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| What Is Worry and
Why Is It A Problem?
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What is worry? The dictionary
defines worry as "to afflict with mental distress or to make anxious".
However, if you pursue the definition further, you find things associated
with worry like “irritate by persistent acts” or “an incessant goading
or attacking that drives one to desperation”, or “disturbing one's composure
or peace of mind by intrusion, interference, or petty attacks”, or even
“petty persecutions that exhaust one's nervous or mental power."
Note that worry is different than fear.
Fear is an important, valid response to danger. Fear generally strikes
suddenly, and is concerned with things that could result in immediate body
harm. Fear sets off the "fight or flight" response. Fear saves lives.
Fear ends shortly after the event that triggered the fear ends.
On the other hand, worry is thinking
about something that MIGHT happen. It is thinking about putting ourselves
in a situation that may lead to fear or embarrassment.
Worry, in fact, is the
process of becoming distressed about the nonexistent. Put in that
perspective, it seems rather silly and useless.
However, it is not completely silly or useless, in that it can give us the
"edge" we need to be alert. However, uncontrolled, it can lead to all
sorts of problems:
 | Worry is all consuming and takes us
off the track toward meeting our goals or objectives. |
| Worry freezes us – when we worry, we
are like a scared animal who can do nothing but watch in horror as the
world goes spinning out of control and toward our harm. |
| Worry takes up precious time. When
we are worrying, we are not usually working on a goal or objective.
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| Worrying directs our thinking the
wrong way. When we are worrying, we are focusing on a problem, not a
solution. |
| Worry takes up energy. We are very
busy, worrying, expending all our energies on what can go wrong.
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| Worrying is self-igniting. When we
worry about one thing, it often leads to worries about other things and
leads us to illogical, even bizarre, conclusions. If you are worried that
you will lose your job, soon you may worry yourself into thinking about
divorce, loss of your home, loss of your family, and a life on the street
as a homeless person! This is simply nonsense, but sometimes worry
takes us here! |
Worrying is not unusual. We all worry
from time to time. Some people use worry as a form of planning for
contingencies. However, we can often carry worry to extremes where it
becomes illogical or irrational. |
| How Do I Know
If I Am Worrying Excessively? |
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It is quite easy to determine if you are worrying
excessively. The following are simple, straightforward signs that
your are worrying too much.
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You regularly worry about things in the past or in the
future. |
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You frequently have trouble falling asleep or staying
asleep because you are worrying |
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You begin to obsess about your worries, actually begin to
project images of worrying situations in you head and worries start
taking over your thoughts |
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You no longer can enjoy activities because you are
worrying about things too much |
Everyone worries from time to time, but when worrying
begins to interfere with you life, it is time to do something about it! |
| What Can I Do
About Excess Worry? |
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The answer to resolving most worrying situations is to take
action. Oftentimes we delay taking action as a stalling technique to
avoid attacking the task or situation that is worrying us. This is
self-defeating behavior, and will never resolve the worry. And, as
we have found previously, taking action in itself will significantly
reduce worry.
It is important to remember that worry is a product of your
mind. You built it in your head, you can also take it apart. We all seem
to have great skill in building it up, let’s see what kind of skill we
have at taking it down.
How do we take
action, and what action do we take? The answer is somewhat
situational, but here are some suggested techniques:
Here are some
suggested techniques for attacking our worries:
Look at the odds:
When you look at the odds, you eliminate the worry by
gauging the reality of the worry and determining the likeliest outcome.
For example, suppose you are worried about dying in an aircraft accident.
After all, people die every year in aircraft accidents. What can you do?
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You can focus on every crash you have ever seen and
assume it will happen to you. This will keep your worry going |
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You can
realize that the odds of dying in an aircraft crash are about one in
seven million (1:7,000,000). (For comparison’s sake, about seven
million people live in New York City). |
What is the
likeliest outcome? The likeliest outcome is that you will have a pleasant
flight (although a little crowded if you are in coach!) Concentrate on
that!
Deductive Reasoning - Facing the worst:
One of the best ways to control your worry is to start out
by saying, “what is the worst thing that can happen?” And answer
realistically. This is great for worries about anything from social
situations to adverse weather to losing your job. For example, you are
preparing to go out on a hike, when the weatherman predicts a chance of
rain. Now, maybe you want to cancel the hike, although you were looking
forward to it. What if you go out hiking and it rains? What is the worst
possible scenario?
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You get wet.
You will go home, dry off, put on dry clothes, and be none the worse for
wear – our bodies are waterproof! (By the way – if you are worried
about being struck by lightning, the odds are 1 in 1,900,000 – less than
dying from a bee sting or a bicycle accident.) |
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You will slip,
fall in the mud. You will get your clothes and yourself dirty. You
will have to take a shower and wash your clothes dirty. |
What is most likely to happen? You will have great hike
and you may be wet for a couple of hours. But then, you may enjoy the
warm glow you feel from taking a hot bath and then spending the evening
with your friends telling stories of the hike while you share a great
bottle of wine!
Other
Techniques for Helping Us To Take Action:
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Is there
something that we are waiting for that we cannot get until later? If
so, we need to set a follow up date and set the problem aside. When the
problem begins to worry us again, simply say to yourself “I cannot worry
about this now – we will take action on the designated date and can
begin worrying about it again at that time, if necessary.” |
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Is there a
logical next step? If so, then take it, or schedule a time to take
it. The sooner, the better. If not right now, explain to yourself
clearly why it must wait. Don’t make excuses; only put it off if there
is value to delaying the next step. Otherwise, DO IT NOW! |
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Is there a
decision to be made that you are putting off? Unless there is new
information coming soon, make the decision now, using the information
that you have available to you. You cannot wait forever for “perfect
information”. |
Long Term
Modification
Finally, as a
way to learn to how to avoid worrying in the long run, we suggest that you
do a worry study. A worry study is a wonderful, very simple
exercise to help you see how irrelevant, wasteful, and unimportant little
worries really are. Every time you notice that something is worrying you,
write it down. You don’t need to be elaborate, or list solutions, or
anything at all, just write the worry down. “I am worried I’ll be late
for work because traffic is slow”. If you have the same concern over and
over again, write it down over and over again. At the end of a week, look
at your list. How many of the things you worried about really caused
significant problems?
You will learn that most of the things we worry about never
happen.
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| Questions About
Worrying? |
| Please feel free to
contact us for further information.
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