Worry Without Control Will Never Do Any Good

Some people live locked at home worried. They imagine the future as a great field full of mines, of dangers, and this attitude prevents them from living in peace. They fear that a truck of doom will suddenly fall on them.

These people are sure that their child will get a red mark on next week’s test. They believe they will have a heart attack when they feel a pang in their chest. They get scared thinking they have cancer when a wart appears. They are afraid that their daughter will have an accident whenever she goes out in her car, etc.

Self-fulfilling prophecies, a curious psychological effect

It is surprising how the negative events that these people anticipate are much less likely to occur than the affected person attributes to them, when the probability is not zero. Furthermore, the most curious thing is that sometimes  they themselves make their predictions come true, giving way to self-fulfilling prophecies,  as psychologists call it. This way of thinking makes them feel and act on their fears.

Let’s look at an example of a self-fulfilling prophecy: a driver is very scared when he goes out in a car because he thinks he is going to have an accident. When he gets in the car to go out, he does so in a state of anxiety so great that it prevents him from driving safely, which increases the risk of having the accident he fears so much.

Definitely, some people spend their lives suffering from things that never happen. Thus, they avoid experiences that could even be positive for fear of possible dangers and heartaches they may entail. Their pathological preoccupation makes them wait and suffer for catastrophes that will never come true.

4 characteristics of people with pathological concern

Insecurity

In fact, the insecure person seeks certainty, not truth. Thus, he does not realize that the truth is sought looking forward, risking making mistakes, taking risks, somehow renounced to guarantees.

The insecure person will then always look for evidence that what he fears will never happen, increasing the intensity of the worry.

Low self esteem

Low self-esteem can contribute to the over-worry component of the personality. Furthermore, it is often associated with insecurity. People with low self-esteem tend to think more about what is expected of them than what they really want to do.

When we think about what others expect of us, we lose our essence and become puppets. Wanting to please everyone makes our concern increase  exponentially.

emotional dependency

People with the greatest emotional dependence, when they are close to the person they depend on,  fear that separation could occur at any time. In this way, they have to live with the tension of not doing anything that might make the other person leave.

This is also an important focus of concern, as we live in society and are surrounded by people who are valuable to us. If we are emotionally dependent, any hint of loss or breakup will reaffirm the need for hypervigilance.

tendency to avoidance

The person who tends to use avoidance as a way to face their fears  will have increasingly intense and crippling fears. Furthermore, because there is no contrast to reality, these fears will encompass both real facts and fantasies; illusions that survive precisely thanks to never being confronted.

Experiential avoidance  is a very common problem today. We live more focused on the future or the past than on the present moment. This makes us permanently preoccupied with what might happen or what happened, preventing us from living fully in the now.

What can I do to keep worrying about everything constantly?

Getting rid of worries for those who are used to generating them is not an easy task. However, we will leave some ideas below that can be very useful:

• Try to clearly define what concerns you. Ask yourself, “What do I worry about?” Think about each concern and write them down. Try to write the concerns as clearly as possible.
• Decide if you can do something about it. If the answer is no, it doesn’t matter how much you worry: nothing will change. Accept this and try to distract your attention. If the answer is yes, go to the third step.
• Make a list of things you could do to resolve your concern or problem. Think, “Is there anything I could do now?” If yes, do it right away. If not, make a plan specifying when, where and how you will do it.

• Learn to be distracted. You can only pay full attention to one thing at a time, so if you keep busy, you won’t be able to continue worrying.

How can I be distracted if everything worries me?

Pay full attention to your surroundings. You can memorize license plate numbers. You can guess what people do for a living. You could also add up the prices of items in a store, hear the birds sing, and so on. Do puzzles, crosswords, sudokus, hum a song, count to a hundred backwards, read something interesting, etc. Exercising and staying physically active is a good way to prevent illness of all kinds and a wonderful antidote to pathological worry.

However, it’s good to remember something very important: don’t use distraction techniques as a way to avoid facing your worries.  Analyze your concerns before resorting to distraction techniques.

What to do if my worries won’t let me sleep?

We usually worry more at night. When we are in bed trying to fall asleep, the environmental stimulus is drastically reduced and we tend to focus on our own thoughts and bodily sensations.

It seems obvious that it’s not a good idea to go to bed with a head full of worries. To avoid this, just write down everything that worries you and its possible solutions in a notebook, leaving the worry “backed up” for the next day. That way you’ll feel more secure and sleep better.

Another technique that gives good results is the “junk time”. It consists of dedicating about 20 minutes a day just to worry. You must have predicted when your “junk time” will be and you can only think about your worries during those minutes, that’s all. And when I say nothing else, it really is nothing else. During the rest of the day you will be relaxed, because you know that there are those 20 minutes to worry about everything you want, so you will only have to wait for that moment to arrive. Needless to say, it  ‘s forbidden to worry for the rest of the day.

As I always like to say, this advice is not intended to replace the expert help of a competent psychologist. When you suffer from a generalized anxiety disorder (excessive pathological worry) the ideal is to see a specialist  as soon as possible.