How to Take Control of Your Worry: Eight Steps to Free Yourself from Worry

By Dr. Robert Leahy

In a recent Gallup Poll, 60% of people say that they worry every day. Many people say, “I have been a worrier all my life.” Worry is the central feature of Generalized Anxiety Disorder which has a lifetime prevalence rate between 5.1% and 11.9 %. Some people even worry themselves into depression. Typical worries include negative predictions about relationships, work, illness, family members, and finances. What can you do to cope with these negative thoughts?

1. Keep Track of Your Worries: Start by keeping a daily record of your negative predictions for two weeks. These might include thoughts like, “I will never fall asleep,” “I will make a fool of myself at work or socially,” “My partner is getting bored with me,” or “I might get sick.” Look back on the record and note the frequency and the content of your worry
2. Reverse Threat Detection: Imagine a smoke alarm going off when there is no smoke or fire present. What happens in your head when you worry is a similar phenomenon. Most (91.4%) of the time, the subject of a worry has a neutral or positive outcome. People also report they handled a worrisome situation better than they had expected 78 % of the time. One way of reversing your bias towards threats is to consider evidence of safety. For example, imagine worrying about the danger of travel by plane. Now, try to imagine all the planes that land safely every day.
3. Possibility is Not Probability: A lot of worry is focused on negative things that are possible. For example, one patient was repeatedly worried that he had cancer, over a span of 40 years. He kept thinking, “It’s possible that I have cancer.” He repeatedly visited the doctor for cancer screenings which came out negative every time. But visiting the doctor could not eliminate the possibility of cancer. Instead of thinking of the possibility that he had cancer, he should try to think “how probable is it that I have cancer if I have repeatedly tested negative?”
4. Is It Productive or Unproductive Worry? As I outlined in my book The Worry Cure: Seven Steps to Stop Worry from Stopping You, Productive Worry is worry that you can do something about today, whereas Unproductive Worry is not something that you can make progress on today. For example, before I give a lecture, I have productive worry: “Do I have all my slides ready?” I can prepare, review, and edit my slides today to calm that worry. But it is unproductive for me to dwell on things like, “Will people be critical toward my lecture?” since there is nothing I can do about that. Focusing on solving the Productive Worries instead of ruminating on the Unproductive Worries helps my state of mind.
5. What Can I Accept? A lot of worry comes from the difficulty we all have in accepting the possibility of a bad outcome, lack of control, or uncertainty. For example, it is possible that my lecture can go badly. I cannot control how others might respond or the possibility that my mind will suddenly go blank. Imagine if you could accept these realities about life rather than trying to live in a perfect world. What are some possible outcomes of a situation that you might consider accepting?
6. Make Room for Intrusive Thoughts: Many of us suffer from the illusion that our minds will always be clear and logical. This is what I call Pure Mind. Intrusive thoughts, like worries, disrupt the Pure Mind. In truth, everyone experiences a lot of random thoughts and feelings, and many of them dissipate on their own. I like thinking about these thoughts as the telemarketing calls I don’t take, spam emails I delete, and background noise in the city. We can accept that these things are part of life without dwelling on them.
7. Stay in the Present: Worry is always about the future—the Imagined Future. Practicing mindfulness, breathing, and meditation can help you refocus on the present. Another technique is to focus on a behavior you are currently doing to get yourself out of your head. Rather than worry about the future, you can do something in the actual present. This could be doing some work, exercising, playing with your kids, taking your dog—or just yourself—for a walk, or listening to music.
8. Set Aside Worry Time: We often try to get rid of our worries, but despite our best efforts they keep bouncing back. This phenomenon is described as the Rebound Effect: when a suppressed thought returns, and it can return even more strongly than before. Instead of suppressing a worry that comes to mind, write it down. Then set aside a specific period of about 15 minutes every day—preferably the afternoon—as your allotted worry time. During your worry time, look back on your notes. Ask yourself if you are less concerned now than when you originally wrote down the worry (worries often decrease on their own), and if there are repeated worries (then why keep going over the same territory). Then you can try using any of these techniques to mitigate the pervasive worries.