You may be wondering what does a weight loss and fitness site has to do with tips to on how to stop worrying. The answer is that worrying can indirectly make it much harder to lose weight and much easier to gain it. The reason is threefold:
- Worrying leads to stress which, in turn, may cause overeating and an increased storage of abdominal fat.
- Worrying can lead to lack of sleep which is very bad for weight loss.
- Worrying may also cause inactivity. It’s no secret that you should be as active as possible in order to lose extra weight.
In addition, I believe that weight loss and health are connected. I want to give you as much information as I can about how to improve your health. In the process, I am sure that you will also change your body for the better.
The Worry Challenge – Why You Can’t Stop Worrying
It should be easy enough to turn off the mental switch of worrying, but it’s not. Worrying is one of those tenacious habits that you may hate, but which you find it very hard to do away with. In a sense, people who tend to worry a lot also “fall in love” with their worrying. They feel that their worrying is justified and may even protect them from making mistakes or hasty decisions.
While you may not like how worrying makes you feel, you’re probably able to come up with various examples of how not-worrying ruined other people’s lives or instances in the past where you refrained from doing something on account of worrying and were spared all sorts of problems.
To let go of worrying you must first want to do so with all your heart. You need to knowingly and willingly give up the “protective shield” of worrying and be ready to face the world without it. Once you’re ready, the following tips should help to ease your mind and anxiety.
How To Stop Worrying – 7 Simple Tips
1. Gratefulness List
According to Robert Leahy, author of the The Worry Cure: Seven Steps to Stop Worry from Stopping You, one of the things that you should do is prepare a list of all the things that your grateful for in your life. This “gratefulness list” serves as a counter-force against all the things that worry you. It can’t eradicate all those worries, but it does show you that you have many things in your life that you should be thankful for.
This list also gives you an idea of all the things that you could do or use if one of your worries truly came to pass. For instance, if you worry about your job, you may find comfort in your savings. If you worry about the stock market, you may be grateful for having a job and a family that loves you. For each worry you may find things that make it seem less horrible and more manageable.
So, take a few moments and write a gratefulness list. Carry it in your pocket. Whenever you feel worried take it out and read it. It may be enough to calm you down.
2. Think back about what you were worried about years ago
If you tend to worry today, you have probably been a big worrier for years. The things you were worried about, however, may have changed with the times. When you were in school you were probably worried about tests and grades, later you were worried about finding a job, today you may be worried about keeping it.
I want you to make an honest assessment of the things you used to be worried about in the past, but which no longer bother you. What do you think about those things today? Do they seem unimportant? Do you feel a bit funny to think that you were actually losing sleep about tests and quizzes in class?
If so, ask yourself this: is there any chance that you’re over-worrying today as well? Could you be making the same mistake as you had previously in your life?
There’s a good chance that your worries are exaggerated. Looking back can help you see that.
3. The Worst Case Scenario
This technique is a bit tricky, but it can also be very effective.
What you do here is give in to your worries and imagine how things will be like when they actually become true. I want you to think about what worries you and consider what you would do if the worst case scenario came to pass. You may find that you’re perfectly able to cope even if things go horribly wrong.
For instance, if you’re worried that your girlfriend might leave you, will this really be the end of the world? I think that you will be able to find love again. If you lost your job, wouldn’t you be able to find another one and get by until you do? Even if you’re worried about truly horrible things such as being diagnosed with cancer, wouldn’t you have the ability to fight it like other people do?
In many cases, you will find that you do possess the internal powers to help you deal with things even if they do turn out for the worse. This may not be enough to stop worrying altogether, but it may help you reduce the amount of anxiety it causes.
4. Affirmations
Affirmations are one of the most common methods to reinforce positive beliefs in yourself. This works by training your sub-conscious mind to actually believe a projected reality that you want to have.
This is done by repeating positive phrases over and over again. Your subconscious slowly “believes” that what you’re saying is what is really happening. This creates new belief systems, greater motivation, and a more positive outlook on the future.
You can use affirmations to make you more firmly believe in anything you want: that you’ll have more money, be able to lose weight, have a wonderful relationship, etc. You can also use them to worry less. So, use affirmations to deal with your specific worries. You may find that they become less troubling very quickly.
5. Is your worry likely
I once read a book in which a psychologist told a story about a patient he had who was afraid of flying. She was worried that her plane would crash. When he asked her how many planes crash, she replied that it was around one in a thousand. In fact, it’s more like one in a million.
What this story shows is that we often give our worries a much higher chance of occurring than they really do. For instance, today there is greater unemployment in the United States that in previous decades. However, the vast majority of people still have a job and are able to pay their bills and even save some money. There’s a greater chance of you having a job then losing it.
Similarly, if you’re worried about contracting an illness, you will likely find that it is much rarer than you believe.
Analyze your worries and see how likely they really are to occur. It is quite possible that you’re worrying about something which isn’t likely to happen.
6. Practice Selective Ignorance
While knowledge and information are usually considered good things, too much of them can make you worried sick. For instance, if you watch any of the 24/7 news channels, you will be bombarded with scary and over the top headlines that will do little but frighten you. These days, it seems that news channels do very little investigative reporting and more fear-mongering. They thrive on your fear because they believe that it will keep you glued to the TV screen around the clock.
You don’t really need to see the news every hour. You can do so once a day or even once a week. If anything big happens you will know about it even if you’re not watching a report about it on TV.
Similarly, the ease in which we can get information, both true and false, is making a lot of us very worried. For instance, whenever you have a pain, it’s quite easy to look it up on Google and discover a host of possible conditions that may be causing it. This can turn any simple headache into a possible brain tumor and a cold to pneumonia.
Sometime, you have to practice selective ignorance. Know the information that can help you, what you can act on. Don’t stuff your mind full of scary “pseudo-facts” that are not helpful.
7. Take Action
Finally, if you want to stop worrying you need to take action and deal with whatever is worrying you. Sometime, it won’t be enough to completely do away with the fear. However, just doing something about it is often enough to control your concerns and use them as a driving force for improvement.
In Conclusion
If you search online you will find a lot of other tips on how to stop worrying. I simply wrote those that I believe in and use myself. The fight against excess worry is an ongoing one. It is not something you ever end completely. If you have any other suggestions on how to stop worrying, post a comment and let me know about it.
