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There are two categories of worrying: about a specific issue or general worrying. Here are suggestions for each.
Specific worrying
First, the obvious: Is there anything you can do now to reduce or even eliminate the worry? Examples:
- You’re worried you’ll lose your job. Put yourself in your boss’s shoes: Might you fire you? If so, is there anything you want to do: Improve your attitude? Try to get your job description changed? Learn a critical skill? Come to work on time?
- You’re afraid you’ll never meet a romantic partner so you’ll always be lonely and perhaps poor. Knowing yourself and the right type of partner for you, what should you do: Polish your online dating profile? Take a class likely to attract an appropriate partner? Ask friends to set you up with a well-suited person? Improve your appearance? Flirt more?
- Public speaking may be the most common fear. These may reduce it:
- Don’t memorize your talk. Plan it but then reduce it to an outline that fits on an index card or four. Not being tied to a script is relaxing. Just talk, connecting with your audience.
- Be authentic. Just speak your truth in your conversational style, perhaps a little more slowly. No phony motivational speaker persona.
- Know that mistakes are no big deal. Most people will remember only the overall impression. If you are prepared and authentic, it’ll be okay, even if you screw-up some.
- Perspective. Every week, millions of earthlings flap their lips before live and recorded audiences and a week later, there will be more millions. And most of the listeners will have forgotten 95 percent of what the previous week’s lip-flappers said. So yes, try but the world, even your small corner of the world, is unlikely to change much as a result, alas.
- You’ve been diagnosed with end-stage cancer. You can’t stay alive but can you reduce the worry, for example, by writing or spending more quality time with loved ones so your legacy is improved? By accepting palliative or hospice care so your time left is more pleasant? Or deciding to end it now (more likely to be discomfort-free with a doctor’s help), so you avoid the difficult final decline?
Now let’s assume you’ve done what you want to reduce or eliminate the worry's rational basis. Ask yourself and perhaps write how you’d deal with the best-, moderate-, and worst-case scenario.
Let’s say you’re scared that your upcoming physical exam will yield bad news. Best case might be that you're fine or that it’s something minor that can, for example, be addressed with medication or by doing nothing and just watching it. A middle case might, for example, be a call for some test. You could decide to get the test over with and while waiting for the result, use the aforementioned tactics, and who knows, the results could be no big deal. And if it a big deal, perhaps you'd remind yourself that you can then take baby steps to deal with it. In the very worst case, it’s a fatal diagnosis in which case you could use the ideas in the just-mentioned example of end-stage cancer. Easier said than done.
General worrying
Apart from specific worries, many people go through life with free-floating anxiety. They’re like the cartoon character who walks around with a cloud overhead, worrying they’ll be deluged by some havoc.
Such people live with an ever-present feeling that they need to be alert to possible danger: whether from a person, an event, or something internal. Like most characteristics, generalized anxiety likely comes from a combination of genetic predisposition, early environment, and the current situation. Some ways to reduce free-floating anxiety:
Routine. A life of predictable routines can be comforting.
Eliminate sources of stress:
- Noise
- A work-life in which you lack control or have a difficult boss or tasks
- A stressful living situation
- People who too often stress you out. All of us should spend time with relaxed people who bring out the best in us. But for people who are anxious, it’s especially important.
Use calmers. For example,
- Listen to calming music, perhaps one or more of those suggested in this article.
- Every so often, take a few deep breaths.
- Stare for a minute at the view outside your window, in your garden, or at a YouTube aquarium, which comes with calming music, for example, this.
- Some people find meditation helpful in reducing anxiety although other people find that it doesn’t provide insight or help reduce worrisome thoughts. Such people view meditation as more like a nap—you’ve spent some time and the problem is still there. But in your case, do you think it’s wiser to use the above strategies or to add meditation for a few weeks, perhaps using one of the guided meditations on the Sanvello app.
- In a separate article, I offer self-help tips that can be useful not just in addressing anxiety, but sadness and anger.
- Talking it out can feel cathartic but has the side-effect of making worrisome thoughts more top-of-mind and thus more anxiety-provoking. So it may first be wiser to try the aforementioned approaches. If those don’t sufficiently help, it may be worth that side-effect for the benefits of consulting a professional or a friend: S/he could ask questions or make suggestions that will help you decide on a wise approach to your worry. If you sense you need such help, check out this article on choosing a counselor.
The takeaway
As usual, one size does not fit all. Is at least one of the ideas here worth trying?
I read this aloud on YouTube.
