Do your anxieties ever become paralyzing? Check out these worry-reducing techniques supported by science to live a worry-free existence.
Worry: what is it?
Worry is characterized by unpleasant future-related ideas, feelings, and visions. Concerns about upcoming events, both real and imagined, are common. Often, we erroneously think that worrying will help us prevent undesirable future events—to plan or consider how we’ll react—but excessive worrying merely feeds future fear and is not actually a helpful coping mechanism. Therefore, the majority of us who worry just want to stop.
What level of worry is excessive?
Doubts, anxiety, and worries are all perfectly acceptable feelings. In actuality, 38% of Americans express worry on a daily basis. Actually, worrying about potential problems is adaptive and helpful. We’d be more prone to make mistakes that could harm us, endanger our health, and sabotage our future if we just went through life at random.
However, “natural” anxiety can become a problem if it persists and is challenging to manage. For instance, if you frequently imagine the worst-case situations when worrying and if your nervous thoughts prevent you from doing everyday activities like sleeping, eating, or enjoying friends, then worrying has become a problem for you.
Why worrying too much is bad for our wellbeing
Your emotional and physical health may be harmed by excessive concern. It can elicit unpleasant feelings and exacerbate a variety of anxiety symptoms, including lack of sleep, tension headaches, upset stomach, tense muscles, and difficulty concentrating. Excessive worry can harm your self-confidence, strain your relationships, and even impede your career.
Generalized Anxiety Disease (GAD), a non-specific anxiety disorder that comprises a general feeling of concern about most parts of your life, is typically characterized by chronic worrying. Fortunately, there are several things you can do to quit worrying as much if you worry more than you’d like to.
Why is it difficult to put worries to rest?
The notion that we may just cease worrying sounds improbable to us chronic worry-ers. And it is obvious why. Worry is a negative thinking pattern, and any pattern of thought that we use repeatedly becomes hardwired in our brains, making it more difficult to break.
In order to stop worrying, we must also examine our ideas, values, and emotions, all of which contribute to the anxiety continuing long after it is no longer necessary. It may therefore be necessary to change the way we think and act in order to cease worrying.
Here are some techniques to help you put an end to your worrying:
Where does your anxiety come from, you might ask?
Like me, psychologists frequently concentrate on psychological remedies for anxiety. Alter your thinking, break the loop of concern, etc. These are excellent concern-reduction techniques, but if you’re in a stressful situation, identifying the cause of your anxiety and acting to improve it may be the better course of action.
If you only have a tendency to worry about one particular aspect of your life, such as work or a relationship, but not about other aspects (such as health, money, etc.), your worry may be better addressed by taking some sort of proactive step to improve your circumstances. Your ideas are ultimately working to keep you safe. In order to completely quit worrying, first, ask yourself if there is anything you can change about your life.
Or, working directly with your thoughts is probably more beneficial if you’re like me and worry about most things. The anxiety issue in this scenario is most likely caused by worrying patterns rather than specific incidents.
Investigate your anxiety triggers
Finding the cause of your anxiety can be simple sometimes—it might be your job, your significant other, your children, or money problems. Or your concern could have more complicated, covert roots that are challenging to eradicate. In any case, it might be helpful to look into the reasons behind your fear until you have a better understanding of what worries you.
Look into workplace anxiety. Maybe the workgroup you’re in is making things stressful. Perhaps you can negotiate more flexible work hours from home or request to be reassigned to a different group.
Examine anxiety at home. Perhaps your in-laws, siblings, partner, or children are a source of stress for you. If you want to lessen the stress that results from these difficult connections, think about being aggressive in how you express your demands to these people.
It’s time to work on your worried thoughts once you’ve done all you can to alter the troubling circumstances (which, in many cases, may not be much).
Calm the anxiety you’re feeling.
Meditation is one strategy for putting an end to worry. You can start to relax the body and break the cycle of worry by sitting quietly and focusing your attention elsewhere. With practice, we may teach the mind to become aware of our thoughts and to relax the body without being mired in anxiety.
All you need for meditation is a comfortable place to sit, and to make it even simpler, a meditation movie to direct your mind and prevent them from wandering into your troubles.
Do you have any influence over the situation?
You might be better off fixing the problem if you’re worried about something that you can change rather than letting the anxiety consume your thoughts. A good illustration is a procrastination. Simply completing the task at hand can help the worry go away rather than thinking about it.
On the other hand, perhaps you are concerned about something that is beyond your control. I can remember a time when my husband and I were talking about getting a divorce, and I originally worried a lot about it. However, I suddenly understood that I could only be myself and had no influence over his choices. To simply let go of the worries about what might occur and accept whatever was to come felt nice.
Exercise can help you to relax
Your physiology is all out of whack when you’re worried a lot. Simply ceasing to think will not hasten the release of those neurochemicals into your body. Because of this, engaging in physical activity can significantly reduce worry.
Because exercise generates endorphins and stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system, which can reduce tension and aid in body calming, exercise can help with anxiety. Keeping your attention on how your body is feeling when you work out may also be beneficial. For instance, try to pay attention to your breathing, heartbeat, or how your body moves.
To relieve tension, try deep breathing.
Worry causes you to breathe more quickly and shallowly, which reduces your oxygen intake and can exacerbate your anxiety symptoms. Taking a moment to practice deep breathing might help you relax your body and mind.
Discuss your concerns.
You can acquire a wider perspective on your views by speaking with a dependable friend or member of your family over the phone, via video chat, or in person. Worries that are suppressed or kept to yourself only accumulate and can eventually become overwhelming.
Just be careful about who you don’t approach when you’re worried. Some individuals could worry excessively or have trouble empathizing. You can feel worse after speaking with them. Therefore, be careful with who you confide your troubles.
Limit the duration of your worry
Worrying has a tendency to eat up a lot of your time if you’re not careful. You can give yourself some time to worry and then let it go by giving your worry a time limit. You could jot down your worries at this time. Your brain may be tricked into believing that it can now move on with its life without thinking about its anxieties thanks to this.
Additionally, you can review previous worry lists and check out the items that are no longer on your mind or didn’t pan out as badly as you had anticipated. This can assist in teaching your brain that these concerns were ultimately unnecessary.