Lessons on Anxiety from 'The Walking Dead'

It's unlikely that the creators of the wildly popular AMC show The Walking Dead designed it to give people lessons on anxiety. Unbeknownst to them, however, zombies are actually an ideal metaphor for anxiety. Don't watch the show? No problem. No matter your degree of fandom for the show, The Walking Dead can definitely teach us about anxiety. Take a deep breath, conjure up images of zombies, and read on to learn important lessons on anxiety.

Metaphorical Lessons on Anxiety from 'The Walking Dead'

The zombies in The Walking Dead keep coming relentlessly -- sometimes one or two stragglers, sometimes in hordes. They hone in on their target, and they move toward it with single-minded focus. They surround. The characters are often trapped and afraid, feeling as if there is no escape, that they will be consumed by the zombies.

Anxiety is just like a zombie. More accurately, it's like a horde of zombies because rarely do we have a single anxious thought or worry at a time. Anxiety, fear, and worries pursue us like the undead in search of the next meal. The Walking Dead and its zombies are metaphors for anxiety in other ways, too, and the survivors (yes, the survivors) are metaphors for people dealing with anxiety every day.

5 Lessons On Anxiety from The Walking Dead

1. The control center is in the brain. The only thing living in a zombie, supposedly, is a virus in the brain. Anxiety is in the brain, too. But it's still your brain and you are very much alive. You can use your creative, intelligent brain to take back your thoughts and your life.
2. Zombies and anxiety are driven only by survival. In The Walking Dead, the zombies are constantly on the move for their next meal. To anxiety, we are a meal. Anxiety needs to survive, so it attacks us and feeds on our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. We, though, are far more complex than that. We have intelligence, strength, motivations, goals, and desires. We have a full life to live, and we have free will. That means anxiety is just on auto-pilot so we can outsmart it and get away.
3. Zombies and anxiety don't learn. Anxiety just wants to keep control over us, so it keeps doing its same old tricks, creating excessive worry, fear, and panic. We are higher-order beings. We learn, grow, and evolve. That means we can learn new skills for beating anxiety.
4. Zombies and anxiety don't practice self-care. Have you seen an image of a zombie? Zombies really let themselves go. Anxiety is like that. The only thing it does to make itself look "good" is to cut us down. We, though, can practice self-care to strengthen and build ourselves up in order to fight anxiety.
5. Zombies and anxiety don't have anything to live for. Anxiety exists for one purpose: to keep existing. To do that, it has to feed on us like a zombie feeds on its victims. Again, we're so much more than that. We have hopes, dreams, and things to live for. We are capable of defining and creating a life worth living. That gives us power over anxiety.

The Walking Dead does much more than entertain. It personifies anxiety, and, in doing so, it shows us how little control anxiety really has. Even better, it helps us realize that we're survivors who continue to fight anxiety -- and win.

Let's connect. I blog here. Find me on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Pinterest. My mental health novels, including one about severe anxiety, are here.