Has it ever happened to you? That exact moment when everything seems fine and then—bam—a thought slices through you. Just two words are enough: “what if”.
“What if I can’t do it?” “What if everything falls apart tomorrow?” “What if I got it all wrong?”
An invisible thread pulls your brain out of alignment, drags it into a dark future, and from there, the movie begins: dramatic, full of twists, never with a happy ending.
If the answer is yes, welcome to the club.
Before rushing to fix it or thinking you’re the only defective member of the human species, let’s take a step back. A long step back, to a time when the main concern wasn’t your pace per mile, but avoiding becoming a snack for a saber-toothed tiger.
Anxiety saved our lives
That anxiety, that internal alarm system, is exactly what helped our ancestors survive. It’s a preservation mechanism, a pre-installed software that says: “Hey, stay alert. There’s a potential threat around the corner.”
The problem is, there’s no tiger anymore—but the software is still running in the background, picking up threats everywhere: in a phone notification, in a boss’s email, in the silence before a race starts.
As a recent Rolling Out article explains, you’re not weird. You’re not broken, either. You’re simply human.
Our brains are incredibly creative—and sometimes they use that creativity against us, imagining catastrophic scenarios from the tiniest detail.
We can’t uninstall the system, but we can learn to manage its notifications.
Three practical tools to recalibrate anxiety
1. Play devil’s advocate with yourself
The first move is to challenge the evidence. Ask yourself: what’s the actual proof that today’s workout will be a disaster? The fact that you feel tired? And how many other times have you felt that way and still had a great run?
Put a number on it: what’s the actual chance, from 0 to 100, that your worst fear will come true? Maybe 5%?
Great—then there’s a 95% chance it’ll go another way.
2. Create safe zones
Anxiety is like gas—it expands to fill all available space. The solution is to set boundaries.
Schedule “worry time”: a defined window each day, say fifteen minutes, just for worrying. Use them fully if you need to. But know that once time’s up, the problem may not be solved—but your mind will definitely be in a better place.
Same logic for media: staying informed doesn’t mean compulsive scrolling. Ten minutes in the morning, ten in the evening. Outside those slots, the world can wait.
3. Hit the emergency button
When your heart’s racing and the spiral’s already begun, you need something to stop it fast. One of the most effective techniques is 5-4-3-2-1.
Stop and focus. Identify: 5 things you can see around you, 4 things you can touch, 3 sounds you can hear, 2 smells you can detect, 1 taste you can notice.
It’s almost childlike in its simplicity—but it breaks the chaotic thought flow and yanks you right back to the present.
Anxiety and running: travel companions
Runners know it: some days you head out just because “it’s on the plan,” even though your body would rather do anything but lace up.
There are races where your stomach tightens the night before, and start lines where you wonder why you even bother.
But you go. And you know that anxiety is part of the process. It tags along during the warm-up, waves at you around kilometer five, then—if you’re lucky—it gets distracted and lets you run.
It’s like an invisible training partner: if you can keep up, it teaches you something about yourself.
It’s about that morning when the plan says “30 km long run” and your first reaction is panic.
It’s about those minutes before a race, when you could use the 5-4-3-2-1 technique to avoid being overwhelmed by “what if…”.
It’s about that moment when exhaustion hits and that voice comes back to whisper in your ear that you’ll never make it.
Don’t eliminate—recalibrate
The goal isn’t to get rid of anxiety. That would be like trying to run without sweating.
The goal is to tell the difference: know when it protects you and when it traps you. When it helps you react and when it paralyzes you.
You can’t silence that voice entirely. It’s impossible.
But you can learn to recognize it, wink at it, and say: “Alright, I hear you. Thanks for the heads-up—but I’ve got stuff to do.”
Because you can still think “what if…”, but next time you can answer yourself with an “even if.”
Even if I’m scared, I’ll try. Even if I don’t have all the answers, I’ll take the first step.
Just like in running: the hardest part is heading out the door.
Then you go. And step by step, that buzzing noise fades into something manageable—a simple background hum.