I'm Rebecca Hunter and this is Take Out Therapy. As a private practice therapist, I've helped a lot of people work through some of the most common everyday issues using new tools and greater insight. If you have any interest in doing some personal growth work, this might be the perfect place for you.
In the next 20 minutes, I'll walk you through a commonly explored topic in therapy and provide you with actual tools to deal with it. It's that simple. Obviously, this is not a substitute for therapy, but I think it could be helpful.
Thanks for being here. Hello, my friend. Thank you so much for joining me for another round of personal growth bootcamp.
Today we're going to talk about worry. In the context of worry versus anxiety, what's worry and what's anxiety? Well, worry is food for anxiety, basically. So we're going to talk about worry today and I want to get real clear on like what is worry and what can we do about it? Because I don't know about you, but these are trying times and I find that my brain is worrying future tripping a lot more than it typically does.
A lot of moving pieces right now, right? And we've been in this a while and so I think there's a lot of emotional fatigue going on. Brain fatigue as well, meaning that maybe we're not typically a worrier, but these kinds of situations that we're in and my, my, my, there are a lot of them as I'm kind of pondering it today. There are a lot of worrisome situations right now.
These kinds of situations can prompt this kind of continual worrying. Like our brain's almost in the habit now. I am a born and bred worrier, my friends.
I've been worrying since I was a baby. Yeah, so my brain likes to worry. That's how it feeds me information.
And for a long time, I listened to that. I thought that worrying was constructive. I thought it was the way things were.
I used it as a barometer for how I was doing. And now I realize, of course, as a grownup and also as a therapist, that worrying is pretty destructive. It's pretty energy sapping.
And it causes me a lot of problems when I don't get a handle on it. So I want to talk with you about it today because it comes up a lot in the therapy office that people just worry. They worry about things.
Worry is basically like what we call pervasive thinking, which is when your brain has a dialogue and you don't feel like you are in control of it. And it's an interesting thing with worry because I usually find that there's two camps of people. There's one camp of people that worry and get super irritated and frustrated with themselves that they continuously worry, but they don't really know how to stop worrying.
And then the other camp of people are people that actually think worrying is useful. And I love that. And it's a funny conversation because it's like, well, if I didn't worry, then how would I sort of plan for the worst? Which is a head scratcher and also super valid, right? Worrying is an activity that our brain engages in to help us stay alive.
So let me explain that to you a little bit. If the purpose of your brain is to keep you alive, and it is, then wouldn't it make sense that your brain is like an early warning system? It tells you in advance all the bad stuff that's going to happen. So that you can prepare, so that you're not caught off guard, so that you're not vulnerable, so that you stay alive.
That's the brain's job. Does that make sense? So basically, your brain tries to plan out what might happen in order for you to stay safe. It's like bad stuff prevention, man.
It's just very typical brain behavior, but you're not your brain. Your brain is an organ in your body, and its job is to keep you alive. So I want to help you to understand the context of worrying and the impact of it as well, because worrying has such a negative impact on our mental health.
When we worry, we're like basically pre-planning terrible things, and it's emotionally exhausting. So what we know is that the thoughts that come through our head, they cause us emotion. And those emotions cause us to behave in certain ways.
So if I'm really worried about, for example, getting sick, and that's a pervasive thing that keeps coming up for me, this idea about, oh, I can't get sick. I don't want to get sick, right? Then my behavior is going to look different than someone who doesn't have that thought. P.S., so are my emotions, because in this day and age, being really afraid of getting sick is a very fearful state of emotion.
It's a heightened state of emotion. It can really ramp up our nervous system. So worrying is living in our heads, right? It's thinking a lot of thoughts.
But when you look out into the world, and you take up space in your own life, are the things that you worry about actually happening? Frankly, some are. As I just said that, I'm like, yeah, some of the things I worry about are definitely happening. But how much control do I have over that? Let's get into this, right? Because when we're living in our thoughts, and our thoughts are filled with worry, we're kind of disconnected from what is actually happening and how we could possibly actually just functionally deal with it.
But when we're in worry, it elevates our nervous system, and we can't functionally deal with things, because now we're just spinning, spinning, spinning. It really saps our emotional energy. Worrying takes up so much energy, it's exhausting.
And I find that people talk a lot about kind of this idea about being at war with themselves, right? Meaning they're so irritated that they worry about stuff all the time, and yet they can't stop. And so they're really hard on themselves about it. And they see mean things to themselves, right? That'll sap your emotional energy, because it's like you're having a conflict with yourself.
And frankly, we're stuck with ourselves. So that's very unpleasant, right? It can also take away from our physical health. Worrying takes a toll, because basically, like, thinking about things that are terrible that might happen elevates our nervous system and causes it to have to send a lot of signals to our body, which kind of wears the whole thing out, right? If our body thinks we're in danger all the time, it can't perform at its optimal level.
Meaning you might get tummy aches. You might get headaches. You might feel insomnia, like a lot of people that worry do it at night, and they can't sleep.
