How to Stop Worrying: 12 Failed Strategies

1. You are looking for validation.

You worry that you don’t look good enough and keep asking your partner, “Do you think I’m fine?” It seems to you that chest pain is the first symptom of cancer, and you often visit doctors to find out: “Will I live?” Or maybe you’re nervous about a guy you met at a party. “He yawned, was he bored with me?” – ask your friend.

The problem is that one confirmation is not enough. You will look for them again and again, trying to get more guarantees in order to reduce your anxiety and insecurity for at least the next couple of minutes. But no confirmation helps, because you will soon begin to doubt the confirmation itself.

Maybe a friend is just supporting you, saying that you look good, but in fact she thinks otherwise. Or the doctor can’t tell for sure if it’s cancer without doing certain tests. By doing this, you are trying to gain assurance, instead of learning to live with insecurity, which is a very important element in dealing with anxiety.

2. You try to stop thinking

You may have heard of stop thought therapy, which involves getting rid of negative or unwanted thoughts by suppressing them. Its essence is this. Every time you are worried that you will lose all your money in the stock market, you must force yourself to stop thinking about it, flick your wrist with a rubber band, or mentally shout to yourself: “Stop!”.

This is supposed to reduce your nervousness. Unfortunately, this method not only does not work, but leads to a “rebound of thought” and only worsens the situation in the long run.

Let’s check the stop thought. Close your eyes and relax. Imagine a clear image of a polar bear – cute and fluffy. Now that you have a vivid picture in your head, I want you to stop thinking about polar bears for the next ten minutes. No matter what you do, don’t think about any polar bears. Psychologists have long noticed that attempts to suppress certain thoughts lead to their renewal or even intensification.

3. You collect information

When you’re worried about something, you’re trying to find out as much as you can about the problem. Knowledge is power, isn’t it? After all, this is how we find out the facts. Perhaps you really collected a number of facts (or perhaps not). But even real facts can be selected biased, that is, on the basis of prejudice, and misleading.

This is what happens when you are looking for information to support your negative beliefs. You see a trend that doesn’t exist, you overestimate the risk and give importance to what is unimportant. Trying to find out if a negative prediction can come true – “What if I have cancer?”, You find the information you need and tend to confirm the prediction.

If you are worried that you are annoying someone, you will not only look for any signs that this person is treating you badly, but you will also interpret their neutral behavior as negative. Research shows that chronic neurotics view neutral or ambiguous information as a threat. Shy people consider any complex facial expression to be angry.

Psychologists have also found that when we gather information about a threat in a state of anxiety (for example, the possibility of a plane crash, a terrorist attack, or contracting a dangerous disease), we almost always overestimate the risk. At such moments, we do not seek to find out the most important thing, namely: “How often does the worst thing NOT happen?” If you’re afraid of flying, how carefully do you search for information about planes that land successfully? If you fear being fired, do you keep track of how many days/months/years you haven’t been fired?

4. You check again and again

You are trying to reduce your anxiety by making sure everything is okay. You think: “I may have forgotten something”, “I must have missed something”, “If I can detect some little thing in advance, then I can prevent the worst” and “I should check everything, then (perhaps) I can do something.” The key points are:

• If I figure everything out, I can reduce my uncertainty.
• I can’t stand uncertainty.
• If I detect signs of disaster early, I can prevent the worst.
• I cannot rely entirely on my memory.
• Caution is never too much.
• This is my responsibility.

You think you look terrible. Every time you think about it, you rush to the mirror to make sure your makeup is in order. You look at yourself in a magnifying mirror, which allows you to see any wrinkle or broken capillary in the eye. This, of course, makes you even more worried about your appearance. You explain to yourself, “I look in the mirror to spot something wrong early on and do something about it.” To “do something” means to hide with makeup or refuse to go to an event. This reduces anxiety: fixing your makeup makes you feel better for a while, and avoiding social events makes you feel safer.

What you don’t know, though, is that going to a party would help you overcome your anxiety. Checking never addresses the root of your anxiety: “I can’t stand being insecure.” Checks cost you stress, time, and energy, and they reinforce your belief that constant monitoring is necessary to feel safe. What about the meaning? For a period of five minutes to an hour you feel better, and then you need to make sure again.

5. You avoid discomfort

A common way to deal with anxiety is to avoid or put off the things that bother or worry you. If you’re worried about taxes, you’re avoiding filing your tax return. If you are worried that something is seriously ill, then put off going to the doctor.

Avoiding what bothers you works instantly. However, it also reinforces the belief that you are unable to solve these problems, making you even more afraid of facing them in the future. There is simply no way for you to know that you can handle it all on your own. You have no chance to disprove your negative beliefs.

6. You stun yourself with alcohol, drugs and food.

Anxiety disorder and depression are caused by the abuse of alcohol, drugs and food. If you’re worried about losing your job, you overeat and drink a lot to calm down. If you’re worried about getting pissed at a party, you can always “take a couple of drinks” to “relax.”

Suppression of anxiety through drugs, alcohol, or food indicates that you do not know how to deal with your worries and emotions. You do not reflect, do not try to figure out how much your prejudices correspond to the truth.

