Stop Worrying–A Dozen Practical Tips
April 13, 2009 by Kathie Keeler
Filed under Anxiety
Sometimes just looking at a beautiful scene in nature helps to eliminate worry.
Here are some of my favorite tips to eliminate worry, stress, and anxiety from your life.
Worry is nothing more than a bad habit. And habits can be changed.
Worry Time.
Establish a 10 to 20-minute period of time to list all your worries every morning at the same exact time. This should be before noon every day.
- If you start worrying during the day (other than worry time), yell "STOP! and save your worries for tomorrow. During that time write down all your worries. At the end of your worry time for the day spend a few minutes planning more realistically for the future.
- Recognize and eliminate “what if” statements. If you hear yourself thinking “what if,” you’re on the road to worry.
- When you hear yourself saying or thinking worrisome thoughts, imagine a stop sign. Say to yourself, “STOP!” Say instead, “I’m OK.”
- Distract yourself with something else.
- Talk to a therapist or trusted friend who can help you to dispute your thoughts.
- Write down your negative thoughts. Examine them for truth.
- Avoid the overthinking trap. Stop focusing on the minutiae of a situation. Let it go!
- Ask yourself, "What's the worst thing that can happen?" Then confront that worst thing by asking yourself, "And then what?" Continue asking these same two questions.
- Ask yourself whether what you are worrying about will really matter in a year's time. If the answer is "yes," then focus your thinking on what you can learn from the experience.
- Take action in solving the problem. Every small step that you take to solve the problem will be a step toward greater well-being.
- Examine your beliefs that cause problems. Question those beliefs.
- Learn to visualize positive outcomes rather than predicting negative outcomes for events. Become an optimist!
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