How to Stop Worrying
You try to act calm on the exterior, but your mind is racing at 100 miles per hour. You do your best to choke it down and tell yourself everything is going to be okay, but your mind laughs at the false insincerity of your hope. Bad things happen to you all the time, why should this be any different? Completely absorbed in the what ifs of the future, this inner turmoil continues to churn, twisting your stomach and ripping down the frail constructs of your mental state. The worry builds into anxiety, and like a rattling lid on a boiling pot, you spend every last bit of your energy trying to keep it from boiling over into a full-blown panic attack.
Somebody asks, “Are you okay?”
“Yea, I’m fine,” you lie, before forcing a smile and moving along with your day.
Worry, fear, and anxiety can consume your life if left unchecked. They may seem like normal, unavoidable aspects of our mental state, but they are anything but necessary. This realization is the key to overcoming the process that traps our minds with worry. You must know that being afraid, stressing over possibilities in an unknown future, and destroying your ability to have peace in the present moment are all unnecessary mental processes that we can learn to control and eliminate.
Fear is an absolutely essential part of our mind‘s evolution. It allows us to sense danger, and to alter current behavior due to the possibility of harm in the future. Without a rational sense of fear, we would perform dangerous acts that could hurt or kill us. People affected by a parasite found in cat feces, known as toxoplasma, have higher levels of a neurotransmitter that mutes the fear response and causes dangerous and risky behavior, leading in many times to serious injury or death.
So, knowing the importance of the fear response, why would I tell you that this is something that should be controlled or eliminated? The key is in the difference between the fear response, and the process of worrying. Where fear is a reminder, like a presentation of risk analysis that can alter your decision making, worry is a negative feedback loop. With worry, you don’t just identify the risky behavior, you think about how horrible the pain you could experience would be. Then you think about it again, and again, and again.
You constantly relive the anguish of the upcoming possibility, creating stress and suffering over something that doesn’t even exist!
Since your mind’s capability to create imaginary worlds and events is endless, there is no limit to the number of negative situations you could create so that you may simulate the pain you would experience. Even if none of those possibilities come true, it is too late, you have already caused damage to your mental state and even hurt yourself physically. So, how do we stop ourselves from worrying in the first place?
When a thought arises about a possible future situation and you begin to worry, ask yourself “Is there anything I can do now to alter that possible event?” If the answer is yes, then do what you can without further thought. If the answer is no, then drop it from your mind completely and bring yourself back to the present moment. Worrying never creates solutions, it only creates stress that will take away your mind’s ability to work through your problems. Any chance you have to avoid negative future events happens in the present, so do what you can now, and don’t waste any time stressing over what you have no power to control.
If you find yourself worrying every day about even the most routine aspects of your life, you may have generalized anxiety disorder. There are many methods, including my own, that may help manage your disorder, but seeking professional help is always an option that you should never feel ashamed to pursue.
If you believe your worry is created out of thin air, with no accompanying stressor, leading to full blown panic attacks, you may have panic disorder. Again, there are methods of managing this disorder, including professional help and medication, that you should inquire about.
However your worry manifests, the moment where it goes from just being a thought, to where it has power over you, is when you treat possibility as a reality and start believing that you are powerless to control these upcoming events. Don’t entertain possibility, focus on what is real and in front of you, do what you can in this moment, and trust that you will be able to do the same regardless of what may come.
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