Worry

Worry

Don't Agonize--Energize

You watch your little boy board the school bus every morning. Are the brakes okay? Will he be warm enough? Is he eating his lunch?

Off to work. Did that proposal make it to Dallas on time? The economy's so bad; are you going to be laid off? What will you do without a job?

Back home in time for the evening news. The ozone layer is disappearing. War, hunger and violence are everywhere.

Life provides plenty to worry about. And sometimes it can become too much to handle. Maybe you're suffering from constant tension headaches or feeling tired all the time. Maybe worrying leaves your stomach in knots. Just a few years ago, you felt flush with youthful hope and optimism, ready to solve the planet's problems. But now you may be starting to feel powerless, worn out, unable to deal with even the smallest dilemmas.

"Worries are like a straitjacket," says Mary McClure Goulding, co-author of Not to Worry! How to Free Yourself from Unnecessary Anxiety and Channel Your Worries into Positive Action. "You feel like you can't do anything, and so you don't. It's a totally unproductive way to spend the best years of your life. And it's something you need to change--and can change--starting immediately."

The Fearful Facts

We all worry. The average person (men worry, too) spends about 5 percent of each waking day--about 48 minutes--worrying about one thing or another. Surveys show that the most common sources of worry for Americans are family and relationships, jobs and school, health and finances.

For as many as 6 percent of women, worrying becomes chronic. It can even evolve into a clinical condition called generalized anxiety disorder. People with this disorder worry about multiple problems at the same time, including things they have little or no control over, such as the weather or nuclear war. And they worry excessively. Chronic worriers report spending an average of 50 percent of each day worrying, and some report as much as 100 percent, says psychologist Jennifer L. Abel, Ph.D., associate director of the Stress and Anxiety Disorders Clinic at Pennsylvania State University in University Park. Chronic worry typically begins in a woman's twenties or thirties.

There's no evidence that worrying directly causes disease, says Timothy Brown, Psy.D., associate director of the Phobia and Anxiety Disorders Clinic at the State University of New York at Albany. Worry can lead to poor sleep in many cases, with resulting fatigue, restlessness and irritability. But it's the psychological toll that's usually most devastating. "Worriers can't concentrate, get headaches and may not be able to effectively confront and resolve their problems," he says.

Worriers almost always come from fretting families, Goulding says. You may have learned to worry by watching your mother, father, grandfather or an aunt. Worriers may have low self-esteem, Goulding says, and have often been taught to repress feelings--especially happy ones.

All of which leads to a central problem: a feeling of helplessness. "You don't feel in control of your life," says Susan Jeffers, Ph.D., a psychologist and author of Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway. "You think everything is going to go wrong. That makes it hard to overcome even simple problems without great effort and anxiety."

A study of 24 American college students bears this out. When asked what would happen if they didn't get good grades, a group of non-worriers typically talked about ending up with bad jobs and earning less money. The chronic worriers talked about those same concerns. But then they took their worries much further. Some worried about becoming drug addicts. Others worried they would be in constant physical pain. And still others said they would die--or even end up in hell.

"At that point, you have to ask yourself whether worrying is worth the effort," Dr. Jeffers says. "You have to decide whether you're going to spend the rest of your life worrying about things or whether you're going to do something about it. It's a difficult decision, but hopefully, you'll choose the latter."

Winning over Worry

It takes years to build a world of worries. You may need a while to tear it all down. But time is on your side. A study of both young and elderly worriers showed that we tend to worry less as we grow older. The oldest of the 163 people studied by professors at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst were less anxious about social and financial problems and no more worried about health issues.

But why wait for things to get better? If you're ready to start banishing worry right now, here's some expert advice.

Think it through. Go ahead and fret a little. It's better than trying to suppress all the anxiety. "Give up trying to stop those unhappy thoughts," says Daniel Wegner, Ph.D., professor of psychology at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. "My research shows that the more you try to suppress unwanted thoughts, the more likely you are to become obsessed with them. That's particularly true when you're under a lot of pressure, stress or mental overload. So just when you're trying to avoid unhappy thoughts, you'll actually get sadder than if you'd confront those unhappy thoughts head-on."

Dr. Jeffers likes to point out that 99 percent of what we worry about never happens. "Feel the fear. That's part of being human," she says. "But go out and do things anyway, knowing that most of your fears are unfounded."

Take your time. It's one thing to think about your problems. It's another to let them dominate your thoughts. Dr. Wegner says research on chronic worriers shows that if they spend time at night actively worrying about their problems, the degree of worrying in their lives goes down overall. "There's something boring, after all, about thoughts you spend an hour a night thinking about," he says.

Michael Vasey, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychology at Ohio State University in Columbus, suggests setting aside 30 minutes a day, always at the same place and time, to worry. "Focus on your worry for the entire period, and try to think of solutions to the problem," he says. If you're worried that you'll be fired, imagine the scenario--the firing and the consequences--and don't let the image drift away.

You'll probably be even more anxious at first. But things will improve. "If you practice focusing on worries and thinking of solutions for 30 minutes each day for several weeks, your anxiety will start to taper off," Dr. Vasey says. "You'll get better at generating solutions or realize it's not worth worrying about."

Write a new ending. People who worry can be amazingly creative, Goulding says. They turn any harmless scenario into a disaster by imagining the worst. Try putting that creativity to good use by turning your fears into fantasies. If you worry about a school bus crash, try picturing your little boy grabbing the wheel and steering everyone to safety. Then imagine the parade the town will hold for him. Maybe he'll even get the key to the city.

You're disarming your worries this way, Goulding says. By putting a happy or silly ending on a worry, you're allowing yourself a chance to be positive, she says. And that's a major step toward beating worry.

Tally your troubles. List all your worries. Are you afraid that it's going to rain on the family reunion this weekend? You can't control that, so Goulding suggests that you file it under the heading "Beyond My Skills." Do you worry that other people find you unattractive, even when you really know you're not? That goes on the "Creative Fiction" list.

What's the sense of worrying about things in these categories? "There isn't any," Goulding says. "Why worry about the weather? Why worry about things that aren't true?" Once you expose these thoughts as worthless worries, she says, it's easier to dismiss them.

Take action. Some worries are more legitimate. Are you concerned about your health? Well, list all the things you could do to improve things. Maybe you could start walking every day. Or eat better. Then decide which ones you're going to do. The secret is doing, doing, doing. "When you're actively working on a solution, worry is less likely to be a problem," Dr. Jeffers says. "You'll begin to feel like you're the creator of your life, not a victim of it."

Find a friend. Tell someone special about your fears. "When you talk about your worries, it deflates those worries. They can't be suppressed. That cat's out of the bag. And thank goodness, it is just a cat and not some horrible monster," Dr. Wegner says.

Just be careful that your friend doesn't unintentionally make things worse. Out of kindness, she may tell you it's okay to worry or say "Gee, I understand why you're so worried." Goulding says that might help reinforce your need to worry. If you decide to share your thoughts, make sure the other person agrees to be honest with you and helps you find positive, constructive ways to deal with your worries.