the.com/fretfulness
the art of suffering a catastrophe that hasn't arrived and probably never will
means A state of persistent worried irritability, where small discomforts and uncertain futures keep the mind anxiously agitated.
from Built on "fret," from Old English "fretan," meaning to devour or eat up — the same word that gives us the image of moths fretting cloth or acid fretting metal. The leap to emotion is wonderfully apt: worry, too, gnaws and wears away from within. Add the suffix "-ful" (full of) and "-ness" (the state of), and you have someone thoroughly eaten up by their own anxieties.
- body cost
- Chronic worry shrinks the brain's memory hub, the hippocampus
- old word
- From Old English fretan, to devour or eat away
- useless math
- Most worried-about events never actually happen
- sleep thief
- Anxious arousal blocks the brain's slow-wave deep sleep
- evolution
- It's threat-detection software running with no off switch
lady macbeth — shakespeare character whose obsessive hand-wringing and anxiety over murder drive her to madness
maria in twelfth night — shakespeare character whose nervous scheming and worry about malvolio's letters causes her constant agitation