“Our anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows, but only empties today of its strengths.” – C. H. Spurgeon
Life is full of genuine worry and anxiety. Indeed, worry and anxiety are essential indicators for our bodies. But, there is a point where these feelings go past being ‘normal’ and grow to a point where they can significantly cripple your daily functionality.
Of course, for some, this is a genuine medical issue, but for others, this is an extremely inconvenient tendency and requires some conscious practice to help ease. So, if you are a worrier, and could use some thoughts on how to stop those feelings from getting in your way, look no further…
1. Are Your Worries Worth the Worry?
Consider your list of concerns. Are they, when you really think about it, logical worries? Do they have merit? Or is the irrational part of your brain just running riot and eroding your wellbeing? Which of these worries is actually worth your time? During your designated period of worry, it might be useful to delve into the rationality of your fears about a given situation and explore how valid they really are.
2. Talk to Someone
Anxieties are well eased when you share them with other people. Sharing your thoughts with a trusted friend, partner or relative will help you to see your concerns through the eyes of others. Having someone else weigh in will confirm or deny the validity of your worry, and the connection alone will make you feel infinitely better.
3. Put A Cap on It
You can worry, worry, worry until the proverbial cows come home. Although it is useful to note the potential pitfalls or dangers of a situation, it does not do to dwell on them. All you can do, by dwelling, is to repeat and remind yourself of all the things that could go wrong. These facts do not change as you repeat them, and only make you feel more anxious.
So, put a time limit on your worry. Allow yourself to lay out your concerns for a limited time, after which you need to move on with your day. It may help you to write your concerns down during this period. Often, when we take thoughts out of their head and put them on paper, they don’t look nearly as daunting and feel as overwhelming as they did in your brain.
4. Accept Uncertainty
Look, uncertainty is everywhere and you can’t control everything. Accepting this fact will help you to change your entire relationship with worry. The concerns that you can control and solve, are worth addressing. However, the ones you can’t, well, there’s nothing you can do about them; are they worth the energy you are spending dwelling on them?
5. Work it Out
The issue with sitting and becoming more anxious and less resilient as you turn concerns over in your head is that it changes nothing. These things that are bothering you, is there something that you can do to change them? Are they concerns that can be resolved?
A great way to put worry to one side is to take action. This is for two reasons. One; action, movement, and productivity often lift the mood and will probably ensure that some of your concerns fade on their own. The second is that by actively dealing with a fear or anxiety you are consciously dealing with a problem. Get up, get out of your head, and get the thing solved!
6. Try to Stay in The Moment
Concerns over potential happenings in the future often cripple the ‘now’. A multitude of problems is solved by living in the moment. This may not allay your fears entirely, but it will stop them from impacting the quality of the rest of your life. Focus on the here and now.
By Chris Thomson
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