What To Do When Your Worries Consume You

Are you having a hard time sleeping at night? Are you worried about every little thing and feeling overwhelmed by it all? Is your stomach in knots when you think of eating? Are you afraid of the unknown? Are you feeling like everything is getting out of control? If any of these feel familiar, you may be experiencing anxiety. While we all experience anxiety at one point or another, it’s when these feelings become excessive, all-consuming and interfere with our daily lives and sleep at night, that it becomes more of a problem.

The good news is, studies have shown that 91.6 percent of the things people worry about don’t happen. The other 8 percent found that the problem wasn’t as bad as they thought it would be. The bad news is, anxiety is the number one psychiatric disorder in the United States today. The U.S. is considered to be the most anxious nation in the world. Studies suggest that the root of all anxiety can be broken down into 5 core fears. Our perceptions of these fears is what causes us to feel anxious.

These fears are generally related to five major universal themes of loss:

1. Abandonment (loss of love)

2. Loss of identity (Who am I? What am I about?)

3. Loss of meaning (What’s important to me? What are my values?)

4. Loss of purpose (and chance to express oneself)

5. Fear of death

When we are anxious, we fixate on these fears, and this heightens and exacerbates these feelings.

What to do with all this worry:

1. Face the fear - name it, recognize it, call it out.

2. Be mindful - stay in the present moment, slow down and breathe. Stay in the now.

3. Surrender - step back and let go of your attachment to a result. Trust the process that this will all work out the way it’s supposed to.

4. Self-care - body, mind, soul - sleep, eat healthy, meditate and engage in breathwork.

5. Schedule worry time - give yourself a time limit. Maybe even set a timer for 15 minutes and allow this to be your worry time.

6. Journal - perhaps make this your 15 minutes of worry time and write down your worries. This helps compartmentalize your anxious thoughts and gets it out of your head.

7. Exercise - movement - get those endorphins moving and released and all that anxious energy out.

8. Cleanse - take a shower or a bath with essential oils and sage your physical surroundings in order to physically clean away your worry.

9. Connect with nature - throw rocks in the ocean - recharge with the smells of fall leaves or fresh ocean air.

10. Connect with humans - reach out to friends, family, any support systems.

This is the time when it is of utmost importance to stay connected to the things that matter to you in your life, whether it be your relationships, your home, your pets, your purpose or your play. Focus on what works and try not to carry the negative feelings with you. However, when feeling triggered, we do need to ask ourselves, “How do I heal this inner voice?” instead of avoiding and ignoring it.

This is when therapy can help. Therapy is a safe space to share all of these anxious thoughts, explore childhood attachment issues and current life stressors that are exacerbating these core fears. In therapy and in life, we all get to write our own narrative and life story. We also can learn that we can make changes to this life story as well. Therapy is also a place to learn new ways to communicate and improve interpersonal relationships.