by Sophie Nicholls

People regularly say to me: ‘I want to stop worrying but I don’t know where to start.’

This article will help you to understand how you can begin to transform worry into a constructive activity by regularly applying a few simple strategies.

Is worrying spoiling your enjoyment of your life?

These days, many people find themselves experiencing the effects of worry in stress and anxiety and even physical symptoms. As we all become more aware of the way that stress can affect our health, I often meet people who are worrying about their worrying!

But did you know that there is a difference between worrying endlessly without finding solutions and worrying helpfully and cosntructively; in other words, that there is a ‘good’ and a ‘bad’ kind of worrying? Did you know that it is possible to learn how to worry well?

What is worry?

One way to understand worry is as a survival mechanism. We are using our cognitive skills to think through a number of different possibilities and scenarios so that we can avoid putting ourselves at risk: ‘If this happens, then…’ ‘If I do this, then… and then…’

This mechanism goes all the way back to our early history as human beings, when it was crucial for us to be able to imagine possible dangers ‘out there’ in order to prevent encounters with enemies, wildebeests and other threatening entities. But this ancient survival mechanism ceases to be useful to us when we find ourselves thinking about a colleague at work or a decision about a new job. There are few situations in which we might find ourselves under actual physical threat and yet many of us still find ourselves reacting with a debilitating worry response.

The irony is that when our bodies respond in this way to everyday situations rather than the wildebeest, we’re unlikely to be able to make good decisions, think things through constructively and take action. Instead, our bodies are busily releasing adrenaline and we are awash with stress hormones, ready to fight or run away from the perceived danger. This ‘fight or flight response’ is very effective in an emergency but not so helpful when we need to have a meeting with the bank manager. But the good news is that we can learn some simple strategies to change this.

How to worry constructively

Here are a few strategies that will help you to use your ability to worry in progressive and helpful ways.

1. Write your worries down

New research shows that writing your emotions down can help to suppress activity in the amygdala (the part of our brain associated with fear and negative emotion) and to activate the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, which has been described as the brain’s ‘centre of catharsis.’ In other words, there is strong evidence from brain science that writing down your negative feelings is helpful. Why not set aside ten minutes to do this each day?

2. Be your own hypnotist

As you read through what you have written, notice any unhelpful language or images that you are using inside your own mind to talk about this worry. The images and words that we use in our conversations with ourselves are incredibly hypnotic. Become more consistently aware of this self-talk and change unhelpful words and images to positive progressive images.

You might catch yourself saying something like: ‘If I do this, then this will happen and then this and then they will do this and then it will all be ruined…’ Avoid second-guessing the future. Do you really know that a particular scenario will happen? Can you really predict how someone else will behave?

3. Plan practical action and create solutions for your worries

For each worry that you write down, always write down an action point that you can take on the worry right now. For example: ‘Things I can do about this are…’

Avoid pressurising yourself unhelpfully. Perhaps there is some practical action that you can take to resolve the worry very quickly. Perhaps your action point is simply to recognise that you can acknowledge this worry and then put it aside for later.

It may even be helpful to realise that there’s no need for you to take any decisions right away, that you can simply be with this situation for the next few days or weeks.

Watever you decide, make sure that you write your action point down.

4. Shift your focus – develop an attitude of gratitude

Once you’ve written down a worry, take a couple of deep slow breath and then write down one thing that you are grateful for in your life right now. Again, research shows that we need a particular attention to keep a worry going. When we shift our attention away from worry and towards openness, gratitude, thankfulness or compassion, our mood shifts too. Each time you write down a worry, finish by writing down ‘I am grateful for… ‘ or ‘I am thankful that…’

5. Choose the right time to worry and ‘shelve’ your worries for later

Recognise that your physiological state affects the way that you’re worrying. If you are lying in bed with flu, things can seem much more upsetting and miserable than if you are in the middle of a day filled with pleasurable activities.

Experiment with saying to yourself, ‘I will worry about this later, when I’ve had dinner.’ You might be surprised how it becomes hard to remember, when the time comes, what it was that you were worrying about previously.

Or why not set aside a regular time for worrying and then stick to it: for example, first thing in the morning, or after you have eaten or when you have done some exercise and those ‘feel good’ endorphins are flowing around your body. You can get on with your day knowing that any extra worry outside these times is superfluous. You have plenty of time for your worries in the regular slot that you’ve created!

Key Points: Use your worry in positive and progressive ways

Recognise that you don’t need to be worry-free in order to feel good.

Schedule some regular time to use your cognitive abilities to make constructive plans. Learn what works and doesn’t work for you, what is useful and helpful worrying and what is unhelpful. Get to know what are the most productive times for you to worry and shelve anything else for later.

Over time you will become a wonderfully constructive, progressive worrier!