Turn off the worry tap
Owen O’Kane looks at how to stop fretting and start living
There is vast amounts of research linking worry to alterations in mood. It’s no surprise that excessive worry makes us unhappy. When we worry less, we are happier.
We are Generation Anxiety and we’re concerned about many things: our planet, our future, our income, our economy, our politics, climate change, our families, our safety — the list is endless. It seems that the only certainty we have in the world today is that we live in a state of uncertainty — and therein lies the problem.
Let me be upfront with you, I am not interested in exploring how to get rid of worry. It’s simply not possible. What I want to do is to help you manage your relationship with worry. Real changes can happen when this relationship is mastered.
It is important to highlight that there isn’t an instant solution for this, but there are techniques that are effective. Unhelpful thought patterns that have been learned can be unlearned. But this takes time, patience and commitment to retraining your brain. You are learning to respond to worry in a different way, so it will take practice. On some days this will go well, but others could feel like a disaster.
The key point to remember is that every conscious effort you make to change these patterns moves you a step forward. How you decide to use these suggestions will depend largely on the extent of your worrying and your individual patterns. Use whatever works for you and don’t feel the need to follow everything prescriptively to the letter.
HERE ARE THE STEPS I SUGGEST YOU FOLLOW:
■ Make a list of your top worries.
■ Go through your list and ask yourself the question: Have any of these worries ever come true? Most won’t have. However, if the answer is “Yes” to any of the worries, consider changing your thought pattern from ‘what if’, to ‘then what’. The shift from ‘what if’ to ‘then what’ is more resolution-focussed and will lead you to think practically about how you will manage a particular situation should something go wrong. Following this method is far more preferential to the powerless entrapment you find yourself in when in worry mode.
For example, let’s say that you are due to fly to a friend’s wedding abroad and the worry, “What if I miss my flight?” starts to play on your mind. You have missed a flight previously, so this would seem to be a valid worry. When you replace ‘what if’ with ‘then what’, the focus moves away from the worry and towards the solution. If I miss my flight, then I will explore other travel options, I will contact the bridal party to explain the situation and I will focus on finding a way of getting to the wedding. Do you notice the difference?
■ Stop and consider whether you view worry as a positive thing and explore with yourself the possibility of dropping this belief.
■ Make space for ring-fenced ‘worry time’ in your day. This is a dedicated ten minutes every day where you give yourself permission to write down your worries. The benefit of this is that you get interrupted with worries in your day, and you have the option to park them rather than getting derailed. You can return to that worry at a designated time. You may discover that your worry has lost its power when you do return to it, or you may indeed have forgotten it. This is normally indicative that the worry wasn’t warranted in the first place.
Ten Times Happier: How to Let Go of What’s Holding You Back by psychotherapist Owen O’Kane is out now (HQ, HarperCollins)
“Ask yourself: Have any of these worries ever come true?”