Kicking the worry habit
“Every problem has its price, but if you worry you pay double.” I found this powerful statement on a souvenir magnet in a hotel gift shop. It came just when I needed a jolt to get me out of my worry habit. I don’t worry anymore (that’s the absolute truth), but it was a long journey to get here.
Almost everyone worries. Mark Twain famously said, “I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened. Worrying is like paying a debt you don’t know. And that’s what’s wrong with worrying. Your calm, happy life is disturbed, not by real events, but by stories you make up about the future. When you worry, you are not handling anything. Instead you are taking your attention away from the present, where reality is. You are actually missing your present life while worrying about an imaginary future. One day the future will be today, without any intervention from you, and then you can deal with what comes up in the moment.
Maybe you don’t care so much about living in the moment. Worry is harmful for lots of other reasons. Here are some: It can cause physical reactions like headaches, muscle tension, high blood pressure, fatigue, sleep disturbances, sweating, GI symptoms (including IBS), dizziness, dry mouth, and rapid heart rate. It can cause mental symptoms such as difficulty concentrating, nervousness, restlessness, or a feeling of impending doom. It can increase your appetite causing weight gain, especially around the belly (and here you can circle back to heart problems).
But you don’t have to worry about worrying, you can do something about it. I am going to tell you how I overcame my worry habit, and then I will give some other suggestions that might help you, because there’s no “one size fits all” here.
The magnet. Something about that magnet got me to thinking about worry, and how it didn’t make sense. Then experience drove it home. One day I got stuck in a long meeting at work in Brooklyn. I lived in Rockland County, NY, and whenever I went to the Brooklyn office I would head home at 3pm, because of the long commute. I was near tears as it became apparent I would be heading home in the middle of rush hour. I would be on the road FOREVER. I phoned my husband, who sympathized but said, “Leave when you can. Maybe it won’t be as bad as you think.” And he was right. There was less traffic than I usually found when I left at 3. The trip home was easy! Meanwhile all those stress hormones had been flooding through my body, for no reason at all. My attitude toward worry began to change.
The serenity prayer. My aforementioned husband was in recovery and attended AA meetings every week. Through him I came to be familiar with the serenity prayer. And I started applying it to everyday situations. If I recognized that I was starting to worry about anything, I would stop, and analyze it like this: Can I do anything to change it? If yes, I would make plan, and after that I didn’t need to worry about it. If no, then it was out of my control, and I let it go. Understand, this happened over time. I learned that not much is under my control at all, so why worry? Just let go.
The surrender box. This was a tool I learned about from The Daily Om, a useful website if you want to check it out. The point of the box was to place in it anything that was causing worry, thus surrendering it to God, or the Universe, to take care of. This would free you up so you could get back to whatever else you were supposed to be doing. As I was nearing the completion of my Health and Wellness Coach Training Certification course, I worried about how I would get any business for the coaching practice I was planning to start. I was noticing some of the symptoms described above. So I wrote on a slip of paper, “how will I get any business,” and I put it in my surrender box. I think it’s still there. Of course, for this to work, I had to believe it would be effective. It definitely helped me finish the course, and helped me to believe in my business, which did eventually grow.
Meditation. This is one of the classic recommendations to help you worry less. Meditation keeps you in the present moment, where worry does not exist. I have been meditating twice a day for two years and I can’t say enough how much it changed my life, and eliminated worry altogether.
If none of this resonates with you, yet you haven’t stopped reading, here are some traditional practices that can help you reduce worry, or at least manage it better.
Set aside “worry time.” Give yourself 15 minutes or so to worry. This might be a good time to write those worries down. Some sources say to avoid doing this near bedtime, but others think bedtime is good because your brain might come up with answers while you sleep. I leave it to you to figure out what it works for you. When your time is up, stop worrying.
When a worry comes up at other times, tell yourself you’ll think about it during your worry time.
Ask yourself if there is anything you can do about what’s worrying you. If so, can you make a plan?
Accept the worries about things you cannot control, acknowledge them, then let them go. They might come back - that’s ok. Accept them and let them go again.
Try some mindfulness activities such as yoga, meditation, and breathing exercises. These help keep you in the present.
Finally, don’t worry about worrying. It’s normal. But if it interferes with your life, then it’s time to take some steps to lessen the worrying and increase the joy.
