5 Ways That Worrying Makes Things Worse Not Better.

Don’t think of this!

If you think of yourself as a “born worrier” or as someone who has “worried all my life” then this blog is for you.

Excessive, persistent uncontrollable, intrusive worrying is often referred to as Generalised Anxiety and it can really mess with our body, heads, and lives as we try and cope with a constant state of stress, fear and nervousness. You may think that worrying is what motivates you to get things done, helps you to solve a difficulty in your life, prepares you for the worst, or shows the world how much you care. However, here are five ways that worrying makes things worse not better…

1.      Worrying about a problem is not the same as solving the problem.

Worrying is often described as a way of trying to cover our bases by focusing on all the things that could happen in a future situation, and then seeing all those things going wrong whichever one we choose. Worrying is our very own Hollywood disaster movie. Understandably this makes us anxious as we think about all of those “What if…” scenarios that could lead to calamity.

If bad things have happened to us in the past, we get the bonus prize of continually mentally chewing that over too – this is called rumination and features quite strongly in depression.

Continually worrying about what might happen puts us on edge, is exhausting and wears us out. Equally worse though, is the fact that worrying about a problem still doesn’t solve it. The original problem doesn’t go away, and now we’ve worried ourselves to a place where there are dozens of other problems we hadn’t thought of before. Not much fun.

In fact it’s not worrying that solves the problem, it’s taking action and then reviewing how it went.

2.      Worrying is a form of avoidance.

Just as worrying doesn’t solve a problem. It’s also a way of avoiding dealing with the problem. Excessive worrying is draining, we usually end up immobilised by it. The problem still feels overwhelming so we think of something else to do instead to distract us, or we tell ourselves not to think about it. Have you ever tried to not think about something?

For example, try not thinking about a white rabbit right now, take a minute or so and tell yourself not to think of a white rabbit and see what happens. You guessed it, we think about it even more and then find thoughts of the white rabbit popping up when we least expect it.

In the same way, avoiding a problem through worrying makes us think about it even more because the more we suppress our thoughts, the harder they will try to break through.

So you may feel better about the problem while eating a bar of chocolate or watching something on TV but you know what happens when the chocolate’s eaten or the programme’s over? Yep, the problem is still there, and so is the worry about it.

3.      Worrying doesn’t make things more certain, it makes us realise how uncertain everything is…which is worrying!

One of the reasons many of us excessively worry (and remember we’re all on a spectrum of worrying because it’s the way we’re wired) is because life is so uncertain. In truth there is very little in life we can be certain about, so it makes sense we use worrying to try and be ready for whatever is thrown at us.

However, it’s this attempt to make everything as certain as possible by controlling as much as possible that makes us more anxious, because we’re so busy trying to conjure up all the ways a situation could go wrong that we don’t actually get around to doing anything.

We have a couple of choices – either trying to make everything as certain as possible (which is impossible, because… life) or accepting and tolerating that the experience of being a human involves the unknown and the uncertain and that’s the way it is.

Therapy can help you build up your tolerance of uncertainty by trying out experiments in uncertainty, some of which are a lot of fun!

4.      We can get caught up in the belief that our worrying is uncontrollable and damaging us.

Have you ever noticed that on some days you worry more than others? Especially if you’re hungry, angry, lonely or tired (HALT)? Or that you can consciously increase the frequency and intensity of your worrying if there’s something going on in your life triggering that “allergic reaction” to uncertainty we talked about just now? Or that some days you realise that you haven’t had time to worry or you’ve simply forgotten to worry? How does that work?

We can have really strong beliefs that our worrying is uncontrollable and damaging us but just because we think something is true, it doesn’t mean it actually is true.

The fact is, we can control our worrying once we know how worrying works and what purpose it serves. Obviously, we can’t control what worrying thoughts pop into our head and draw us in, but we can control how to respond to them.

We can either pull them closer to us and get caught up in them, or we can postpone the worrying, putting it aside until later, and then seeing if the worry really was as urgent and important as it felt at the time it was freaking us out and feeding into our anxiety.

5.      Worrying is not the same as caring.

Often clients will say that one reason they worry is because it shows to others how caring and compassionate they are. Or that worrying is a way of coping with things and stopping bad things from happening.

However, worrying is not the same as doing something.

In fact, as we discussed above, it’s actually a way of avoiding doing something and it makes us more anxious! Think about it, if we worry more on some days and less on others, does this mean that on those lesser days you’re less caring? Of course not. That would mean that someone like the Dalai Lama (someone who famously had no idea what worrying and self-criticism was until he came to the West and saw it all around him) doesn’t care about anything, and we have clear evidence that that’s not true either.

Many of us have strong beliefs about worrying and how useful it is. Or I should say many of us have mistaken beliefs about worrying and how useful it is.

In therapy we can explore where those beliefs came from and what happens when we experiment with changing them. Therapy can also help us examine whether worrying really does bring the positive benefits you think it does, or whether worrying on its own is unhelpful, ineffective, and holding us back (Clue: it’s the latter…)

If you’re someone plagued by worry and anxiety why not contact us at Rhizome Practice to see how we can help. There’s a way to leave excessive worrying behind by training your attention using mindfulness, and replacing worrying with a more effective approach known as problem solving.

This means less worrying, more action and ultimately a better quality of life, and that’s got to be better than sinking in the quicksand of your thoughts, to quote David Bowie.