Found an interesting distillation of thought tendencies that provoke depressive and anxious feelings: "Depression is thought to involve an inflexible ruminative engagement with high-intensity negative emotional information and anxiety is thought to involve an inflexible avoidant disengagement (distraction) from low-intensity negative information, the current findings suggest that flexibility may be one key to emotional well-being." In other words, according to the Psychology Today article, incoming high-intensity negative emotional information, such as a notice that a person may soon lose her job, requires her to be mentally distract-able (for instance, to be able to start thinking about her upcoming plans with friends) if she is to avert depressive symptoms. As "distraction" wards off depression, so does "reappraisal" ward off anxiety; if you are late to work, for example, rather than worrying about it, you might reappraise the situation by recalling that you're usually on time or early, so it's not a big deal that you're late today.
Fascinating stuff! Yesterday, when I realized my wrist was still bothering me from using crutches a week ago, I almost panicked (another injury! nooo!). Maybe today I'll handle it better if I notice a twinge.
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