Kick the worry habit!

Oct 04, 2023

Does your mind often drift to an imagined future of negative scenarios?

If so, you just might be a worrier.

When we worry, we’re essentially making negative predictions. Worry is the tendency of your mind to make a beeline to the worst-case scenario overlooking all the other possible scenarios, including the best-case and the most likely ones. Worry is a mental habit—a habitual bias in your thinking.

While everyone worries occasionally, chronic and pervasive worry creates stress and anxiety. And it’s a killjoy. Imagine you’re sitting on a beach trying to enjoy the last day of your vacation, but your mind keeps going to the possibility of getting stuck in traffic on the way to the airport and missing your flight. What’s needed in this moment is the ability to reel your awareness back to the present moment. To feel the sand between your toes and the sun on your face and hear the seagulls. Easier said than done.

Most chronic worriers tend to push their worries away and keep them at bay with constant distraction. But you can’t distract forever.  Eventually, your worry thoughts will hit. So, it’s a good idea to diversify your current strategies for handling worry. If you’d like to worry less and enjoy life more, try some of these cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) hacks.

Evaluate your Worries

Counter to the M.O. of most worriers, CBT focuses on bringing the worry thoughts into awareness and then evaluating them for accuracy.

Worry is a negative prediction of something that is possible. But practically anything is possible. So, the more relevant question is how likely it is. To determine that, you need to examine the factual bases for and against your prediction.

First, force yourself to commit to a percentage of likelihood. 100% is certainty, and 50% is chance. Then, write out the facts that support your prediction, but also the facts that contradict it. For example, you may believe it’s 70% likely you’ll flunk an upcoming exam because you haven’t begun studying. On the other hand, there may still enough time to start studying and you’ve never flunked an exam in your life. After you’ve evaluated the bases for and against your worry, reassess the likelihood. It might seem less likely now.

If the probability of what you’re predicting is still too high for your liking, ask yourself what you can do to decrease it. In other words, shift from worrying, which is basically repetitive cognitive churn, into problem solving to decrease the likelihood. For example, rather than worrying about flunking, study. Rather than worry about being stuck in traffic and late, leave early.

If the probability of what you’re predicting is still too high for your liking, ask yourself what you can do to decrease it. In other words, shift from worrying, which is basically repetitive cognitive churn, into problem solving to decrease the likelihood. For example, rather than worrying about flunking, study. Rather than worry about being stuck in traffic and late, leave early.

Keep track of actual outcomes

Did you ever stop to notice how many of the negative things you were bracing for never happened? In another words, your worry was a complete waste of time. You made your flight, you passed your test. Most worriers tend to overlook the actual outcomes of their predictions, dismissing the better-than-expected ones. Instead, they just race on to the next worry. To break the worry habit, it’s important to track the actual outcomes and write them down. Then, go back once or twice a week and reimagine the better-than-expected outcomes. Imagine yourself strolling up to the gate in time for the flight or seeing your passing grade on the exam. It takes more effort to encode positive information in the brain because of the negativity bias. Reimagining the better-than-expected outcome will increase the odds of remembering them and of more realistically evaluating the likelihood of your next worry.

Mindfulness

Because worry is future focused, it has the net effect of taking us out of the present moment. We may be physically present, but the focus of our awareness is on the future. For this reason, it’s important to cultivate the ability to anchor in the present moment through mindfulness practice. Mindfulness is nonjudgmental and undivided awareness of present experience. We can cultivate this skill through meditation, but also by bringing nonjudgmental and undivided awareness to everyday activities, such as eating, drinking tea, and listening to the sounds around us.  Then, when you catch yourself contemplating some imagined negative scenario, you’ll be able to reel your awareness back to present moment and let your worry go.

Remember, worry is not mandatory. If you’d like to worry less and enjoy life more, try some of these CBT hacks and you just may find your kicking the worry habit.

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