Concrete Steps for Managing Your Worry
One of the most common (and annoying) symptoms of anxiety is worry. The things you worry about may vary, depending on the specific type of anxiety you personally experience. Regardless of whether you deal with the everyday anxiety that everyone experiences, generalized anxiety, social anxiety, panic attacks, or a specific phobia, you can find strategies below to help. As with all things, “take what you need, and leave the rest.”
1. Ask yourself if your worry is productive or unproductive.
While this may sound strange, the reality is that not all stress and anxiety is bad. Some stress and anxiety move us to take the action steps that we need to take. For example, if you are worried about an upcoming presentation, your worry can lead you to putting in the time and effort to adequately prepare for your presentation. This would be a productive use of your worry as it’s leading you to take helpful action steps. When you use this type of worry in a productive way, you’ll feel more prepared and in control.
There are other times, however, when our worry is not helpful or productive at all. For example, if you are worried about an upcoming doctor’s appointment, but there’s nothing you can do with that worry, your worry only serves to increase your anxiety, tension, and stress. In that case, your worry is not being helpful.
Be sure to ask yourself if your worry is productive or unproductive. If your worry can be used in a way that is helpful or productive, go ahead and make good use of it! If your worry simply results in you spinning your wheels, be sure to recognize that and use a coping strategy below to prevent this type of worry from increasing your stress and anxiety. After all, this type of worry won’t do you any good!
2. Catch the “what ifs…”
One of the key signatures of worry is any statement that starts out with “what if…” “What if this happens? What if that happens? What if they say this? What if they do that?” “What if” statements are all about possibilities, not realities. Our imagination can go really wild when we are engaging in this type of thinking. These “what if” statements cause us to feel anxious, even though the scenarios we are imagining have not even happened. They cause us to feel anxious even though the scenarios we’ve imagined may never happen.
When you catch yourself talking or thinking about all of the “what ifs,” it’s important that you recognize the use of this language, and the fact that it is likely an indicator that you are engaging in anxious thought patterns. Catch these thoughts, so you can prevent yourself from getting caught up in an anxious thought spiral. Once you catch the “what ifs,” you might benefit from using some of the other coping strategies below.
3. Focus on the facts, and bring yourself back to the present. What is really happening right now?
If you’ve read this far, you know that unproductive worry and “what ifs” are not based in the present, and they’re often not based on facts. Our worries are often based on fears, future predictions, and negative assumptions that we’re making about the future. Some people like to refer to this as “future tripping.”
Anxiety is often future-oriented, and recognizing when we have strayed from the present can be helpful. The future scenarios we paint in our heads don’t exist here in the present, although we sometimes conclude that these future predictions are in fact truth. This causes us to feel anxious, as we forget that the things we are worried about are not final in that they have not yet come to pass (and potentially may never come to pass). Unfortunately, many people are also fearful of letting go of their worries as they hold an underlying belief that worrying helps them be prepared “for when the next shoe drops.”
If you recognize a tendency to “future trip,” the first step is to recognize when your thoughts have taken you to the future. From there, bring yourself back to the present moment and focus on the facts of your current situation. For example, a future-oriented worry might be, “I know I’m going to fail this test.” Using this technique would mean recognizing that you have not yet taken this test. You have not yet failed this test and don’t actually know that you will fail it. It may mean reminding yourself that you still have time to study and prepare, so that you can do well on the exam.” You may need to redirect yourself back to the present several times each day.
4. Write down your worries, and look at them later.
Some people find it helpful to get their worries out of their head by putting them down on paper. This can be done in a few different ways:
Write down your worry, and put it away in a worry box or jar.
Write down your worries as they come up throughout the day, and then put the list away until later when you’ll have the chance to sit down and look at the concerns that are showing up.
Journal about your worries. If you’re short on time, set the timer on your phone, and write as much as you can as fast as you can about the situations you are worried about. In doing so, you’ll get those thoughts out of your head, and potentially gain some additional insight about what’s happening as a result of taking time to reflect and process. With journaling, you can always look back on what you’ve written to notice any patterns that are showing up.
5. Focus on your breathing.
While most people have probably heard about the importance of diaphragmatic breathing by now, it can be helpful to understand how this can help you get out of your head. When you’re lost in thought and caught up in worrying, you are not being present. When you focus on your breathing, you are forced back into the present moment where you are also more aware of what’s happening in your body. Focusing on your breath can calm your body which is also helpful for alleviating anxiety.
The key to this is that you truly have to focus on your breathing and your body. If you find yourself getting caught up in thoughts again, just redirect your attention back to your breathing and the sensations in your body. The great thing about diaphragmatic breathing is that you can do it anywhere and at any time, and nobody else has any clue that you are trying to alleviate your anxiety or cope with your worry.
Depending on your personal situation and your own preferences, you may find that you gravitate towards some of these strategies more than others. That’s OK! What matters is that you find a few different coping strategies that work well for you, so you can feel better. The strategies that work well for one person may not resonate with another. You’re unique, and the coping strategies that you utilize will be too!
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Written By: Melissa Wesner, LCPC
Photos: Ann Nekr, cottonbro, Ylanite Koppens, and Karolina Grabowska on Pexels
Date of Download: 3/1/2021
