How to stop
worrying.
Several studies have shown
that excessive worrying can lead to mental and even physical problems. Most of
the time worries can be a good a thing because they help us to take action and
resolve those worries by doing something about it. But sometimes those worries
can have an opposite effect and lead to anxiety. This anxiety can lead to
insomnia and can lower your immune system. These negative thoughts can create a
vicious cycle that is hard to get out of. These thoughts create other bad
thoughts and after a while you’re just worrying about worrying. Researches from
the University of Surrey described worry as “A chain of thoughts and images
that are affectively negative and relatively uncontrollable.” (L. Chan, 2017)
Tip 1: Create time to worry.
It may sound a bit weird to
create time to worry if you want to stop worrying but hear me out. You have to
create a time, not more then a half our, and space for you to worry. For
example: my bedroom between 18:00 and 18:30. You use this time efficiently to
think about the worries you have and you try to find a solution for it. It
helps to write it down so you have a clear view about it. It is really
important to only use this time to think about your worries. When you find
yourself thinking about it outside your worrying period, try to think of
something else and keep that thought for later.
Tip 2: Focus on solvable worries.
Make a difference between solvable
and unsolvable worries. Solvable worries are the ones where you can resolve
them right away. For example if you have a paper due in the next week, you can
just stop worrying about it and start on it right away. Try to forget about the
unsolvable worries, the “what ifs”, for example “what If never fall in love”
that is not something you can resolve with going in action right now. This way you can make a clear seperation. After a while you can get used to this technique and realise that you're thinking a lot about unsolvable things. So the best thing to do is just forget about that and focus on the things you can solve.
Tip 3: Meditation.
Alan Watts once had this theory
about the mind. He described it as a monkey mind that never stopped generating
thoughts and thoughts about thoughts. It could never be silenced. But what you
can do is start trying to control these thoughts. To do nothing but sit in
silence, or with relaxing music, and try to accept that you can never stop thinking and make peace with
it. Everyone has a different approach to meditation but in all cases it proves
to lower your anxiety and it helps with coping with your thoughts and worries. When
you enter any form of relaxation your anxiety lowers and it creates room to
look at things from a more clear and healthy perspective. An important part of
this is repetition, try to do it daily.
Tip 4: Talk about it.
When those worries pile up in
your head it can create unnecessary bad thoughts spiralling in your mind. Talking
to someone you trust can make this spiral go away. Talk to someone who won’t
judge, criticize or laugh at you but instead someone who listens and cares
about you. This way you can unload your pile of thoughts and reason with it. It
can help with finding solutions you couldn’t think of before because your mind
was too polluted with these worries. It helps putting things in perspective. We
as a human are not meant to live in isolation we have a need to communicate
with others. So use his need to talk about your worries, and don’t be afraid to
do so.
Ofcourse there are many other ways to decrease the bad thoughts. But these are just some easy and simple techniques you can try right away without any preperation. It is important to find something that helps for you, because not everything will work for everyone. You have to find a way that helps you to get rid of these worries. But at the end of the day, the worries may not be gone and some of them never will. It's just a matter of finding peace in there existence and trying to cope with them. And if you think you're the only one who has these worries, trust me you're not alone.
written by Jens Pauly
jens.pauly@student.kdg.be
jens.pauly@student.kdg.be
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