Your brain runs the world’s most sophisticated simulation software. It can generate actual ulcers from imaginary deadlines, authentic panic attacks from theoretical meetings, and clinical hypertension from hypothetical emails.
Yesterday in my RT Nagar clinic, a techie’s heart pounded at 142 beats because of a code review happening next month. Last week, a dancer’s knees buckled from fear of a performance six weeks away. Ten days ago, a CEO’s hands trembled over a merger that might happen next quarter. Their ECGs are flawless. Their vitals should be perfect. Their MRIs are pristine. Their blood tests are textbook perfect. Yet their bodies wage war against shadows – against threats that exist only in that dark theatre we call tomorrow. In twenty-five years, I have watched an epidemic spread: we are dying of diseases that haven’t happened yet, wounds that might never come, and battles scripted entirely by our minds. Some call it anticipatory anxiety. I call it the most expensive subscription service in Bangalore – where we pay with our present to fear our future.
Most people in my clinic are surprised when I show them the ‘CEO’s Emergency Kit’ – it’s not a prescription but a simple breathing pattern: 4-7-8. Four seconds to inhale, seven to hold, and eight to exhale. A Silicon Valley-returned techie laughed when I suggested this for his anticipatory anxiety. ‘Doc, I need real medicine,’ he said. Two weeks later, he texted me a graph from his Apple Watch – his heart rate variability had improved by 40% just from practising this pattern before morning meetings.
The science behind breathing exercises is well-documented in peer-reviewed research. Studies have shown that controlled breathing practices can significantly reduce cortisol levels and activate the parasympathetic nervous system, helping to calm the stress response. While individual results vary, research supports the effectiveness of specific breathing patterns in managing anxiety and stress. When you breathe this way, you reboot your vagus nerve, the superhighway between your brain and body. It’s like installing a firewall between present reality and future fears. A Montessori school principal in my clinic used this with her entire staff – they now start every meeting with ’60 seconds of 4-7-8.’ Their collective anxiety scores dropped by half in one month. The key is consistency: set three non-negotiable breathing breaks in your day. Think of them as mandatory system updates for your nervous system. Morning standup meeting? 4-7-8. Pre-presentation jitters? 4-7-8. Late-night email anxiety? 4-7-8. As one patient put it: ‘It’s the simplest debugging tool for the mind’s catastrophe generator.
A 34-year-old techie visited my clinic last monsoon, convinced he had developed a rare neurological condition. His symptoms were peculiar – his left ear would turn bright red precisely at 3 PM daily, accompanied by a tingling sensation in his fingers. After extensive testing, we discovered something fascinating: 3 PM was when his San Francisco team would log in for daily meetings. The twist? He had recently moved to a different project and had not had these meetings for weeks – yet his body continued its stress response right on schedule. It was as if his autonomic nervous system had downloaded a stress app that refused to uninstall.
Research has illuminated why this happens. Neuroscience studies have shown that when people anticipate stressful events, their amygdala – the brain’s fear centre – can show similar activation patterns to when they experience stress. This helps explain why anticipated stress can feel as accurate as actual stress in our bodies. Studies on workplace stress have consistently found that a significant portion of what employees worry about are anticipated problems rather than current ones.
Our ancient wisdom traditions understood the nature of psychological suffering centuries ago. Ayurveda recognizes how dwelling on future concerns can disturb mental balance through concepts like chinta (anxiety) and udvega (agitation). The classical text Charaka Samhita discusses how misuse of the intellect (pragya-aparadha) can lead to mental disturbance. This understanding resonates with what Jiddu Krishnamurti taught: psychological suffering occurs in the gap between ‘what is’ and ‘what should be.
I see this gap widen daily in my practice. A brilliant classical dancer came to me with what she called a “gravity malfunction” – experiencing vertigo only during slower pieces in evening performances, never during morning rehearsals. Her medical tests were normal, but our conversations revealed something unexpected. She had recently read about famous dancers experiencing career-ending falls during slower pieces. Her mind had created an elaborate fear construct, manifesting in actual physical symptoms, but only during slower movements when her mind had time to wander into worry. The fascinating part? She had been dancing for fifteen years without a single fall.
This reminds me of what Dr. Robert Leahy calls “the worry paradox.” He documents a case where a violinist in the New York Philharmonic became so preoccupied with the fear of developing hand tremors that she started taking beta blockers preventively. The medication’s side effects impacted her practice sessions, creating the very problem she feared. When she understood that her anticipatory anxiety, not her hands, was the real issue, she recovered completely and went on to perform flawlessly at Carnegie Hall – without the medication.
Two decades of watching minds create mountains out of mental molecules have taught me that stress is like a theatre where we are simultaneously the audience, the actor, and the critic—but most crucially, we are also the playwright. Each morning, we pick up our pen and write elaborate scenes of future disasters, cast ourselves as the victim, and then sit in the audience, experiencing real physiological reactions to our imagined drama.
The solution begins with awareness. I encourage my patients to maintain a “Worry Reality Check” diary. Please write down your current worries, and after a month, look at how many materialized. Most find that less than 20% of their anticipated problems become reality. It’s like ordering extra chapatis at a restaurant because you are worried about hunger later, only to find that the regular portion was more than enough.
I am reminded of another Jiddu Krishnamurti gem: “If we can understand the problem, the answer will come out of it because it is not separate from the problem.” The first step in managing stress is realizing how much of it we create in our minds.
Last evening in my clinic, an eight-year-old girl watched her mother list seventeen future scenarios she was worried about. The mother’s hands trembled as she spoke of college admissions, career choices, and financial security – all for a child still learning multiplication tables. The daughter tugged at her mother’s sleeve and whispered, “Amma, remember when you thought I would fall off my bicycle last year? But I didn’t. And now I can do tricks!” The mother froze, then laughed through sudden tears.
Sometimes, the most profound wisdom comes from those who have yet to learn to time-travel to their troubles. In twenty-five years of treating stress in Bangalore, I have written thousands of prescriptions. Still, the best medicine is this: living at the speed of now, just like a child on her bicycle, feeling the wind of this moment rather than the storms of imagined tomorrows.
