Thirty-eight percent of people worry every day. Many people say, “I have been a worrier all my life.” Ironically, almost 90% of things that people worry about turn out to have neutral or even positive outcomes. It’s like having a fire alarm going off daily where there is no smoke. In my book, The Worry Cure, I describe many techniques that you can use to take control of your worry.

Here are five tips that you can start using every day:

1. Is this productive or unproductive worry? Sometimes your worry can be useful in solving a problem. For example, it is productive to double-check your reservation at a hotel, because you can actually do something about it. But it is not productive to worry about whether people will like you while you are on your trip.
2. Can I accept some uncertainty and some lack of control? We often worry to get certainty and try to control what may be uncertain and uncontrollable. Perhaps you would be better off accepting uncertainty for now.
3. Think of your worry as an intrusive thought that is irrelevant to you. You can conceptualize the thought as background noise: like traffic outside your window, a telemarketing call, or trains passing by.
4. Set aside worry time. As you go about your day, write down your worries as they occur and set them aside until later. Then during a brief scheduled time, allow yourself to consider all your worries. Often you will find that the things you worried about in the morning seem irrelevant or even silly in the afternoon. This practice allows you to move freely through your day without the worries hijacking you.
5. Practice mindfulness daily. Mindfulness exercises include observation, non-judgmentalism, and letting go. You might find that your mind is jumping around, adding to your worry. Mindfulness will help you pay attention to the present moment instead of future hypothetical disasters you may imagine.

Practice these techniques and many others in my book–free yourself from the worries that haunt you.