Summary

The article outlines five personal strategies for managing anxiety, emphasizing the importance of recognizing worry's unproductive nature, making plans, asking self-reflective questions, staying busy, and taking action.

Abstract

The author of the article, a self-identified anxious person, shares their personal journey and methods for combating anxiety. They stress that worry is inherently unproductive and can be mentally exhausting, advocating for the creation of actionable plans to address specific concerns such as debt. The article suggests that writing down worries and answering self-reflective questions can provide a sense of control and empowerment. Engaging in focused activities, like assembling furniture or writing, is recommended to keep the mind occupied and reduce anxiety. The author emphasizes that taking concrete steps towards resolving the source of worry is crucial for alleviating anxiety. They conclude by affirming that making decisive decisions and implementing plans can significantly reduce or eliminate worry.

Opinions

Worry is seen as a non-productive mental activity that exhausts resources and hinders positive thinking.
Creating and adhering to a detailed plan is believed to be effective in reducing anxiety.
The act of writing down worries and answering specific questions is considered empowering and a way to gain control over anxiety.
Keeping busy with tasks that require concentration is viewed as a meditative way to push worry out of the mind.
The author holds that taking action on one's worries is more effective in reducing anxiety than the act of worrying itself.
Decisive conclusions and the implementation of plans are thought to be key in dissipating worry and anxiety.

The Five Methods I Used to Combat My Anxiety

Experiential lessons from a reformed worrier.

I’m an anxious person. I come from a long line of worriers on my father’s side. I remember going to my grandmother’s house as a child, and nearly every sentence that came out of her mouth was a negative comment. She fussed and worried over everything, mostly over small things that probably felt big to her.

I worry about getting ill, though I’m pretty healthy. I worry about being late, though I’m always on time. I worry about my daughter even though she is healthy, talented, and doing well in school.

I worried about the holidays — even though I had all my presents wrapped and tagged already, and the world wouldn’t end tomorrow if I didn’t.

I’ve been through long periods when I worry and long periods when I don’t worry at all. I go through months when I sleep like a baby and never wake during the night, and months when I wake at 2:00 am and grind my teeth from worry all through the night.

It doesn’t matter if you are born with the obsessive worry gene, or if you learned it from a parent. Worry can be debilitating, and it doesn’t promote positive thinking, it prevents it.

I have a lot of experience with worry and kicking it to the curb. Below are some of the methods I’ve found to be most effective.

Remind Yourself That Worry Isn’t Productive

Realize that worry is not productive. Worry can take a toll on you mentally. Anxiety exhausts you of resources. Anxiety producing thoughts running on a continuous loop in your mind will only create more worry and zap your energy, energy you could use to make a plan.

Worry destroys our ability to concentrate, creating tension and anxiety. Thinking of a plan to tame your fears with logical and practical rationale creates freedom from worry.

Make a Plan

Write it down. Make a list of things you are ruminating over in your mind. Implement a plan by marking actionable steps on a calendar.

Let’s say you have debt. Instead of worrying about the amount of debt you have, make a plan. Your plan could look something like this: cut up your credit cards, or put them in the freezer. Consolidate debt onto a low-interest card, or a no-interest card. Set up bi-monthly automatic payments from your bank account, the maximum you can give. Do not charge anything until it is paid off. Spend only cash until you have paid off your credit card. Give yourself an envelope with $200 every week, and only get by on that amount, or another amount more suitable to your situation.

Implementing and sticking to a concrete plan that you don’t deviate from will decrease your worry. Worrying about something like debt won’t get you out of debt, but a good solid plan will.

Ask Yourself Questions

Answer these following questions when you are experiencing high anxiety.

What am I worried about?
What can I do about it?
Here is what I am going to do about it.
When am I going to start doing it?

When you’ve answered these questions and put them in writing, you’ll feel more empowered over your life and less out of control.

Life can be overwhelming for all of us. Getting your fears out of your head and onto paper will put your mind at ease. Once you spend some time figuring out how to solve what is bothering you, you won’t feel the urge to think about it on a continuous worry loop.

Keep Busy

It is impossible to think of more than one thing at any given time, even for the most brilliant minds.

Try it right now. Try to think about your mother’s chocolate chip cookie recipe while at the same time thinking of the next Medium story you’re going to write. You can’t do it, because the mind can only hold one thought at a time.

Have you ever had the joy of putting together something from IKEA? I have. And you know what, it is the most relaxing experience for me. I have to concentrate on the instructions, or the thing won’t go together correctly.

It is focused work. I can’t think of anything else while I’m assembling IKEA furniture. It is meditative.

I have one task — to put together a really shitty piece of furniture (it’s questionable whether we can even call it “furniture”) that consists of about 50 parts and if I don’t follow the directions to the letter, I will be putting it together all night, so I have to concentrate, unable to think about anything else.

Try it. Build something, take a class, write an article, follow a recipe, read a book. Busy your mind to force worry out of your brain.

Do Something About It

Now that you have a plan, the most effective way to stop worry is to do something about the thing you’re anxious about — if you can.

I have been writing a lot. Every day. My goal is to write one post a day for an entire year. When I put off my task of writing one post a day, my worry starts to rise. As soon as I sit down at my computer to type, I feel my anxiety decrease. It is that simple.

We put off what we don’t want to do, and then as soon as we do what we don’t want to do, we realize that it wasn’t so hard after all. The worry was worse than the doing.

I learned that I should start with what I don’t want to do first thing in the morning, instead of worrying about (fill in the blank) all day.

Unless we carry out our plans, all the analysis and brainstorming is a waste of time and energy. Put your plans into action.

Closing Thoughts

There is enormous value in coming to a decisive concrete decision relating to the problem we are ruminating over.

I would say half of my worry vanishes when I arrive at a conclusion or a plan of action, and the rest of my anxiety vanishes when I start to implement that plan.

When we experience circular thinking and go round and round in our minds about something we are trying to do or a problem we are trying to solve, it can be maddening. But when we come to a clear concrete decision, worry diminishes and then vanishes altogether when we start to carry out that decision.

‘Our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance but to do what lies clearly at hand.’— Thomas Carlyle

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