Settling Worries

Oh my goodness. I mean, what is there not to worry about? Ugh, all the time. I worry all the time. "How is this traffic going to treat me?" I just worry like, "Am I gonna be able to get everything done the next day, at this time? Did I take on too much?" It's just constant. Worry is often misplaced. Though it's natural, we're not in the best position to deal with those problems at night, right? We're tired, we should be sleeping. And so the goal is to actually move that worry experience out of the bedroom and out of the nighttime. It could be like going to the airport like, "What time do we need to go to the airport?" Well, what if this happens," and I have to plan for everything? And so one tool that we have for that is actually scheduling worry, which we call worry time. What worry time is is actually a scheduled time in your day where you actually sit down and you just worry. You can talk it out, you can write it out, but the important thing is that you do it for a set amount of time, and so this can range depending on how much time you have available, but we think maybe five to 20 minutes is a good amount of time. The second thing is that you can tell yourself, "And I have it scheduled for tomorrow, so I can let it go." I would absolutely put in a worry time window into my schedule. If I'm able to tell my brain like, "Don't worry about this, worry about this at 11:00 AM tomorrow morning, and then you'll be fine." I think that could be very beneficial for me. We found that scheduled worry time is effective in decreasing distress and allowing people to sleep better. Let's dive into an exercise that can help you cope with worries. Do you find yourself consumed by worry? Well, you're not alone. The struggle is real. We can even sometimes find ways to worry about even the smallest of things like what shoes to wear. If I wear sandals, my feet will get cold, but my sneakers won't look right. And then you find yourself overthinking to the point where now you're late. While this example may seem silly, it's not farfetched from how many of us experience the worry spiral. Navigating uncertainty is hard and creates the worries that make it challenging to live in the present moment. Remember, it's natural to worry sometimes. Worrying can actually help us navigate some of the real dangers of life, like double checking the oven to make sure it's turned off. The good news is while there isn't a way to stop worrying altogether, you can train your mind to get better at working with it. You can do this by setting up what we like to call a worry time window. Here's how it works. Start by setting a...