4. Make time to worry on purpose - Deepstash

4. Make time to worry on purpose

Most people who are chronically stressed are also chronically worried.

I mean, why wouldn’t you be stressed all the time if you’re constantly catastrophizing, playing out terrible outcomes in your mind, and imagining the worst?

Unfortunately, you can’t just tell your brain to stop worrying—this usually just leads to even more worry and stress! And that’s because worry is a habit. Which means that if you want to do less of it, you have to train yourself to worry less.

The best way I’ve found to re-train your mind out of chronic worry is a technique called scheduled worry. By deliberately making time to worry on purpose each day for a limited amount of time, you train your brain to let go of worries at other times throughout the day.

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Schedule Some Worry Time

Schedule 20 minutes a day just for worrying. Briefly acknowledge worries that come outside that timeframe, but only give them your full attention during your scheduled worry time.

This helps you to break the chain of frequent worrying you experience throughout the day. 

Designate Time For Worry

One reason why people engage their worry is they tried to solve problem immediately and start anticipating and planning against possible outcomes. It grabs attention off of other more pressing matters.

Reserve 15 minutes of your day where you can just think and ponder over ...

Worry

Worry

Worry is the cognitive part of anxiety, with it's repetitive and obsessive thought patterns in our mind. Worry is sometimes essential for us to solve problems or take action, provided we are not stuck in a constant state of worry.

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