You might feel really restless, right? And ding, ding, ding, worry can lead to anxiety. Anxiety is more of a permanent state. It's like when you have anxiety, it kind of takes over your life, right? And then we're really talking about physical symptoms.
And what we typically do to kind of quell worry or to get rid of it or to try to stop is, hey, we just talk shit to ourselves, which is super not helpful at all. We can self-medicate, right? We can talk with other people about our worries and try to make sure that nobody else is getting into bad situations. So we kind of do this thing where we try to get other people to do what we need them to do so that we don't have to worry.
Hello, moms. I see you, right? All this worrying. Holy moly, it's exhausting.
And frankly, we miss out on what's good in this world when we're stuck in a cycle of worry. So let's talk about how we can get a handle on worry so that, A, it doesn't lead to anxiety because as you know, I'm an anxiety therapist. And so I help people get rid of anxiety.
And so part of that is like, let's prevent anxiety, okay? Worrying can lead to anxiety. Your brain gets used to that thing. Your brain gets used to that way of life.
And it becomes a condition, not just an isolated situation of thinking. So what can we do? Well, first of all, worrying is totally natural. Remember how I just explained to you that it's kind of normal brain function to put thoughts in your head of bad things that might happen so that you're not so vulnerable out here in the world.
So just know that worrying is very normal and give yourself a little bit of permission to do that. But the thing is, is like most people don't give themselves permission to do that. They're just kind of at war with themselves and they're constantly in this battle.
Like, I shouldn't worry. I don't want to worry. Therefore, it's like you just worry more.
Basically, the dialogue's about worry and there's worry. And so if you give yourself permission to worry, just like you give yourself permission to do all kinds of other things, then you're sort of planning for that functionality of the brain. You know, it's like kind of like how we know toddlers are going to have tantrums.
We're not like, oh, I hope my kid never has a tantrum. Raise your hand if that's the case, because I want to meet you. Right.
But generally, we just kind of know that that's really a normal part of development. Just like worry is a normal thing that your brain does. So if you feel like you can't stop worrying, one of the things that you can do is allow yourself to worry.
But here's the deal. You gotta have boundaries around it. Because if you don't have boundaries, then your brain will run your life.
OK, and that's where we get anxiety. And so what we want to do is if you want to give yourself permission to worry, set a little bit of a time aside for worrying. And I know this sounds so silly, but I've taught people this for years and it really works.
So if you have a worry that comes up and you're like, oh, I noticed that I'm worrying about blah, blah, blah, you can just jot it down and then put some time aside at the end of the day or at the beginning of the next day or in the middle of the day. I don't care when you put the time aside, but just plan to do your worrying, meaning you go ahead and look at your list of all the things you wrote down that you're worried about. And I like to get my worries out on paper.
It's really good for the brain to write down things we're thinking about. It's a way to process the world that works unlike any other thing, because when you put it down on paper, you can really look at it objectively. So write things down and then set some time aside to go over your worry list.
Right. And then you can explore your worries during a set amount of time. And I would say five or ten minutes is good enough, guys.
So what you want to do when you have your worry time, all you're doing is like telling your brain, basically, we're not going to do this right now. We're going to do this later. It's basic brain discipline.
We're not worrying about this right now. We're going to do this later. Just jot that down on a piece of paper.
And when it's time to worry, we'll come back to it. OK, so you're commanding your brain. You are disciplining your mind.
Very, very crucial. Very important. So once you sit down to go over your worry list, you want to challenge your thoughts.
OK, if you listen to my episode on unhelpful thinking. You want to look for patterns of thinking that are really destructive and unhelpful. For example, black or white thinking.
It's either this way or it's that way. Right? If we do this thing, then bad things will happen. If we don't do this thing, bad things won't happen.
Whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait a second. Where's the middle? Right? All or nothing thinking is like it's this way or it's that way.
So look for that because the brain really does a lot of all or nothing thinking. When really, you and I both know there's a lot of room in the middle. Right? The other thing to look for is generalization.
Like, basically, like, every time I do this or this always happens or she's never going to be able to do this safely. Right? Always, never. Do you see what I'm doing there? And that's basically like just making a sweeping statement that all situations are dangerous or all things are things that are worthy of your worrying.
And then look for this kind of overly negative tone because the brain loves an overly negative tone. Don't forget, the brain holds on to negativity like nobody's business, my friend. That's its job.
But you don't have to be on board for that. And so look for that strictly negative bias in your worry, basically. And then you have to challenge your brain.
You have to argue with your mind in order to get it to work better. Meaning, if you have a worry, for example, you know, my son is moving out and, oh, mama's got a lot of worries, kids. I have thought of so many things that I'm worried about.
Right? One thing that I'm a little bit concerned about is that this kid has no idea how to live in an apartment and he plays his music really loud and he kind of stomps. And I'm worried that he's going to get kicked out of the apartment because he's freaking loud. Isn't that so silly? So there we go.
