We all spend too much time worrying about things that will never materialize. And this worry only makes our lives unnecessarily complicated and painful. However there is hope. By implementing the strategies in this article, each of us can diminish our worries and anxieties, and thereby be free to enjoy life to its full potential.
Delay Worrying
This is a simple technique to stop our worries. If you find yourself concerned over a situation in the future, you can try telling yourself, “let me worry about this tomorrow; there is no need to worry about it today because it won’t happen for quite a while anyway”. Whenever the problem comes to your mind, just try this technique - delay worrying for another day. The fact is that most worries never occur; delaying them is just a clever way of dealing with our negative mind. The nature of our mind is to create problems and things to worry about, but this is a way to forget about them. If you keep ignoring your worries you may later realize they are not going to occur anyway.
Take Action
When we worry about things we can become paralysed by fear. Rather than just worrying, think very carefully about what practical steps you can take to avoid the problem. For example, if you worry about your finances consider how you could reduce your spending, increase your income and consolidate your debt.
If you just worry and feel powerless the problem will not go away, but will continue to lurk in the back of your mind. By taking action and working towards a resolution you will feel much better. Some problems shouldn’t be ignored, they require action; however, for other worries there are no steps that you can take because the worry is mostly imaginary. If you realize there is nothing you can actually do, this is a very good reason to stop worrying about it.
Be Careful What You Wish For
When we think about something intensely we give this idea greater power. In some form these ideas are more likely to materialize. If we worry over making a mistake, we can increase our chances of doing this. We therefore need to be careful what we think about; if we worry over a negative outcome we increase the chance that it will occur - Our worries can become self fulfilling. If we remember the power of thought, we will be more careful about dwelling on painful outcomes. Rather than worrying about a negative event, focus your attention on how difficult situations could be resolved and think how you would successfully deal with the problem.
Keep Things in Perspective
Try writing a list of all the things that you are currently worried about, then examine how much they really effect your life. Are you worrying about important things in life or merely side issues? If your worries are insignificant issues then give them the importance they deserve.- If you don’t get a certain parking space in the morning it is not the end of the world. If a child forgets to turn a light out, it is not a big deal. Don’t be overwhelmed by small things - try to see the bigger picture.
Control Your Thoughts
The key to reducing anxiety and worry is learning the ability to control your thoughts. Sometimes we feel powerless over our own thoughts; it is as if we are slave to them. Whatever thoughts may come we identify with them and accept them as true. However, this is a big mistake. Our own thoughts are often wrong. Also we do have the ability to decide which thoughts to pursue and which thoughts to reject; if we are determined we can prevent thoughts taking hold and throw them out of our mind. If we give importance to controlling our own mind we will be less subject to pursuing endless worries and anxieties.
Don’t Be Vain
It might be harsh, but alas true, that we often worry about what people think of us. We worry endlessly that we might not meet society’s expectations; we worry about whether people will like us. With this mental outlook we start to give too much importance to our ego; it means we are constantly looking for appreciation and the admiration of others. If we don’t get this appreciation, we start to worry that we are no good. If we can develop greater self confidence and inner poise, then we will not worry about what others believe or think.
We need to give less importance to the opinions of the world. Even if we get criticized, we should not worry because we should not identify our self worth with the opinions of others. This is not easy to do overnight, but, if we can detach ourselves from judgements of others we will gain greater inner peace and avoid worrying over the relatively insignificance of people’s judgements.
Analyze Them
Another approach to dealing with worries is to carefully analyze whether they are actually justified. Ask yourself why am I worrying about this? Could I be wrong? Suppose you are worrying about someone’s reaction to what you did at work; it is likely that you are imagining the worse and assigning false motives to the other person. If nothing else you can sow a seed of doubt in the reason for your anxiety. Before, you felt it was 100% certain to occur, but, on reflection you have to admit it is perhaps only 50% true. By analyzing and stepping back from the problem you can evaluate it’s importance and this is an effective way to diminish the power of our worries.
There are always things to worry about, but, as it has often been said, worrying is not going to help. Either take practical steps to deal with the problem or don’t waste your time worrying about unnecessary things. If you keep ignoring worries, eventually they will go away. The key is to live in the present moment; when we worry we are thinking of the future or past and this prevents us from enjoying the present moment. To reduce worries and anxieties is not to ignore problems - it means we work toward solutions rather than just thinking of bad outcomes.
Tejvan Pettinger is an economics teacher in Oxford and enjoys writing on issues of self improvement. He writes for a blog called Sri Chinmoy Inspiration. If you enjoyed this article, you may also enjoy: Effective ways to get out of a Negative Mindset.
