Did I Remember?

I have often thought, “Did I lock the door?” Or “Did I leave the stove on?”. This might lead to merely locking up and checking with more intention next time or for others, it may be an anxiety disorder. Maria Cohut published some information that was fast checked by Jasmin Collier, giving us some insight into this second-questioning ourselves.

Constantly feeling the need to check something a dozen times before leaving can leave one in a state of terror all the time, with imaging scenarios of break-ins or something being left on. It could also indicate a case of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), which is a type of anxiety disorder characterized by an uncontrollable checking behavior and recurring.

But, we are all exposed to sudden bursts of uncertainty occasionally. With the rush of getting to wherever we need to be can result in lapses of memory and the shock when we realize that we aren’t sure if we did everything that should have been done before leaving the home.

Concordia University in Montreal, Canada, believes that such a fear of losing control might result in recurrent checking behavior and maybe at the core of many anxiety disorders that includes OCD. Study co-author Adam Radomsky says that they have shown those who believe they’re going to lose control are significantly more likely to exhibit checking behavior with greater frequency.

They hope new findings are able to allow them to find better ways of treating OCD and other anxiety disorders at their core. Their findings were published in the Journal of Obsessive-Compulsive and Related Disorders.

Both Radomsky and paper co-author Jean-Philippe Gagne, a Ph.D. student, worked with 133 participants recruited from among the undergraduate students. They were given bogus electroencephalograms. These are designed to measure electrical activity in the brain. Each was randomly assigned false feedback that they were either at low or high risk of losing control over their thoughts and actions. Once they were convinced, the scientists asked them to complete a computer task that required them to control the pace of pictures by making them disappear before they faded from the screen on their own. They weren’t aware that they had no actual control, as the images were programmed to float in and out of sight at specific paces.

Those who were convinced they were at higher risk of losing control of their actions were more meticulous in checking behavior than their counterparts who were told they were likely to maintain control. None of the participants were identified as having OCD. This shows that making people believe they might be at risk of losing control, the symptoms themselves start to show and it can tell us something about what might be behind those symptoms in people who do struggle with the problem. This gives them something they can try to treat.

In the end, people’s fears and beliefs about losing control may put them at risk for a range of problems that include panic disorder, social phobia, OCD, post-traumatic stress disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and others. This excessive checking behavior is the worry of losing control over the situation and may pave the way to more appropriate cognitive behavioral therapy for the treatment of a range of anxiety disorders.

This could have the potential to drastically improve our ability to understand and treat the full range of anxiety-related problems.