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Blink 3 of 8 - The 5 AM Club
by Robin Sharma
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Future Tense summary
Tracy Dennis-Tiwary
Why Anxiety Is Good for You (Even Though It Feels Bad)
19 mins
Brief summary
Future Tense by Tracy Dennis-Tiwary teaches us how to manage our emotional state in the digital age. It includes strategies and insights to prevent technology from dictating our moods, thoughts and behaviors and ultimately, helps us improve our mental wellbeing.
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Future Tense
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Key idea 1 of 5
Anxiety isn’t the problem – our ways of coping with it are.
Butterflies in the stomach. A pounding heartbeat. A tight throat. Thoughts that loop over and over.
This is what anxiety feels like. But what causes it? Ultimately, anxiety always stems from something bad that we imagine could happen but that hasn’t actually happened yet. We experience it as a sensation in our bodies – tension, agitation, and jitteriness – and a quality of our thoughts: apprehension, dread, and worry.
Anxiety can be less or more intense. Regardless, we can usually talk ourselves through it and dial it back to a point where we feel comfortable and not overwhelmed.
However, we sometimes end up using the wrong thoughts and behaviors to cope with or avoid our anxiety. In doing so, we make it worse. When we begin to do this more often than not, normal anxiety transforms into an anxiety disorder.
The key characteristic of an anxiety disorder is a functional impairment – something that prevents you from living your life normally. For someone with an anxiety disorder, the distress caused by their feelings can last weeks, months, or years, and it interferes with their home life, work, and relationships.
Almost 20 percent of adults in the US – that’s over 60 million people – live with an anxiety disorder every year. Thirty-one percent of American adults will experience an anxiety disorder at some point in their lives. Yet fewer than half of people with anxiety show lasting change from therapy.
One reason for this is that many people cope with anxiety poorly. Take the hypothetical example of Kabir, who at age 15 began feeling afraid to speak during class. Before having to give presentations, he refused to eat, didn’t sleep, and worried constantly. As time went on, he began to fear going to school altogether. He started missing days, which caused his grades to suffer. Then he began to feel afraid of any social situations whatsoever. He avoided parties and swim meets because of this fear. Over the following months, Kabir broke off all of his friendships and started to experience severe panic attacks.
Kabir went from feeling highly anxious to developing social anxiety, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, and panic disorder. But his anxiety itself was not the problem. The problem was his way of coping with the anxiety – his refusal to eat and sleep, his staying home from school, and his isolating himself from his friends.
Kabir’s solutions helped him avoid his anxiety. But in doing so, they just intensified his feelings. In the following chapters, we’re going to discuss some much healthier coping mechanisms for anxiety.
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What is Future Tense about?
Future Tense (2022) puts to rest a huge and socially pervasive myth about anxiety: that it’s bad and should be avoided at all costs. Today, anxiety is considered an illness – something that should be treated with medicine or coped with in some other way. But that isn’t the case. Ultimately, anxiety is simply information, and it’s incredibly important for our survival. It’s up to us to make the best use of it.
Future Tense Review
Future Tense (2022) by Tracy Dennis-Tiwary is an insightful exploration of the impact of technology on our mental health and well-being. Here's why this book is worth reading:
- Delving into the complex relationship between technology and our minds, the book offers a nuanced perspective on how the digital world shapes our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.
- By presenting the latest scientific research and real-life examples, the author effectively illustrates the potential risks and benefits of our increasingly tech-dependent lives.
- With its critical yet empathetic approach, Future Tense sparks important conversations about the future of humanity in a digital age, ensuring that readers are constantly engaged and intrigued.
Who should read Future Tense?
- Anyone intimately familiar with anxiety
- Parents worried about their children’s emotional lives
- Psychology fans
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Future Tense FAQs
What is the main message of Future Tense?
The main message of Future Tense is that technology can both enhance and disrupt our well-being.
How long does it take to read Future Tense?
The reading time for Future Tense varies depending on the reader, but it typically takes a few hours. The Blinkist summary can be read in just 15 minutes.
Is Future Tense a good book? Is it worth reading?
Future Tense is worth reading for its insightful exploration of technology's effects on our lives and well-being.
Who is the author of Future Tense?
The author of Future Tense is Tracy Dennis-Tiwary.
What to read after Future Tense?
If you're wondering what to read next after Future Tense, here are some recommendations we suggest:
- Surrounded by Idiots by Thomas Erikson
- Status Anxiety by Alain de Botton
- Anxious by Joseph Ledoux
- Confidence by Ethan Nichtern
- The Power of Instinct by Leslie Zane
- The Stoic Path to Wealth by Darius Foroux
- How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big by Scott Adams
- On the Edge by Nate Silver
- The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo
- Super Human by Dave Asprey