You just have to schedule your worrying
If you, like me, have lived with an anxiety disorder, the one thing that everyone tells you is “don’t worry so much”. The irony that worrying so much is what led to the anxiety disorder is lost on them. On the contrary, worrying can helped you reduce your anxiety immensely. You just have to change the how, when, and where of it.
Anxiety and Worrying
Anxiety is heightened worrying that swirls in your brain in a negative loop. It can cause disturbed sleep and eating patterns, as well as lead to physical symptoms. Anxiety might be dormant and set off by certain triggers, or be a small but constant nagging voice in the back of your mind. It can even tip over into a full blown panic attack.
So worrying, in some manner or form, is behind most anxiety disorders.
I know you think I have made two-contradictory statements in just two paragraphs. Not really. Uncontrolled worrying is what leads to heightened anxiety. Controlled, constructive, or scheduled worrying, on the other hand, is one of the best tools to help you cope with anxiety, according to Newman and Borkovec inCognitive behaviour therapy: A guide for the practising clinician. It is an integral part of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) for any anxiety or insomnia treatment plan.
What is Constructive Worry Time?
A simple way to describe it is that instead of worrying all the time, anywhere you are, you just schedule to worry for 15–30 minutes every day, at your home. This is an integral part of CBT to challenge your negative thoughts and train your brain to make them into constructive thoughts or solutions.
While this has been a part of CBT for a long time, it became more prominent as part of the insomnia treatment published by Dr. Gregg D. Jacobs, inSay Good Night to Insomnia. This is almost a standard handout nowadays as part of any CBT for insomnia treatment.
Essentially, you are restricting your worries to one time a day, of your choosing and in a place where you are comfortable, rather than all the time in all the places you go to during the day. You are in control (or you will be, with practice). You will decide, with full awareness, which worry you will focus on and when, rather than worries taking over your day and your life.
How to implement constructive worrying?
1. Set aside a minimum of 15 and maximum of 30 minutes every day, not later than three (or maximum two) hours before bedtime.
2. Write down all the worries that pop up in your head or those that you have been thinking about during the day.
3. Work through each of the worries, but don’t force yourself to find solutions for these right away. This will be hard, but that is sort of the point.
4. Consider the following:
(i) Is the worry realistic and if yes, what is the percentage would you give for it actually happening?
(ii) Is it something that needs to be dealt with right away or can it wait? If it can wait, set a date to revisit it.
(iii) Is it something that you can solve or your own or do you think you might need help? If you think you will need help, write down who you think can help you (or that you have to find out who can).
(iv) Is it something that you can already think a possible solution for? If yes, write that down.
(v) Is it something that you don’t think can be solved? If yes, write that down and that you will work on how to accept this.
(vi) If a friend came to this worry with you, what would you tell him or her?
5. When your time is up, stop with the worry time and tell yourself that you will get back to the remaining worries at tomorrow’s worry time.
6. When any worry pops up in your mind during the day, tell yourself that you will handle it during your worry time.
This list is based on the Gregg D. Jacobs book, Constructive Worry Worksheet by Dr. Colleen Carney (Carney and Waters, 2016), and my own experience from having undergone CBT-I twice.
What to expect from constructive worrying?
Now I know what you are thinking. How am I supposed to do all this in 15 or 30 minutes? Well, you can’t and that is the point.
This entire exercise is to train your brain to understand and acknowledge that no worry can be solved right away and must be handled at the right time and place. Even if you go over your 30 minutes time and keep on continuing with the exercise, you will get tired and stop after a while. If you keep doing this every day, you will not really cross the time you set for yourself because you know that there will be time tomorrow.
Likewise, with practice, whenever a worry pops up during the day, your brain will automatically cut and paste the “new worry” file into the “scheduled worry folder”, which it will only let you open during the “schedule worry update time”. In the beginning, you can note this down in a small “worry journal” or even on a file in your phone and look at it during your worry time.
I have to add a word of caution here. If you are not careful, this exercise can consume you. Doing it too early in the morning could disturb your daily activities. Doing it too close to bedtime could possibly make it difficult to sleep. So choose a time that will not trouble your day or sleep. Try to go for a walk or meditate or call a friend/family member or watch an interesting TV show or read a book after your “worry time”. This will help you transition out of the worry time. These are all things that I learned through experience, mostly the hard way!
Get Started
If you want a clear template to start with, you can use the Constructive Worry Worksheet by Dr. Colleen Carney (Carney and Waters, 2016). It worked wonders for me when I started this exercise. Now I just write in my journal or type on my laptop, whatever I feel like doing that day, during my worry time.
Worrying made my anxiety worse and my life hell. Worrying on my own terms has transformed it.
I am a burned out international lawyer & mother with Fibromyalgia and anxiety, trying to re-discover my identity.
