Relationship Between Anxiety Disorders And High Intelligence

“Ignorance gives happiness . ” That popular saying has, according to several studies, partial evidence to support it. Thus, according to a study by Lakehead University in Canada, there is a very striking relationship between anxiety disorders and high intelligence, an almost direct link between those bright and analytical minds with excessive worry and social anxiety.

Not long ago we talked in our space about the apparent correlation between creativity and bipolar disorder. Well, it should be clarified first of all that what these studies can tell us does not mean much less that behind every person with an exceptional IQ or remarkable creative potential, there is a psychological disorder. Not much less.

Science, and in particular the psychology departments of a large part of the universities around the world, periodically try to offer information of interest, data with significant evidence that can help us later in clinical practice. Thus, a more than evident fact is the following: there are many people with high capacities who show behaviors and states that do not harmonize too much with that more than privileged brain. They are not happy, they are frustrated and they do not always make the best decisions.

There are many psychiatrists and neuropsychologists around the world who often find themselves with the same problem: patients with high IQ who present chronic and generalized anxiety. So why is this fact?

Relationship between anxiety disorders and high intelligence

Anyone who works in the field of education will see it very often. There are brilliant students who are characterized by a more than remarkable balance and tranquility. Others, on the other hand, quickly become frustrated at any change, anticipate negatively and fall into a state of very exhausting stress, to the point of reducing their academic performance.

Tscahi Ein-Dor and Orgad Tal, two psychologists from the University of Lakehead in Canada, conducted various experiments in various secondary schools and colleges with the aim of studying these behaviors that ultimately end up hampering the personal and professional success of a good number of students. Thus, and after including the magnetic resonance test in those studies, it was precisely the latter that revealed 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. Let us remember that this structure, formed mostly by myelinated axons, is related to the transmission of information, determines our intelligence and the agility of cognitive processes. In turn, he also gets involved with the emotional issue.

Some of the scientists think that as intelligence developed in humans, so did anxiety. The reason? For a very specific purpose: anticipating dangers, so that this ability to analyze and process information would help us improve our survival by anticipating risks and threats. Obviously, at the moment when anxiety reaches too high levels, intelligence loses its potential because the person literally feels paralyzed.

Characteristics of people with high intelligence and anxiety disorders

That small anomaly or variation in the cerebral white matter would not determine 100% that that person with high capacities, at some point develops an anxiety disorder. There is a greater risk, a more evident susceptibility to not being able to control emotions and stressful situations. All these processes would be evidenced, on average, in the following characteristics:

• Sentinel intelligence : the ability to anticipate threats or dangers that others do not perceive (something that in certain contexts can be beneficial).

• Hypersensitivity Anxiety disorders and high intelligence are perceived above all in this low tolerance to contexts with many people, with a large number of stimuli that end up producing mental exhaustion.
• Emotional contagion. Another common characteristic of highly intelligent people is that they also show low “ecpathy” that is, they are very sensitive to the emotions of others, but they do not know how to filter them, handle them, separate them from their reality. This leads them to suffer continuous “emotional contagion”, with the fatigue and blockage that this entails.
• Subconscious spenders. This curious term that may seem somewhat strange to us, highlights a fact that will sound quite familiar to us. People with a high IQ think too much. They waste an excess of mental and emotional energy on inconsequential matters that, in most cases, does not get them anywhere.

• The world is full of possibilities and you cannot ignore any. Anxiety disorders and high intelligence are also evidenced in this inability to set limits, to put aside some options and choose others. The world, for them, is full of infinite options, variables and conditions and they are unable to rule out any.

At this point, the question is almost inevitable. How to deal with it? How to handle an overactive brain incapable of putting filters to a reality that is too complex, full of data, emotions and stimuli? We could say that the most advisable thing would be to end that anxiety, reduce it, make it as small as possible.

Well, as curious as it may seem, the answer is not that. The key is to use anxiety to our advantage, to manage it effectively knowing how to use its full potential. Because, if evolutionarily high intelligence and anxiety go hand in hand for an end, let us therefore orient ourselves towards that same end. Let’s learn to use that activation to intuit what others do not see, to anticipate risks, events and probabilities. But let’s do it with balance, knowing how to put filters, orderly paths where all that mental energy can flow in an orderly fashion.

Every effort will be worth it.