This is my second blog post about worrying. I think worrying runs through my veins. If my mind is idle, I’m usually worrying about one thing or another. Seriously, I should win some sort of an award. Money, relationships, clients, the future… my mind floats from one topic to the next, just worrying. Sometimes it’s like my brain goes “hmm I haven’t worried about this family member for a while, better spend some time on that”. It almost feels like if I’m not worrying about something, I must not care. I must not want to make things better, because I’m not even bothering to worry about it.
This logic is quite flawed, and I’m trying to work on changing it. I’m a professional worrier, born by a professional worrier, so it’s not a quick fix. It is something I’ve been trying to understand, work on, and accept—and if you’re curious, or if you see yourself in me, please read on (and share any other tips!).
Why do we worry?
Learned behavior—society, parents
Part of the way we think comes from the people around us. If you’re around people who spend most of their time worrying, it makes sense that you would go to the same place. Our society romanticizes stress, depression, and anxiety in a lot of ways. In college, it was not unusual to hear students talk about how little they sleep, how unhealthy they eat and drink, and how stressed they are about classes. If you weren’t stressed, you were either in easy classes or slacking off. Being stressed/anxious/worried was part of the culture. If we’re taught that being worried is a sign of caring, or a sign of trying, of course our brain will want to go to that place. If you can’t study for the test, you better at least be worrying about it.
I remember thinking frequently to myself “I should be more worried about__”, be it a paper, test, etc. What I meant was that I should be more motivated to do my best, but worry is not necessarily a precursor to a drive to do better. It can be—that is the purpose it serves—but it doesn’t have to be.
Feeling “useful” (evolutionary perspective)
From an evolutionary perspective, it makes sense that we would worry about things. We’ve had a lot as a species to be worried about! If we weren’t worried about our future, and the futures of our offspring, maybe we wouldn’t have figured out fire, shelter, the wheel, and even electricity. Worry drives us forward and makes us figure shit out. It often motivates and invigorates us to find a solution to our problems.
For example, if you find yourself worrying about an exam or a deadline, and then you start working on that as a result of your worrying, that’s a good thing, right? You worried, and that brought you to fix a certain problem. That was a “productive” worry!
More often than not, however, at least for me, the worries don’t bring about some immediate change. We’re often worrying about things we have no control over anyway! There is no immediate fix to the problem, so our worries just churn in our brain with no outlet.
Anxiety
Excess worrying is a symptom of generalized anxiety disorder. If you’re a worrier, it doesn’t mean you necessarily have anxiety, but if you have anxiety, you probably are prone to worry. Other symptoms of anxiety could include difficulty sleeping, tension in the body, and feeling anxious a lot of the time.
Anxiety and worrying go together so nicely, don’t they? Worrying does a fantastic job of escalating my anxiety! Anxiety tells us that we’re in some sort of danger, we need to be on high alert; worrying tells us what that danger could be.
Traffic is going to be bad, someone could hit me
I said such a ridiculous thing yesterday, everyone is going to think I’m weird
I have a headache, I’m probably getting sick and I’m going to miss that meeting and my boss is going to be pissed
I have a presentation tomorrow that I’ve barely thought about. I’m going to make a fool of myself
You get the picture. If you’re a worrier, you’ll have no trouble coming up with your own list of anxious worrying.
How to stop.
Before giving you my amazing, quick fix to worrying, I’m going to go into some neuroscience (yay, fun!). Our brain is full of pathways. When we use certain pathways more often, our brain goes “oh, this must be super important”, and it makes this lovely myelin sheath, which turns that pathway into a highway. Electricity (information) will travel faster down those pathways. It doesn’t mean those pathways are more important. It just means we use those more.
This is relevant in many ways that we think, in breaking habits, in our thought patterns and creativity. I feel it’s important to talk about with worrying, because our worries can seem so important to think about, as if something bad is going to happen if we don’t think about them. They are myelinated, so they are faster than other thoughts, but they aren’t more important. Be it a learned behavior, an evolutionary gift, or a product of anxiety, they’re a habit.
Breaking the habit
Recognize when the worrying starts. This doesn’t mean thinking “gosh darnit, Grace, I can’t believe you’re worrying over that dumb thing again! Just STOP it!” That’s not very kind or compassionate! I would aim for something more like “Oh, I’m worrying about this thing again. Huh.” Remember that with mindfulness, you’re aiming for a non-judgmental attitude toward your thoughts :)
Ask yourself if it is something you have control over. Are you worrying about other people’s driving? Or your laundry that needs to get done? If it’s the laundry, that’s a (relatively) easy task! When you start the laundry, that worry will have served its purpose.
If it’s other people’s driving, you probably don’t have much control over it. It’s a reasonable enough thing to be worried about, but it’s not something that worrying will fix.
Come back to the present moment. When you have that realization “okay, this isn’t something I can control”, try to bring your attention to something in the “real world”. Notice your breathing. Notice something in your environment. If you’re staring at a blank computer doing nothing but worrying (I find myself doing that a lot!), take a breath and remember what you were trying to do.
Other tips
Talk to friends and loved ones. It can be so helpful just to say out loud “I’ve been so worried about ____ lately”. Maybe they’re worried too. Maybe you can laugh about it together, because it will sound silly to say out loud. Either way, it takes some power out of the thought to just say it out loud.
Go to therapy. This is the tip that helped me, and continues to help me!
Practice mindfulness. If you’re still not sure what I really mean when I say that, check out my post on mindfulness here.
