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What is Worry?
Worry is a feeling of anxiety or unease about something that may happen or may have happened. It usually involves persistent thoughts about potential problems and negative outcomes. Short-term worry can be productive and propel us into action. Chronic worrying often results in the opposite, frequently spiraling causing rumination and inaction, and magnifying stress. Rumination can also result in shame, anxiety, and depression.
How Can Worry Show Up?
Imagine for a moment… You have a presentation tomorrow at 9 am at work that you’ve been preparing for for three week. The problem is that tonight you find it difficult to relax before going to sleep. You worry that if you don’t fall asleep soon, you’ll be exhausted tomorrow morning. Then, you worry what’ll happen if you’re too exhausted in the morning to function. You imagine attempting to give a presentation with periodic forgetfulness and stumbling over concepts. You worry about how your coworkers will view you if you’re unable to give a stellar presentation. You think about the materials you’ve prepared and wonder if you’ve provided enough detail just incase tomorrow’s anticipated exhaustion leads to forgetfulness. You start to worry that if you’re unable to fall asleep soon, you’ll likely oversleep and arrive late.
You finally fall asleep and wake up the next morning on time. Everything is fine except you spent hours the night before anticipating every possible scenario of what could go wrong. You worried yourself to exhaustion. Having slept 7 hours, you’re left wondering why you awakened feeling mentally and physically fatigued. How did worrying serve you? Let’s imagine for a moment if you had overslept. What’s the worst that could happen? Would you communicate with your supervisor or team and possible move your presentation to the end of the meeting? What are the options? How would worrying serve you?
How has worry helped you? Worrying only serves to exhaust us and paralyze us with mental anguish and endless cycles of rumination. You might be wondering about the function of worry. Research suggests worry helps to reduce physiological arousal of anxiety (e.g., rapid heart beat, perspiration, etc) and negative images (e.g., coworkers expressions of disappointment during your presentation, etc.). Worry helps to keep you in the verbal domain, fixated on the details, therefore, preventing you from seeing the big picture which is often more frightening.
How Does Worry Affect the Mind and Body
When worry and anxiety become chronic, your body releases the stress hormone, cortisol. High levels of cortisol can cause symptoms such as headaches, Brussels, diarrhea, heart palpitations, fatigue, poor concentration, low libido, muscle aches, and high blood pressure. High coritsol levels also increase blood sugar and triglycerides which trigger chronic conditions like diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
Laura Kubzansky and colleagues at the Harvard School of Public Health looked at the relationship between worry and coronary heart disease in a cohort of 1,759 older men that they followed over a 20-year period between 1975 and 1995. They found that a high level of worrying at the outset of the study was a significant predictor of coronary heart disease during that 20-year period, and concluded that chronic worry may directly increase the risk of coronary problems. Similarly, Alison Holman and colleagues studied the effects of acute stress during 9/11 and found that ongoing worries about terrorism predicted cardiovascular health problems up to two or three years after the original attacks.
Strategies for Worrying Less
If something’s wrong, fix it if you can. But train yourself not to worry. Yes, it’s easier said than done, however, start small and over time you’ll find strategies that work for you. You can train yourself to worry less by:
1) Recognizing that worrying drains you of your physical emotional and mental health.
2) Becoming more aware and notice when you’re replaying events in your mind over and over again or worrying about things you can’t control. Acknowledge that these thoughts are unproductive.
3) Acknowledging your thoughts might be exaggerated and replace thinking errors with realistic appraisals of the issue.
4) Scheduling 20-min worry sessions.
5) Focusing on active problem-solving.
6) Practicing relaxation and reflection techniques everyday to teach yourself how to let go of intrusive thoughts.
7) Distinguishing between real and imagined scenarios.
8) Being patient with yourself.
Keep in mind, our experiences don’t depend on the amount of worrying we do. Our experiences depend on productive cognitive habits and our actions. Start today by setting small goals for conquering the chronic worry in your life.
Self-help information and information from the internet is useful, but it is not a substitute for professional advice. If you are currently in treatment or in therapy, please consult your therapist, psychiatrist, or other mental health professional.
Sources
Kross E. Chatter: The Voice in Our Heads, Why it Matters, and How to Harness it. Penguin RandomHouse, 2021.
Kubzansky, L. D., Kawachi, I., Spiro, A., III, Weiss, S. T., Vokonas, P. S., & Sparrow, D. (1997). Is worrying bad for your heart?: A prospective study of worry and coronary heart disease in the normative aging study. Circulation, 95, 818-824.
Goyal M, et al. (2014). Meditation programs for psychological stress and well-being.
jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/1809754
Lamothe, C. & Hoshaw, C. (2021). 7 Ways to Kick Worrying to The Curb. https://www.healthline.com/health/worrying
