of many universities around the world, periodically tries to present information of interest. Data with significant evidence that can help us in clinical practice. So there is one more than obvious fact: many people with great abilities exhibit behaviors and states that do not harmonize much with this privileged brain. They are not happy, feel frustrated, and don’t always make the best decisions.
Many psychiatrists and neuropsychologists around the world often encounter the same problem: patients with high IQs suffer from chronic and generalized anxiety. What is the reason ?
Relationship between anxiety disorders and high intelligence
Those who work in education will often see this. Some brilliant students are characterized by remarkable poise and tranquility. Others, on the other hand, quickly become frustrated with any change. They anticipate negatively and fall into a very exhausting state of stress, to the point of reducing their academic performance.
Tscahi Ein-Dor and Tal Orgad, two psychologists from Lakehead University in Canada, carried out various experiments in high schools and colleges. Their aim was to study the behaviors that end up hampering the personal and professional success of a good number of students. They included the t is of magnetic resonance in these studies. The latter highlighted something as striking as it was unexpected.
White matter and high intelligence
Anxiety disorders and high intelligence could be explained by a small brain abnormality in the white matter. Remember that this structure, formed mainly by myelinated axons, is linked to the transmission of information. It determines our intelligence and the agility of cognitive processes. It also has an influence in the emotional field.
Some researchers believe that anxiety evolved in parallel with the development of human intelligence. Why ? In order to anticipate dangers so that the ability to analyze and process information helps us improve our survival by anticipating risks and threats. The ‘intell igence obviously loses its potential when anxiety reaches too high quotas because the person feels literally paralyzed.
Characteristics of people with high intelligence and anxiety disorders
This little abnormality or variation in the cerebral white matter would not 100% determine that the person with high abilities develops an anxiety disorder at some point. The risk is greater. There is a more obvious predisposition to not being able to control emotions and stressful situations. All these processes would be evidenced by the following characteristics:
- Sentinel intelligence : ability to anticipate threats or dangers that others do not perceive (which can be beneficial in certain contexts).
- Hypersensitivity. Anxiety disorders and high intelligence are seen in particular by low tolerance to contexts with many people, with a large number of stimuli. Such contexts end up producing mental exhaustion.
- Emotional contagion. Another characteristic of very intelligent people is that they exhibit low “ecpathy”. In other words, they are very sensitive to the emotions of others but they do not know how to filter them, manage them, separate them from their reality. This leads them to suffer from a permanent “emotional contagion”. Fatigue and blockage result.
- Unconscious wasters. This curious term reveals a fact that will speak to us more. People with a high IQ think too much. So they waste mental and emotional energy on trivial matters that often get them nowhere.
- The world is full of possibilities and they cannot ignore any of them. Anxiety disorders and high intelligence are also evidenced by this inability to set boundaries. Set aside some options and choose others. The world is filled with endless options, variables and conditions and these people are unable to turn away from it.
The almost inevitable question at this point is: how to deal with it? How to deal with a hyperactive brain unable to filter in a reality too complex, full of data, emotions and stimuli? We could say that the most desirable would be to put an end to this anxiety. To reduce it. To make it as minimal as possible.
As curious as it may sound, the answer is quite different. The key is to use anxiety in our favor. To manage it effectively. To know how to use all its potential. Indeed, if high intelligence and anxiety go hand in hand for a specific goal, then it is appropriate to orient our strategy towards this same goal. So let’s learn how to use this activation to understand what others don’t see. To anticipate risks, events and probabilities. But let’s do it with balance. Knowing how to put filters. And resort to orderly paths. Where all this mental energy can be used adequately.
Any effort will be worth it.
Our thoughts Believe it or not, we’ve been talking about anxiety since the days of Seneca, at the dawn of the Christian era. This term was not used and it does not exist …
