What, Me? Worry?

Hi, Leslie Harris here.

We all worry from time to time, but has your worrying gotten out of hand?

What happens when worry turns into anxiety?

You may have noticed that telling people not to worry doesn’t actually work. In fact, sometimes it backfires. You may also have noticed that often, we worry about things that may or may not happen. And have you noticed that worrying doesn’t actually change anything? In fact, it just causes us to feel unhappy, and can also cause physical ailments such as stress, insomnia and more. Am I worrying you about being worried?

There are some things you can do to help calm your mind. Some people find that prayer and meditation can help. You can also make a list of what in your life you are able to control, since worry is almost always about what we can’t control.

I find that talking to a friend about how to solve the problem can really help, but I also need to make sure that I’m not going to talk to someone who will increase my worry. (You know the type!)

One technique is to actually set aside sometime to worry. Schedule 5 minutes of your day to just really lean into it, so that you can let it go. You might want to even write down all of the things that you’re worried about. This exercise can have a wonderfully freeing effect.

How do you deal with excessive worry? Let me know in the Facebook comments