How to Stop Worrying in Your Life
Posted on April 7, 2008
Filed Under Psychology, Personal Development
<Anxiety and worry disorders are the most common mental illnesses in the U.S., affecting over 19 million people.>
Worrying is a permanent preoccupation with past or future bad events. Worry can create emotional stress and negative feelings.
There are many different types of worries. They include pessimistic thoughts about what might happen in the future, about what is happening in the present, and about what was happened already in the past.
Helping yourself stop worrying involves a combination of challenging the worrisome thoughts and calming yourself physically and emotionally.
Important steps to reduce your worries:
- Confronting your fears
At bottom, there is frequently a fear of the unknown, and trying to define that fear can help you to overcome it. By facing whatever it is, you may find you know what to do about the situation. You can begin to think about how you might deal with it, what you can do, and who might help you, if necessary.
- Writing a list
Make a list of what is troubling you. Use statements, rather than questions. Instead of, ‘What will happen if I don’t get there on time?’ say, ‘I am worried that I won’t get there on time’. This focuses on precisely what the fear is.
Another constructive way to put your fears into perspective is to try writing down the reasons why something bad might not happen. This may help you to see more realistically which situations are worthy of worry and which are not.
- Take action now.
Any action towards a goal tends to reduce worry. Thinking too much about your goals or plans, especially if you dwell on the hurdles, will cause you worry and stress. Of course you should plan well, but when planning drifts towards worrying; it is time to start doing something positive.
- Make decisive decisions.
When you want to stop worrying too much about an unresolved issues, you need to make decisive decisions, and even bad decisions may be better than doing nothing. Often you will immediately resolve the stress when you, for example, finally decide to quit that job, buy that house, or make that phone call. Nothing crowds and clouds your mind with worry as much as decisions waiting to be made. Make them now or at least start gathering the information you need to make them. If they prove to be bad decisions, just make new ones.
Important ways to reduce and eliminate your worries:
- Keep busy.
If you find that idle time means those small worries gnaw away at you, keeping busy may be the solution. Keep your mind busy and your thoughts on the task at hand. Taking action, even if it not related to your current worrying topic, does help. That feeling of accomplishment helps boost confidence and self esteem.
- Physical activity
Exercise is excellent because it can change the focus from your mind to your body. It relieves tension and uses up adrenalin. You don’t have to go for a long run, or visit the gym. A good, steady walk can be just as effective, and is good for the heart as well as the head. Regular exercise, preferably for half-an-hour, three times a week, is known to improve mood and increase people’s sense of wellbeing. Beads and stress toys are easily portable tension-releasers, which also make a good distraction.
- Improving your diet
It’s a good idea to cut down on caffeine, which is found not only in tea and coffee, but also in colas and other canned drinks. They contain stimulants that can heighten the physical effects of tension, such as headaches and stomach problems.
Eating well and regularly may also have a very beneficial effect, because unstable blood sugar levels can lead to jittery feelings that contribute to your state of mind. Avoid alcohol or smoking, which both affect mood.
- Develop good sleeping habits
Worry tends to interfere with sleep. In fact, most people do most of their worrying at night, while trying to fall asleep. This is of course a very unhelpful habit, and may lead you to lie awake for hours, worrying about not being able to sleep. It is best to remind yourself to worry only during your ‘worry time’, and to use bedtime as your time for relaxation and recuperation.
- Relaxation and visualization
Relaxation exercises often focus on replacing negative thoughts with positive ones. This could involve imagining yourself in a pleasant setting, such as a beach, a nice room or a garden. You could visualize your worries as physical objects that can be discarded, such as stones or rocks you could heave into the distance.
- Social support
Having a few friends to have fun with and to help you through difficult times is very important. Make sure you keep in touch and have ‘time out’. However, it is also important to make sure that those times are not spent with you worrying and so not being able to enjoy yourself. Make sure you remind yourself of your ‘worry time’ and enjoy your ‘non-worry time’, paying attention to the present moment as much as possible.
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