Worry is prayer for what you don't want - Dr. Kevin Elko

There’s so much going on out there in the world. And there’s so much going on inside my head, too. I wake up worrying about the world, my kids, my elderly dog, climate change, my job... The list is long. If worrying was an Olympic sport, I’d be a gold medalist. 

Worrying has negative consequences mentally, emotionally, and even physically. Your body doesn't know the difference between a made-up, all-in-your-head stressor and a real life, in-person one. In both types of situations, you get the same flood of the stress hormone cortisol throughout your body, which increases blood pressure and heart rate, creates a sense of hypervigilance, and produces other negative consequences. In the real-life stressor, you can calm down once the situation is over. When you’re a worrier, the stressor is you, and doesn’t go away. 

There’s no benefit for worrying. Intellectually, I know this. Running through the long list of possibilities of what might happen won’t help me to prepare for what does. A research study of college students found 91.4% of what participants worried about didn’t even come true. And, another helpful statistic: of all the worries that ended up coming true, research study participants admitted that more than 30% of those situations turned out better than expected. 

Excessive worrying is a burden I would rather not carry anymore. Here are small steps I’m starting this month to create change:

• Bringing mindfulness into my day, instead of just bookending it at the beginning and end. During Wellness Month last October at the company where I work, I introduced a short meditation at All Hands meetings each week. The one practice that has stuck with me brings peace into little moments throughout the day—I need to use it more often. Here are the steps:
  • Hold your hand out in front of you, palm up
  • As you inhale, slide your thumb up your pinkie finger from the bottom to the top to a slow count of four
  • When you reach the top of the pinkie finger, press your thumb gently into the top of the finger and softly hold your breath for a count of four
  • As you exhale, slide your thumb down the pinkie finger for a slow count of four
  • When your thumb is at the base of your pinkie, hold your breath for a count of four and gently press your thumb into the base of your pinkie finger
  • Repeat with the ring finger and middle finger
    
    This exercise combines box breathing with an in-body experience. I find it helpful when I’m driving in traffic, in work meetings, and in other stressful situations to create a sense of calm.
• Acknowledging worries as they come up and then letting them go, telling myself, “Interesting thought. Thanks!” Fighting worry (or any thought really) just makes it more determined to stick around.
• Keeping a worry journal and adding to it in the evening (not too close to bedtime) to move the unhelpful worries out of my head and onto the notepad. When I wake up worried in the middle of the night, I can add the worry to the journal if it’s a new one, or remind myself the thorough list will be there in the morning.
• Recognizing if what I’m worrying about is something I don’t have control over and letting it go if there’s nothing I can do. Each morning, I do a grounding meditation where I create a grounding cord that connects my first chakra at the base of my spine to the center of the earth. I then release down the grounding cord anything that’s not mine, doesn’t serve me, or I no longer want. During my morning and evening medications I can specifically focus on letting worries go.
• Shifting from anxious rumination to concerned action. For worries I have control over, what action I can take? 
• Singing my new mantra song. I accidentally found this lovely song from Mama Nous, called Worrying Has Never Changed A Thing. She sings a slower, softer version to her son in this Instagram post. Whenever you sing, you bring attention to the present moment, distract yourself from negative thoughts, and even calm and reduce your stress by stimulating the vagus nerve, a key player in the regulation of the parasympathetic nervous system.

​There’s admittedly a lot to be concerned about. As you maneuver through an ever-changing landscape, internally and externally, try to drive past the worry, like it’s a scruffy hitchhiker asking for a free ride. Instead, focus on mapping out where you want to go, how you want to get there, and how you can pay attention to every part of the journey. You can always create change without giving worry a place to sit.

Hugs, 
Kathleen

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Photo credit:
Photo by Jacqueline Munguía on Unsplash

Research study:
LaFreniere, Lucas S., and Michelle G. Newman. “Exposing Worry’s Deceit: Percentage of Untrue Worries in Generalized Anxiety Disorder Treatment.” Behavior Therapy 51, no. 3 (2019): 413–23. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.beth.2019.07.003.​

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