Take a “Worry Break”

Have you ever stopped to think that you can make anxiety work for you rather than against you? I have written articles in the past on the topic of stress and anxiety. What they are, why we have them, how they are different/similar etc. There is not one person who lives a stress free life. Not even billionaires with perfect health. Stress is inevitable. Anxiety is slightly different than stress, however, but the two do go hand in hand. The difference is a person can have stress but not have anxiety. Anxiety is emotional worry about broad potential events. While stress is more present oriented focused on a specific threat or circumstance. I have written on the fact that stress can be used as a motivator and can be used for good in your daily live. For example, you have a project deadline looming at work and you are stressed about it. With healthy stress, you are aware that the stress will subside once the project is complete. Because you know this you can focus on the project and get it completed. Anxiety, on the other hand, is worried thoughts that even once you get the project done, it might not be good enough and your boss might get mad. And if your boss gets mad, you might get a bad review. And if you get a bad review then…this or that and so on. None of it is any good. But what if anxiety can be taken under control and harnessed for good? Take the scenario from above, “What if the project doesn’t go well?” When you feel the anxiety creeping in stop what you are doing and take a 5 minute “worry break”. Let your mind take it from not a good project to mad boss to bad review to job loss then home loss then homeless or whatever you think the worst case for you would be. I’m willing to bet after doing this for 5 minutes you will laugh and realize your worried case is ridiculous. Then you can put it into perspective, and you may very well find that what you are anxious about is nothing more than your imagination getting the best of you. Next, take the negative “worry” energy and put it into positive thoughts about how you want things to turn out. Take the same scenario and rather than fret that it will not go well, turn it around to, “I am putting my best into this and it will go great. I may even get a raise.” Now, some of you might be thinking this sounds silly and it’s easier said than done because your situation is far more complicated than a work project not going well.  If your situation is more extreme than this scenario, try a “worry break” anyway. Once you have taken your 5 minute “worry break” to conjure up the worst case scenario the next step is to accept that worst case scenario. Accept that if the worst case really came to pass you would survive. Accepting it will take away its power. Once you have taken away the power then you can use your energy to focus on how to handle your problem to make your situation better. The “worry break” is the first step in being able to stay focused on the solution rather than the problem.