How To Stop Worrying In 5 Steps

Are you plagued by constant worries and anxious thoughts? If this is you and you’re wondering How to Stop Worrying, here are some helpful tips to calm your mind and ease anxiety.

Worries are completely normal. It’s actually beneficial to worry about things sometimes. It helps us identify potential problems. But worry can become problematic when it’s ongoing. Excessive worrying can hurt your well-being, and lead to a state of chronic anxiety or stress. It can also stress your relationships, harm your self-confidence, and hurt your career. But stopping worrying isn’t always easy.

Worry involves negative thought patterns—patterns we’ve used over and over again, making them hard-wired in our brains. Stopping worrying involves confronting our beliefs, values, and emotions. Here are 5 steps to take to put an end to worrying.

1. Explore the origins of your worry

One way you can tell whether your worry is about the situation you’re in or the way you think is by exploring whether the worry is general or specific. If you worry about one specific thing (e.g., work, kids, money) but you don’t worry about everything, you should consider taking constructive action to change your situation.
But, if you’re like me, and you get into a loop where worry about almost everything, then working on your worrying thoughts is a good first step. Either way, it’s good to investigate the origins of your worry so you gain self-awareness about your worry

2. Identify your unique worry patterns

Here are some thought patterns that lead to worry. Some people will find that they have all of these patterns; other people will just have a few. By understanding what thoughts cause our worries, we can more easily resolve them.

Catastrophizing is when we expect the worst possible outcomes.

Minimization is when we downplay the good things.

All-or-nothing thinking is when we interpret a situation as all good or all bad.

Overgeneralization is when we believe that having one negative experience means we will always have this negative experience.

Negative attention is when we focus on the negative things that went wrong rather than focusing on the positive things.

Rumination is when we think about something distressing over and over again.

Mind reading is when we believe we know what others are thinking even though we haven’t actually asked them what they think.

3. Stop worrying by moving your body

When you worry, your sympathetic nervous system is activated (it’s the fight or flight system). Even if you completely stop worrying, it won’t get those neurochemicals out of your body right away. That’s why cardiovascular exercise can really help with worry.

Exercise activates the parasympathetic nervous system which relieves stress and helps calm the body, returning it to its emotional baseline.

4. Try mindfulness to calm worries

The next step to stop worrying is by cultivating mindfulness. By sitting quietly, just noticing your thoughts, and letting them go, mindfulness can help redirect worries. Over time, mindfulness can train the mind to calm the body without getting stuck in worries.

Here’s a quick, but effective mindfulness meditation, you can use as your go-to when you’re experiencing worry or stress.

To practice mindfulness meditation all you need is a comfy spot.

• Begin by taking a deep breath and hold it for 5 seconds…exhale and relax
• Take another deep breath, as deep as you can, and hold it, count for 5 seconds…and as you exhale just imagine blowing out all of your stress
• Take a third deep breath and hold it for 5 seconds…and as you exhale, blow out any stress you’ve been holding on to, saying to yourself “relax now”
  

Or, if you prefer a guided meditation to help you stay focused, here’s a helpful 10-minute  meditation video for stress:
https://youtu.be/z6X5oEIg6Ak

5. Talk to someone about your worries

Talking with a trusted counselor or friend can help you gain more perspective on your worry—Is it really worth worrying about? Or, how can you think about this situation differently? Keeping your worries to yourself can cause them to build up and become overwhelming.

But be cautious of who you talk to about your worries. Other worriers may make things worse. So be thoughtful about who you share your worries with.

What are your go-to strategies to deal with worry? Which of these tips resonated with you the most? Let me know in the comments below.

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