Hallowell argues in his new book, Driven to Distraction at Work: How to Focus and Be More Productive, that when you feel real or imagined concerns piling on, share them with a friend, and theres a better chance that aimless anxiety will change into problem-solving. He believes that worrying alone is one of the major reasons that people cant focus, both at work and elsewhere in their lives. Worrying alone does not have to be toxic, but it tends to become toxic because in isolation we lose perspective. We tend to globalize, catastrophize, when no one is there to act as a reality check. Our imaginations run wild. Indeed, Samuel Johnson, a severe worrier himself, called worry a 'disease of the imagination'. When we worry alone we risk losing touch with reality, becoming paralyzed in worry, making bad decisions, and even getting sick, as toxic worry depresses immune function.