Getting SMART about your worries: A healthier approach to dealing with worry.

Worry is a feeling of anxiety and unease that warns us of a potential threat to our survival or wellbeing. Although it’s an unpleasant emotion, it plays an important role in our lives by signaling that there’s something we need to pay attention to in order to prepare ourselves for any potential threat that we’re facing. In this way, worry can motivate us to take positive action to help our situation. 

For example, worrying that you may fail your exams can motivate you to study hard for them. Worrying about how to pay the bills may motivate you to find ways of increasing your earning potential. Worrying about missing a flight can motivate you to get out of bed on time rather than hit the snooze button. You get the idea.

Essentially, worry helps us identify possible negative outcomes so that we are able to adequately prepare and come up with ways to avoid those outcomes.

When worry becomes a problem. 

Despite its benefits, worry can become a problem if it isn't addressed properly, or if it becomes excessive and/or ongoing. 

Being unable to disengage from your worries, or having the same repeated negative thought without it leading to positive problem solving, can in and of itself be harmful and damaging to our health and wellbeing.

This type of unhealthy worry has several potential side effects such as: 

• Keeping you up at night and interfering with the quality of your sleep,
• Speeding up the aging process,
• Digestive problems & a general lowering of your immune system,
• Headaches, backache and other stress related physical symptoms,
• Depression, oversleeping & self isolation,
• Lowered ability to concentrate and focus on other things.

Unhealthy ways to deal with worry include:

• Criticizing yourself through negative self-talk,
• Chewing your fingernails,
• Becoming aggressive or violent,
• Eating too much or too little,
• Smoking,
• Drinking alcohol or too much coffee,
• Yelling at the people closest to you,
• Taking recreational drugs or misusing prescription medicine,
• Avoiding friends and family,
• Zoning out in front of screens.

Below is a healthier process you may wish to use to deal with worry: 

1. Create a daily "worry period". 

This is a designated time of day to think about your worries so that you can focus on other thoughts and activities the rest of the day and be sure to address what's on your mind on a daily basis, rather than relying on avoidance techniques.

2. Write down your worries.

If a worrying thought comes to your mind outside your worry period, write it down as something to go over during your worry period. This way you will remember to give it attention at your designated time without letting it distract you from other activities outside that time.  

3. Identify the root of your worry.

Instead of feeling generalized worry, you want to be able to pinpoint exactly what it is that you’re worried about, define it as clearly as possible and establish the root concern that's troubling you. For example, a worry about a postal delivery could reveal an underlying concern around sleep deprivation if the content of that delivery is an anticipated sleeping solution. Or a worry about someone not calling back when you expected them could reveal an underlying concern around rejection.

4. Challenge your worries.

People that suffer from excessive and persistent worry, often look at the world in ways that make it seem more daunting than it really is. You may overestimate the possibility of things turning out badly and discredit your own ability to handle the situation. These types of thoughts are known as cognitive distortions. They include: 

• All or nothing thinking,
• Overgeneralizations, 
• Focusing on negatives while dismissing positives,
• Jumping to worst-case scenarios, 
• Making negative interpretations without actual evidence, and
• Assuming responsibility for things outside your control. 

During your worry period, challenge the validity of your negative thoughts by asking yourself the following questions:

• What evidence do I have that this worry is valid? 
• Is there a more positive, realistic way of looking at the situation?
• What’s the probability that this worry will actually happen? And if the probability is low, what are some more likely outcomes?
• Is this thought helpful? How will worrying about it help me and how will it hurt me?

5. Distinguish between worries you can or can't do anything about: 

As mentioned earlier, the function of worry is to motivate you into taking action to avoid potentially harmful outcomes. It's important therefore to establish if there are any concrete actions that can be done to improve your situation or not.

The key to differentiating between a worry you can or can't do something about is to ask yourself the following question:

"Is spending more time dwelling on this situation likely to help me come up with a solution & better prepare me to deal with it should it actually happen?"

6. Have a problem solving session & take action:

If the answer to the above question is yes and there is something you could do about your situation, you should immediately start brainstorming your options, come up with a plan of action, and start taking concrete steps towards solving it.  

For example, if you’re unemployed and worried about getting a job, you could design a clear job search strategy to implement. 

Even if you don't yet know all the steps you need to take to help with the situation you are worried about, you can write down ideas for the next possible step, such as getting more information, asking someone for help, learning a required skill, or doing something to lessen the negative impact in case things go wrong. 

Then take action.

8. Accept the things you cannot control and embrace uncertainty:

If the worry is not solvable and there is nothing you can do to better prepare for it, you may need to find methods to help you accept the situation, such as the "ROLL" technique of recognizing, observing and letting go of your discomfort with uncertainty. 

You may also choose to focus on the elements of each situation that you can control (such as your reaction), remind yourself that uncertainty is neutral (neither good nor bad), and learn to appreciate and enjoy what you can of the situation as it is right now rather than focusing on the uncertainty of the future.  

9. Interrupt the worry cycle through stress management techniques:

Regular worrying can cause your body to release stress hormones, which in excess can have a negative effect on your mental, physical and emotional health. 

One way to stop worry from interfering with your quality of life is to use stress management techniques such as:

• Movement (dance, chi gong, yoga, etc.)
• Deep breathing & mindfulness
• Nature walks
• Meditation
• Progressive muscle relaxation
• Tapping
• Music
• Painting or crafting 
• Time with an animal or pet
• Verbalizing your worries to someone who will listen without judging.

Find the technique that works best for you and incorporate it into you daily or weekly routine. You can use habit formation methods such as habit stacking to do this. 

Below is an imperfect but hopefully helpful acronym I came up with to support you in getting SMART with your worries: 

Set a time

Mark it down (write)

Action plan or Acceptance

Reality check (should really come before the action plan or acceptance stage)

Tame the worry (through stress management techniques).

While I do hope the above information can help you in times of worry, I do encourage you to contact your health-care practitioner if you find that you continue to suffer from chronic worry & anxiety that interferes with your overall quality of life.