When capacity is exceeded, anxiety isn't the problem-it’s the signal
A quiet reframe on anxiety, overload, and what the body is trying to say.
This week, I found myself scrolling far too often.
A news headline about the Meta court case jolted me, and I sat down with my journal to ask a simple question:
Where is this really coming from?
This is what was revealed. My anxiety wasn’t coming from one thing.
It was coming from everything.
Over the past six months, I hadn’t lost discipline.
I had exceeded capacity.
This is the stack I was carrying:
Started a new Amazon digital business in August
Created, published and launched a book by Christmas
Dealt with Amazon blocking my book
Stretched myself intellectually with authors like James C. Scott, Ivan Illich, Leopold Kohr, and E. F. Schumacher
Hosted numerous family visits
Celebrated a milestone birthday with family who had flown in from London to surprise me.
Received a shock osteoporosis diagnosis
Ramped up strength training in response
Travelled to Sydney for my son’s MBA graduation
Finished my memoir, which I had been writing for over a year
That wasn’t a busy period. It was a compression event.
Most of us don’t recognise a compression event while we’re inside it.
We call it stress.
Or distraction.
Or “losing discipline.”
But often, it’s none of those.
It’s simply this: more has been loaded onto the system than it can currently process. And the body doesn’t negotiate with that. It signals. My HRV (Heart Rate Variability) had been telling me for weeks. I thought it was just aging.
But my system responded exactly as a human system does under load:
→ Anxiety increases
→ Cognitive load peaks
→ Attention fragments
And, I reached for the lowest-friction relief available—scrolling
While the Meta court case stopped me in my tracks, I was also reminded of reading Scarcity Brain by Michael Easter last year. I couldn’t get past the first few chapters. It was so confronting to see how deliberately these systems are designed to capture our attention.
I already knew this.
We all do.
Scrolling now reminds me of smoking forty years ago. It feels good in the moment—but is no less harmful. But here I was falling for that false promise again.
So I chose a different interpretation. What if it wasn’t a failure but my body trying to self-regulate?
It was time for a reset. Not just of activity—but of orientation.
My first move was simple: have books ready for the moment my hand reached for my phone. A chapter here, a page there has to be better than scrolling.
Then I turned to physical work—to ground my body and stabilise my mind.
I had already increased my lifting load in response to osteoporosis guidelines.
But I don’t just want strength. I want the capacity that holds it all together.
So I returned to mobility work with Vanja.Moves—back to Session 1, the foundation.
And my body told the truth.
I held a full plank for 30 seconds twice. That told me something.
But deep squats told me more. They exposed a weakness I didn’t know I had. My quads lit up immediately.
And yet—it still felt good. I felt alive.
However, weakness had been revealed. And that’s where capability begins.
Capability isn’t abstract.
It’s a set of quiet standards your body either meets—or doesn’t.
Peter Attia speaks about strength benchmarks for longevity—not aesthetics, but function.
I think of them as Minimum Viable Capabilities for Aging Well:
Grip strength
Load carried
Squatting strength
Deadlifting capacity
Mobility, balance, floor-to-stand tests
This is the work now.
Train mobility.
Move better.
Lift heavier.
Layer it into daily life:
Dead hangs between tasks
Deep squats as I pass my Step platform
Sitting on the floor instead of the couch to watch TV
Loaded carries, even in small moments—shopping bags, with water-filled milk bottles at the ready.
Not as a program. As a way of living.
I’m not managing osteoporosis. I’m building a body that makes it increasingly irrelevant.
Because capability doesn’t shout.
It reveals itself quietly—
one plank,
one squat,
one decision to begin again.
Favourite reads this week:
Being neurodivergent is one of the most powerful hidden advantages you’ll ever have by Tim Denning
Is Learning the Hard Way the Only Way? by Elise Loehnen
When the Going Gets Tough by jmacdonald