Posted on Thursday, 7th February 2019

“Worrying is like paying interest on a debt not owed” or however the saying goes. But however much we know worrying doesn’t always help, it can be incredibly difficult to stop. Here are some techniques that may help.

Stay in the Present

It can be very easy to be faced with a situation, and then from that conject other worries. E.g. If A happens then B might happen, then C etc. Stop. What is happening right now? Has A even happened? Stay in the present and deal with the facts. Everything else is pure speculation.

Worry Time

Give yourself an allocated time to worry. In that time you can sit and worry about something as much as you like. This can help in a few ways. By forcing yourself to sit and worry about something with no other distractions, a. You may find a solution, b. It may show you how the worry isn’t actually that big after all. Also, we all know how difficult it can be to just tell ourselves to ‘stop worrying’. This way we can tell ourselves, stop worrying about that at the moment, we’ve got an allotted time to think about that later.

The Time Test

Apply the time test to the worry. Will you be worrying about this in a week, a month, a year? Asking these questions can help put your worry in perspective and concentrate on the important things.

Thank the Worry

The feeling of worry can be a useful tool to alert us to something that we need to think about and give us the motivation to do something about it. So thank the worry for this. Let it serve its purpose. When it feels like the worry is lingering around and ceasing to be helpful, thank it and let it go.

Sometimes we do need to explore our worries in more depth with an objective, non judgemental counsellor. If you’d like to discuss starting counselling do get in touch.