There’s a point in everyone’s day where worry of some sort sets in. Maybe you’re worried you won’t meet your deadline or make it to your kid’s soccer tournament or that your partner forgot to take an umbrella before leaving for work. But if these thoughts, and many more, run through your head all day and night, preventing you from getting your work done or getting enough sleep, you’re a worrier.
And that has experts worried.
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“Worrying becomes troubling when it consumes more than half of your day and it’s really hard to control,” says Dr. Van Ameringen, clinic director of the MacAnxiety Research Centre. “It’s one of the biggest reasons people attribute to not being able to sleep at night. In more extreme forms, worriers will avoid certain activities, like watching the news or hearing the details about a relative’s upcoming travel, because they’re too worried that something will go wrong.”
Studies have shown that excessive worrying (which is often diagnosed as generalized anxiety disorder) can also come with a host of health ramifications. A study published in BMC Public Health found that participants who ranked higher in pessimism (when gauging agreement to phrases like “in uncertain times, I usually expect the best” and “if something can go wrong for me, it will”) were 2.2 times more likely to die of heart disease. Another study published in BMJ Health found that people who worried more about their health had a 70 per cent greater risk of developing heart disease.
Ameringen also points to depression, gastrointestinal disorders like irritable bowel syndrome, and insomnia as consequences of worrying too much. Not to mention it can turn into full-blown anxiety if it isn’t kept in check.
“When the worry is really present most of the time and it interferes with your basic functioning — you can’t sleep, work or talk to friends without your mind being elsewhere on some concern,” that’s when it’s verging into anxiety.
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If your worrying really has you worried, here are some tips on getting it under control.
Acknowledge your problem
A lot of times, when a person is confronted with their worrying problem, they don’t recognize “worry” as a troublesome word. But when asked if they repeatedly play catastrophic situations in their head, they’ll see the connection.
“Sometimes, it just requires recognizing the symptoms: like they’re always keyed up or they can’t sleep or they continuously make mistakes at work,” Ameringen says. “Once they identify that as worry, we can treat them.”
Practice mindfulness
In addition to other cognitive behavioural therapies, one of the treatments Ameringen uses is to teach his patients to practice mindfulness techniques. By relaxing and bringing thoughts back to the present, it allows people to stop looking to the future where they envision problems or catastrophes and focus on the moment.
“We want people to let go of their thoughts and experience what’s going on now.”
He also teaches them to come up with various outcomes for any particular worry, essentially showing them that it’s rarely as bad as they think it could be.
“Even if something catastrophic happens, it’s important to realize that it’s not necessarily going to be life ending. People get stuck in the catastrophe, but we teach them it’s not always that bad.”
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Make a list of your worries
However many things keep you up at night, jot them down and determine which ones are productive and which are unproductive, Robert L. Leahy, author of The Worry Cure: 7 Steps to Stop Worry From Stopping You and director of the American Institute for Cognitive Therapy, said to WebMD.
A productive worry is one you can do something about — for example, “I’m worried I won’t get to my daughter’s soccer tournament in time.” You can arrange your schedule to ensure you get there. Whereas an unproductive worry is one for which you cannot make a contingency plan.
“Many worried people equate uncertainty with a bad outcome, but uncertainty is really neutral,” he says. “When you accept uncertainty, you don’t have to worry anymore.”
Cry it out
“The emotional part of the brain — the amygdala — is suppressed when you worry,” Leahy says. “The emotion kicks in later with gastrointestinal symptoms, fatigue or rapid heart rate.”
He also points out that when you’re angry or crying, you’re not worried. You’re expressing your emotions and your mind is focused on that.
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