Images by Stephmcg and RoshPR.
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I really like tipe #1 here “Delay Worrying”. I often find that anxiety isn’t caused so much by happenings in my life as by my general mood.
Next time I’m feeling anxious, I’ll put off worrying about it till the next day — and hopefully by then I’ll be in a more positive frame of mind!
Ali
This is the first time I have come across the tip “delay worrying”. It makes sense in theory. However, there is a difference in practice between telling yourself not to worry about something until tomorrow and then actually not worrying about it. I prefer to tackle anxiety and worry with the other 6 suggestions made by Tejvan.
Nice list. I use a lot of these. I get anxious a lot and I literally go thru a list of things that worked in the past to see if they’ll work this time.
I need to make a real list. Sometimes the fix doesn’t fit. Like delaying worrying doesn’t work (ever) for Peter. It does work sometimes for me. If I catch myself very early I can say “I’ll think about that tomorrow” and put it on my list for the next day. Usually by the time I get to the list with that item it has dissolved into insignificant for me.
I find one of my biggest worries is worrying about worrying. I’ll start worrying about Project X a lot. Then I’m worried I’m going to be worried about it for a while. Then I’m worried I’ll always be worried about something and that my life is going to be nothing but anxiety! I’ll go on for hours unable to think of anything else. Then I get to Project X the next day and it takes 5 minutes (Take Action) and I’m cured.
“be careful what you wish for” is like “self fulfilling prophecy”. This usually makes me even more anxious as my anxiety is already out of control so it makes me think that the bad thing I’m worrying about is all but inevitable.
Some other things I do off the top of my head. Imagine the absolute worst case scenario and how I would deal with it. Think of things related to my problem that I should be grateful for (i.e. “at least I have a job”). Think about mortality and the eventual fate of the universe; whether you are religious or not the entire universe is going to end someday and absolutely nothing you do now will matter. Etc.
Sorry, rambling.
-Josh
Hi Tejvan, thanks for the reminders as it’s challenging to keep all those useful tips when you actually are feeling everything is coming down at you at once.
One thing I try to do whenever I feel anxiety is that I try to become “totally present” by observing and going into the feeling deeply. It dissolves all anxiety, and I can focus on moving forward, intstead of being stuck in my tracks.
[…] Stop Worrying: 7 Effective Strategies for Dealing With Anxiety […]
I have anxiety levels so high that sometimes I literally can’t sit down and have to pace. Or maybe it’s just my high-energy personality. Kind of like getting an Australian Shepherd to not herd sheep.
Anyways, I read this and kept thinking, “Okay, how can I apply this to my email?” I’ve managed to pound “must answer this immediately for top service impression” into my head so deeply that yesterday, an email my business partner was going to answer - later - drove me nuts.
So I answered it. “Just wanted to let you know that Harry will answer you later on.”
“But James… I was going to answer that,” came Harry’s puzzled comment.
“Well, yes. But I was stressing over it. Now I’m not stressing any more.”
Great article, Tejvan! Dealing with worry is something I’ve been working on for quite some time. It’s also something written about before:
“So, what does the future hold? Well, I don’t know. And for once in my life that doesn’t bother me. The way I see it, there’s no point in letting it stress me out. Most of the things that used to worry me never happened at all. And the few that did happen either didn’t last very long or were nowhere near as bad as I thought they would be.
“My approach is simply to take life one day at a time. I’ve been through enough to know that whatever happens, I’ll be okay. As long as I surround myself with good people, have faith that things will work out, and have fun along the way, I’ll be just fine. More than that, I cannot say.”
(From Work in Progress)
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I love when you talk about delaying worry.
One of my favorite sayings is:
One who worries before it is necessary worries more than is necessary …
In my experience, probably 80% or possibly even more of the things we worry about never come to pass . . .
As Dale Carnegie said: stop worrying and start living.
The biggest help I’ve found in mastering my to-do list is proper prioritizing.
We MUST learn how to prevent the minor things in our lives from taking over the major things in our lives. In other words, that which is truly important should never be at the mercy of that which is truly not so important.
That’s not an easy thing to do, but being aware of its necessity is the first step toward getting it done. Now that you’re aware, get it done …
Take care.
Mr. Positioning
Stanley F. Bronstein
Attorney, CPA, Author & Professional Motivational Speaker
I love the suggestion “don’t be vain” - I never think of myself as vain but it’s so true that when I worry it is very often about what other people will think of me, frequently when they in fact think nothing of me because they’re worried about their own stuff.
-Suz
[…] 7 Strategies for Dealing With Anxiety: PickTheBrain.com shares some strategies for dealing with an emotional state we all endure on some level. […]