How can I stop worrying?
posted 20th September 2024
Do you think worry is a useful activity? Often people believe that worrying is helpful, with beliefs, such as:
• Worry helps me solve my problems
• Worry motivates me to get things done
• Worrying in advance of a negative outcome will save me experiencing difficult emotions
• Worry prevents negative outcomes
• Worry shows I care
and so why would you want to stop, if you believe it's helping. However, we know that worrying is ineffective problem solving and is not helpful. Worry makes us feel anxious, demoralised and fatigued.
What can you do?
1) Ask yourself if worrying is useful
Do you believe it is useful, ask yourself 'are there actually times that worry has helped me?'. It is doubtful that you will come up with many examples, if any. However, if you still believe worrying is useful then it would be beneficial to explore this further with a professional, such as a Cognitive Behavioural Therapist, who can support you with techniques to change your perspective on worry.
Think about how much time and energy worrying takes up, using a worry diary (as below) can really help with this. Worrying is extremely energy sapping, because worries are thought threats and our body reacts the same way to this, as it does to a physical threat. The body goes into fight or flight mode to protect us and this means we are on edge, waiting for the predicted thought threat to materialise.
2) Keep a worry diary and have designated worry time
Note down your worries three to four times throughout the day. Decide whether each worry is either a hypothetical or current problem. Then tell yourself that you can spend time worrying about these later.
- So how do you differentiate between a hypothetical and current problem?
Hypothetical problems tend to be future based and generally start with 'what if's'; 'what if my manager does not like the report I've written' or 'what if I don't pass my exams', things you cannot currently do anything about.
Whereby current problems are solvable, such as 'I need to get something for dinner' or 'my car needs a service'. These problems can be actioned or at least put on a list to do at a more convenient time.
- What does worry time look like?
Set aside a twenty-minute period for worry time. Generally, a good time to do this is after dinner and a couple of hours before bed. Sit down and look at your worry list and worry as much as you want.
What do you notice? Can you worry for the whole twenty minutes? Do your worries seem as anxiety provoking as they did when they popped into your head earlier in the day? Do your worries now seem silly, or possibly inconsequential.
3) Say your Worries Out Loud
There is something about saying your worries out loud that can help them to feel less fearful. Getting them out of your head, where they may feel like they are rattling around in an echo chamber, and hearing your own voice say them can have a minimising effect - give it try now!
You can even try saying them in a silly voice, both of these techniques help you to defuse the thought. Thought defusion is a technique that helps us get some distance from our thoughts, seeing them for what they really are, 'just thoughts'.
It's similar to hearing other people talk about their worries, we are not entangled in them, so we are distanced from them. This means we can simply observe the thoughts and advise accordingly, for example, we may say to a friend 'do you really believe that will happen' or ' how do you know they will definitely do that''.
4) Ask yourself what would I say to a family member or a friend
As above, we often give different advice to others, than we do to ourselves, and it can be helpful to detach ourselves from our worries by imaging it is a friend saying the same thing and then think about the advice we would offer to them and give this to yourself.
5) Breathe
Stop and take some slow, deep breathes; inhale for four slow counts and exhale for six slow counts. Touch your ribs at the sides to ensure they are expanding.
Slowing down our breathe sends a message to the brain that we are OK and that we no longer need to have the 'chemical troops, adrenaline and cortisol' sent out to rescue us. Notice what happens in your body when you slow down your breathing; do your shoulders start to relax and drop a little, has your heart rate slowed, do you feel calmer?
Research has shown that practising regular breathing exercises has several benefits, such as; slows down the mind, decreases anxiety, increases oxygen to the blood, helps you to relax, it's good for muscle function, especially during exercise, reduces blood pressure and heart rate and supports the lungs to expel gas waste.
To find out more about how cognitive behavioural therapy can help you to understand and deal with worry, please contact Christina for an informal chat on 07398 453243 or email me at christina@cognitive-clarity.co.uk*
