It’s so easy to get into the cycle of thinking negatively, jumping to the worst-case scenario, and worrying all the time. We may think that worrying is preparing ourselves for if things don’t go the way we want. However, the truth is, that worrying does nothing other than make you feel bad. It doesn’t stop bad things from happening to you. However, worrying all the time and thinking the worst can change your behaviour and create negative outcomes. Therefore, setting a ‘worry date’ will help you to focus your thoughts and control your emotions.
Remember, you can’t live a happy and healthy life if you’re stressing and worrying about things that haven’t happened yet or might not ever happen. Worrying can affect us massively both mentally and physically and can take over our emotions and lives.
Therefore, you should set aside some time in your day or week where you permit yourself to worry but only on this ‘worry date’. Only allow yourself to worry for a set amount of time, say around 20-30 minutes. This will help you stop letting your worries and stress ruin the rest of your day.
Whenever you start to worry about something or start stressing about something, open up your phone’s note section. Then, make a list of what’s on your mind, and then forget about it. This way you know you won’t forget anything that you feel is important. You’ve acknowledged the worry but won’t lose time stressing about it now.
Remember
More often than not, these worries tend to go away or get less important in time. However, if you’re still worried about something during your ‘worry date’ then you can brainstorm ideas on how to move forward with the situation.
If you can’t control the outcome of what you’re worried about then you need to learn to let it go. All the stress and time in the world thinking about it, won’t change a thing.
However, if it’s something you feel you can take positive steps towards preventing, then set about planning what you’re going to do to improve the situation. This way you’ve acknowledged that it is something that you feel needs attention. Moreover, you will be taking positive actions to improve the chances of preventing it.
It’s Important to Remember that Worrying…
- Won’t change the outcome of things
- Is not good for your mental health, it makes you more anxious, nervous, stressed, and depressed
- Can affect your sleep
- Stops you from seeing the good in situations and your life
- Will stop you from focusing on the present
- Never achieves anything
- Is just your fears, it’s not reality
- Can get in the way of you achieving things and being productive because you are wasting time over-thinking things
- Can hold you back from trying new things because you’re worried about failing, looking stupid, or what other people will say or think of you
- Will stop you from being productive. (Imagine what you could do if you used all that time that you spend worrying productively instead!)
It’s time to stop overthinking, stressing, and worrying about things in your life. All the worrying in the world isn’t going to help. It’s important to focus our energy and thoughts on the present and not worry about what might happen tomorrow.
Spending your time worrying and focusing your mind on negative possible outcomes will never give you positive results in life. Therefore, it’s time that you started to spend this time believing in yourself and your capabilities instead!
Making a ‘worry date’ with yourself will help you to stop wasting more time throughout your day stressing over things.
Pick a Time for Your ‘Worry Date’
Experiment and see what works for you. Pick a set time and place that you dedicate to worrying. It could be in the morning before breakfast every day or every Monday morning at the kitchen table.
Allow yourself around 20-30 minutes where you can worry until your heart’s content. Use this time to think about whatever is causing you to be anxious or stressed. However, once the time is up, you need to promise yourself that you’re not allowed to worry the rest of the day or week.
Whenever you find yourself worrying about something, jot it down on your worry list quickly. However, then you cannot think anymore about it until your next worry date.
It’s important not to have your ‘worry date’ close to bedtime. After all, your mind will find it hard to switch off from your worries because you are not busy going about your day at this time.
Make a Worry List
Make a list in the note section of your phone or keep a piece of paper and a pen close to hand and write down everything and anything that you’re currently worrying about. This will help to get the thoughts out of your head and will stop you from worrying about forgetting what you were worrying about!
It’s a great way to help your brain to switch off from thinking about these worries further because you know that they are there in list form and you can return to them later.
You may find that these worries don’t seem as important when you revisit them on your next worry date. A lot of the time things seem to work out better than we expected.
Look for Positive Steps You Can Take
During your ‘worry date’ read the list of notes you’ve made throughout the day or week. Spend time seeing if they still hold importance to you and if they are still playing on your mind.
You may find that some things have worked themselves out already and you can move straight on to something else. Once you see your worries written down in front of you, you will be able to look more objectively at them.
If you’ve been worrying about something that is completely out of your control then allow yourself to worry about it during your ‘worry date’. Think about the worst thing that could happen but then accept that you can’t change it and you need to learn to start to let it go. If you continually revisit this worry and acknowledge that no amount of worrying will change the outcome, then over time you will think less and less about it.
However, if you’re worrying about something that you can control then you can use your ‘worry date’ to jot down ideas and steps you can take towards preventing the negative outcome that you’ve been stressing about.
Focus Time on Calming Your Mind
Worrying affects you both physically and mentally. It negatively affects your emotions, causes stress, can give you headaches and stomach pains, and can cause you to drink more to try and de-stress.
Focusing time on calming techniques and other things that help to take your mind off it is a healthier way to deal with your stress. Focus your energy on something else like cleaning, exercise, brainstorming ideas for something positive, meditation, or yoga. This will help to ease your mind of added stress and help you to let go of some of your anxiety.
If you find yourself starting to worry then you need to start and train your brain not to think of these any further until your next ‘worry date’. Write the thought down and then focus your time and energy on other things that take your mind off it.
“Worrying about how things might go wrong, doesn’t help things to go right.”– Karen Salmansohn
Summary
It’s important to remind ourselves that the majority of things that we worry about never happen. However, even if they do, it’s never the end of the world. Things tend to not be as bad as our imagination makes them out to be.
Constantly worrying and stressing over a situation can harm the way you act and behave and make your worries more likely to come true. This way of negative thinking leads you to think the worst of yourself and situations which isn’t healthy or useful.
A great technique is to think of yourself in a year… if these stresses and worries won’t be important to you, then stop wasting so much time and energy worrying over them now.
“Don’t miss the sun today worrying about the rain coming tomorrow.”– Unknown
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