Decreasing Daily Worries

Many of my clients come to sessions seeking support for their anxiety. Anxiety can hit people with intense force and leave them feeling overwhelmed and defenseless. But what do we do when we experience smaller niggling worries? When the concerns feel less intense but still insistent? When we don’t feel the need to seek professional support? 

Managing daily stressors helps to prevent worries from building up to become major concerns or anxiety. Read on to learn some strategies on managing your daily worries…

·     Try to pinpoint the worrying thought:Worries can sometimes be the result of half-formed ideas running around in your mind. It can be helpful to specify and then air out the worrying thought. Write down your top five worrying thoughts. Hopefully then the jumble of thoughts can be broken down into a specific worry to be addressed. Also, bringing the worry out into the open can relieve pressure on its own.

·     Look at the evidence:What is the evidence for your worry? Instead of assuming that the worry is true, have a look at the actual evidence. Try writing down on a sheet of paper the evidence for both sides of the argument. What is the probability that your thought is correct? Rate the thought on a percentage scale (0%–100%) in terms of how much you actually now believe it. 

·     Explore the worst possible outcome: What is the worst thing that could happen? Our imagination is usually worse than reality. Imagine walking into a dark deep cave. You might feel frightened because you can’t see what is stretching ahead of you. Imagine turning on a powerful torch, which shines on the walls, showing the limits of the cave. More often than not if we explore the worst possible outcome, we are still be able to manage it better than we think. 

o  E.g. “what if I fail my HSC exams” – 

§  You may be able to get provisions, 

§  You will be able to use previous grades for average, 

§  You will still be able to work towards your goal over time even if that means waiting a year or two – in the context of your entire life this is not very long!

·     Put yourself in somebody else’s shoes:What alternative views are there? How would someone else view this situation? How would your best friend view this situation? What advice would they give?

·     Cost-benefit analysis:What is the effect of thinking the way I do? Ask yourself: How will holding this thought help me and how will it hurt me? List the advantages and disadvantages of holding a particular worrying thought. Are the possible outcomes changed by holding onto the worry?

·     Set aside some ‘worry time’:Set aside a specific time of twentyish minutes as ‘dedicated worry time’. Write down worries as they arise during the day. Then during worry time tackle each worry as a problem to think hard about and solve. If you find yourself worrying at other times during the day, do your best to postpone that worry until the allotted time. Note: make sure not to schedule worry time too close to bed time.

·     Think in shades of grey:Am I thinking in all-or-nothing terms, or seeing things in a black or white fashion? Are you thinking of yourself as either ‘a total success’, or ‘a total failure’? This common style of distorted thinking misses out on the middle ground, the grey area between the black and white. Remind yourself that things are usually somewhere between 0% and 100%, and realistically rate where your worry is on that scale.

·     Visualise yourself in 1, 5 or 10 years:Will this worry matter in ten years’ time? Imagine that you are ten years older and are looking back to this time in your life. How important will this concern be in the long term? 

·     Turn worry into action:Ask yourself: Is there anything that I can do about this? Is there anything I can do to change the situation? Make a list of the things you could do. 

·     Distract yourself: If you have reached the conclusion that there is nothing that you can do, then distract yourself with something else. Our minds only have a limited capacity so if you start thinking about something else you can crowd out those worrying thoughts. Try messaging a friend, going for a walk, listening to music, looking at nice pictures, lighting a candle or colouring in.

·     Bring yourself back to the present moment:worrying can take you away from enjoying the present moment and make you miss out on things that are important to you. If you have tried all of the above tips and you are still having a difficult time with worrying – get out of your mind and back to the present moment . A nice way to do this is to use all of your 5 senses. Try and find 5 yellow things you can see, 4 things you can physically feel, 3 things you can hear, 2 things you can smell and 1 thing you can taste. The more difficult the better!

Remember:You have been through really hard things before and you have come out the other side. Worries will always come and go, but you have the tools to not let them rule your life.