Reduce Your Work Worries with this Simple Action

The cure for worry

When we start talking about worry, it can start to escalate.

The worries compound as we begin to ruminate over our worries, they escalate. So does our blood pressure, our stress level and then our health starts to deteriorate, we lose sleep and this just doesn't serve so I've got good news for you today.

There's a simple strategy that you can do that may not eliminate all your worry but it certainly will reduce it. And it is to schedule time to worry later.

That's right. You may be saying “Ben, you mean a cure for worry is actually more worrying?” and the answer is yes, but it's just worrying more in the future.

Because what happens is when you pull out your calendar in the moment that you're worrying and you schedule time, you say I'm going to worry about this tomorrow at 10 a.m. or I'm going to worry about this tonight at 5:00 p.m., you're creating some space.

So, the worry doesn't detract and distract in the present moment when you really need to be productive and get some work done. Or it doesn't distract you or keep you up at night when you're trying to get to sleep and turns out when you put a little space between the worrying that you're doing in the moment and at a future time, it starts to take these mountains of worry and turn them more into molehills.

It kind of dissolves and takes some of the bite out of it.

Who knows, you may even come across a solution in the meantime or you may just find that hey, that wasn't really worth worrying about in the moment anyway.

So, next time you're worrying, try this technique where you pull your calendar out you schedule time to worry not now, but sometime in the future, notice how that reduces your worrying and you could feel better in the moment, more productive and get a more peaceful night's rest.

And when you get to that time you’re actually going to worry about the activity with a fresh perspective.