Right? I'm sort of saying, well, he's never lived in an apartment, so he's not going to know how to behave properly. Right? Can I argue with this? Well, what's my evidence for this? Well, I don't really have evidence for this because this kid is very astute to looking in his surroundings and figuring out what's appropriate and what's not appropriate. He's super open to feedback.
And so it's not necessarily like he's going to be loud and get kicked out. Right? So I can kind of argue with some of my thinking around this giant change. Right? And by the way, anything that's change a coming, your brain's going to hook into that and worry.
Okay? So you want to argue with it using evidence. Right? So if you're, say, afraid to go over bridges and you know you're taking a trip where you have to drive over a bridge. Right? What's the evidence there that people are very, very unsafe driving over bridges? What's the evidence? There's not much.
Okay? And so sometimes it's just a great idea to just kind of mess with your brain in that way. You also want to ask yourself the question. Here's a couple more questions you might want to ask yourself when you're having your worry time and you're critically looking at your thoughts.
And it's a question that I ask a lot is, is this helpful? Like, is it helpful for me to be stewing about a potentially bad outcome right now? Yeah, probably not. You guys, it's totally distracting me from a lot of other things. It's distracting me from having like an actual real conversation with my kid about what is actually happening.
It would be so much easier just to talk it out. And the other thing is like, what's the probability? We always want to like look kind of at evidence and data. What's the probability that I'm going to drive off a bridge just because I'm afraid? Right? And then the other thing that I always like people to pull in is this idea of like, if you had a friend that came to you with this worry, what would you say to them? How would you, how would you support them? How would you talk with them about what their concerns are? Can you talk with yourself in that same way? Right? One thing that it's very important to do when we're worrying is to ask ourself this big, big question.
Do I have control over this? Is worrying going to solve this issue? Yes or no? If the answer is yes, then figure out what you do have control over and make a decision about what your action is going to be. If the answer is no, move on. Discipline your brain, right? This is something that I teach people every day in the therapy office.
It's also something that I developed a little online course for. It's like we have to learn to stop our brain's need to overthink. We have to learn to discipline our brain away from worrying because frankly, it makes our life a lot harder than it needs to be.
So be willing to interrupt the cycle of thinking, of worrying, and there's so many ways we can do that, right? Breathing is only one way. We talk a lot about, well, we'll just breathe, right? And it actually does work really well sometimes. Exercise is a fantastic way to get out of your head and get into your body, meaning it's a fantastic way to stop worrying, right? And then also doing a little meditation or listening to a meditative instructor, doing a progressive relaxation exercise.
Basically, that will take you out of your head and put you into your body. And another thing that I always encourage people to do is exercise a little creativity. Like do you have a creative project that you could work on instead of spending your time worrying? So those are my ideas for you today about worry.
You know, my biggest thing about worry is like when we worry and it goes unchecked for any period of time, we're heading down the path of more of a problem. So we need to discipline our brains. We need to stop worrying so that we don't cause ourselves more of a permanent condition.
So that's why I wanted to talk with you about this today. And also I wanted to talk with myself because I have some worries. The world is topsy-turvy right now.
There's a lot of things happening. And yes, we all have thoughts about what's happening. But more importantly than being all up in our heads worrying and fretting about what might happen next, I think we just need to get out there and take action.
We need to have different kinds of conversations. We need to be willing to stand up for what we think and what we believe in. And we need to be open to the fact that some things we don't have any control over, right? Especially other people, which frankly is a real problem, isn't it? If we can figure out how to control other people, we'll be in business, my friend.
But for now, let's just discipline our own brains, okay? I'm here with you doing the work. Thanks for showing up. Before you go, let me ask you a question.
Do you think about things way more than you think you should? Do you go over and over situations or conversations or conflicts in your mind to the point where it basically drives you bananas? Overthinking is a major complaint of people entering my therapy practice and my private group, actually. And it's not that complicated to get a handle on. It's just like any other personal growth topic, guys.
You got to just be willing to dig into it a little bit. When people don't get a handle on the overthinking habit, they tend to end up with an anxiety problem. So I created a super affordable online class that will teach you about how to get rid of all that thinking.
It's $37, you guys. And you know me, there will be homework. It's way worth the investment.
It's just a complaint I hear a lot that has a relatively simple path to solution. So I wanted to just share it in a simple method. It's on my website at rebeccahuntermsw.com. It's called The Overthinking Solution because, you guys, some problems can actually be solved.
I hope you found today's show helpful. It would mean a lot to me if you'd rate, review, or subscribe so that we can reach more people with this type of information. Here's the deal.
I'd like to get rid of some of the stigma around mental health, and this is how I'm doing it. We just need to have these conversations. If you really want to dig in, join me on social media or join my private Facebook group for more tools, support, and possibilities for change.
Head to the link in the show notes at rebeccahuntermsw.com. Way to show up today.
