Why Managing Uncertainty is Key to Mental Health

Let's look at the relationship between how we deal with uncertainty and our psychological health.

When talking about mental health, it is common to make the mistake of assuming that psychological disorders are fundamentally related to the way we experience emotions.

Although there is no doubt that the emotional is a very important element in understanding the human mind, it is not disconnected from the rest of the psychological processes, including those that allow us to create predictions about what will happen based on our knowledge of how the world works. Our rational and emotional sides are not entirely separate, and this is clearly seen in how uncertainty affects us. how uncertainty affects us.

How do we manage lack of information?

Even though we have baptized our own species Homo sapiensthat does not mean that we are predestined to be wise people. On the contrary: we are born knowing practically nothing, and if we do nothing to remedy it, we remain in a state of total ignorance..

It is through learning (deliberate or not) that we incorporate knowledge into the way we behave and make decisions. However, no matter how quickly we learn, we never know everything; little by little we can afford to answer the questions we ask ourselves, but almost always, these answers have many more questions associated with them.

That is why our way of thinking and interacting with the environment is always linked to a tension between what we know and what we do not know.

There is a lot of research based on neuroimaging that shows an interesting pattern: in situations of uncertainty, our brain tends to be more active. This fact corresponds to a theory that is gaining more and more strength: that the brain has evolved as a set of organs that tries to minimize uncertainty. the brain has evolved as a set of organs that tries to minimize uncertainty by allowing us to behave according to predictions. by allowing us to behave according to predictions that are as accurate as possible.

Not only are we incapable of knowing everything, but our way of thinking has evolved as a result of this constant lack of information. We are built to deal with uncertainty, rather than to accumulate knowledge.

Anxiety in the absence of answers

Anxiety is another sign that our mind has resources to deal with uncertainty. Being anxious may be unpleasant, but if the ability to feel this way is present in virtually all people (not to say all mammals), it is for a reason.

This mechanism predisposes us to pay more attention to our environment in order to detect the to detect as soon as possible the first signs that something is wrong or that if we don't hurry we will lose a valuable opportunity, and it allows us to react quickly by putting our muscles into action.

In other words, the psychological and Biological mechanisms that lead us to be anxious exist because we innately try to predict what will happen, since we cannot fully know.

So... Is anxiety an emotional phenomenon, or one linked to how we manage information? Possibly, when talking about it, it makes no sense to clearly differentiate between these two concepts.

However, not all ways of dealing with uncertainty and its emotional consequences are equally effective. Although anxiety in itself is natural and does not have to be a problem, under certain circumstances it can lead us to have a very bad time, generating unnecessary suffering or even a psychopathology (known as anxiety disorders).

In other situations the anxiety does not generate us a very intense suffering, but instead of orienting us towards the instead of orienting us towards the resolution of a problem, it blocks us, making it very difficult for us to stop.In other situations, it makes it difficult for us to stop thinking about something that obsesses us and to make a decision about what we should do to turn the page. In many cases, the fear to the failure plays an important role in it.

The importance of short- and long-term vision.

If something is clear about the strategies that work when it comes to managing uncertainty, it is that it is important to follow an order, so that we do not have to face a huge set of questions every time we ask ourselves what to do to improve our situation.

That is to say: the key is to assume that not knowing many things at the same time is not a bad thing, and that instead of obsessing about what we do not know, we should have as a reference a sequence of actions that will allow us to reduce uncertainty, focusing on one of them at a time.

It is not necessary to give a definitive answer to each of the questions, but a sufficiently solid and consistent one.It is not necessary to give a definitive answer to each of the questions, but one that is sufficiently solid and consistent to allow us to focus our attention on other matters that are also important to us and that we should not "put aside" indefinitely.

That is why it is necessary to combine a short-term vision with a long-term one. In the short term we should focus our attention on what we know we can do now to improve our quality of life in some way, but without giving in to what only gives us momentary relief (e.g., distractions, eating without being really hungry, etc.). without allowing us to move towards our more ambitious goals..

Many of these ways of managing uncertainty can be seen as an investment, literally or metaphorically. Making an effort to study something that interests us, doing a market study before launching our company, comparing several health insurances before deciding on one, carefully observing the area in which we are considering buying an apartment... are experiences that, besides being stimulating, combine the acceptance that we cannot totally predict what will happen, on the one hand, and the idea that if we focus on certain important issues for us, that same day we can feel better about our future, on the other hand.