The upside of suppression and avoidance is that they work instantly and are readily available. And no consequences – for the next couple of hours. You won’t feel bad until late, you’ll have a hangover tomorrow, you can enjoy weed and not think about life in the real world, because your motivation and ambition have decreased significantly. However, you still do not resolve the existing issues. As a result, you will have two problems – anxiety and self-destructive behavior.

7. You suffer from “overtraining syndrome”

You are worried that you have to give a report next week. Although you know that you are competent and have deep knowledge on the topic, you are nevertheless disturbed by the thought: “What if everything goes out of my head?”, “What if someone asks a question that I can’t answer?” .

You think through the speech down to the last word, and when the time is right, you get up and read the speech… but you are so boring! You sound like a robot. People think: “That’s a bore!” And you were worried that if you were even a little spontaneous, you would certainly forget something and go astray.

Over-preparation reinforces the belief that you must be in complete control of what is bothering you, otherwise disaster will occur. Oddly enough, scientists have found that speakers who are ranked higher by the public actually don’t prepare much, focusing on feeling like, “I think I know this stuff.”

The speakers who liked the audience the least prepared the most. Overpreparation does not help, because it is impossible to prepare for everything in the same way: something unexpected can always happen.

8. You use safe behavior

When we are anxious or afraid, we use “safe behaviors” – “rituals” that allow us to feel safe even for a moment. People often don’t think about their rituals until others point them out and ask them to stop.

For example, a person who is afraid to drive on a bridge performs the following rituals for safety: plans the path so that he knows exactly where the bridge awaits him, tries not to look over the edge of the bridge, drives in lanes, does not look in the rear-view mirror, squeezes the steering wheel, take a deep breath and slam on the brakes. Each of these aspects of safe behavior gives him a sense of control over the situation. In fact, it only reinforces his belief that he is unable to control her.

The use of rituals reassures you that you cannot manage on your own, that this situation will remain “dangerous” and “problematic” unless you “protect” yourself with some action. As soon as you stop practicing them, you will start doing what you are afraid of, and you will understand that in fact, everything is in order without these “rituals”.

9. You are always trying to make a good impression.

Perhaps you are worried about how you look or that you will blurt out something inappropriate. You worry that people will notice your restlessness, defenselessness, and awkwardness and judge you. You reason like this: “If I don’t make a really good impression in every way, everyone will think I’m a failure.”

Most neurotics grew up with no warm affection from their parents, but with the need to be guided by the thoughts and feelings of other people and with the obligation to please them. As a result, a person is never sure that he can like, that relations with him will be maintained.

You are too focused on getting everyone to treat you well. You are constantly trying to guess what others think. Believing that you must always “make an incredible impression on people,” you expect the most harsh criticism – and accordingly worry.

10. You ruminate by rethinking a problem over and over.

When you think about something disturbing, you “chew” it many times, like a cow chews its cud. You hope that if you keep thinking, you will find a solution, feel better, and stop thinking accordingly.

Belief in the usefulness of reflection is absolutely false. The awareness of how bad you feel only gets stronger because you focus on the negative emotions. This makes you avoid positive feelings, as if you refuse to change your attitude towards the situation or find any positives in it.

Fans of reflection cannot stand complex feelings and prefer unambiguity. Fruitless thinking is the eternal “chewing” of reality that you cannot swallow.

11. You need complete confidence

It may seem that gaining confidence right now will make you less nervous. But even if you finally become convinced that the situation is as it seems to you and start looking for the perfect solution to the problem, you will soon realize that it is not ideal – and you will start to get nervous again. As you search for confidence and the perfect solution, anxiety grows. In reality, anything can happen. To live with uncertainty is to live in the real world.

12. You refuse to accept the existence of your “crazy” thoughts.

Many people worry about thoughts that seem to them completely contrary to their character and beliefs. Almost everyone talks about “crazy” thoughts – disgusting, immoral or cruel.

People worry about them for three reasons. First, they see them as an omen of something terrible. Secondly, they are ashamed and feel guilty. And thirdly, they think they should get rid of them immediately.

For example, people with panic disorder fear that the thought of having a panic attack indicates that one is about to happen. OCD sufferers believe that the thought of losing control predicts that they will behave violently, lose control of themselves. Neurotics also tend to believe that their thoughts will inevitably lead to actions.

It’s helpful to ask yourself, “How many times have I had ‘crazy’ thoughts?” and “How many times have these predictions actually come true?” Obsessive-compulsive disorder research indicates that nearly 30% have real obsessions, unwanted thoughts, urges that do not affect behavior in any way. Thinking about something is not the embodiment of what you thought about.

Many people who think about cruel and bad deeds believe that having these thoughts makes them immoral, disgusting, corrupt. Character and sanity, however, are not determined by your thoughts – they are determined by what you actually do.

For example, if you have images of violence in your mind, ask yourself: Are you the abuser in these scenes? Not? So these images have nothing to do with your character. And fighting them – instead of acknowledging their existence – means only increasing your own anxiety. How to replace all of the above false strategies? What steps in working with anxiety will be truly effective?

Read more in Robert Leahy’s new book The Cure for Nerves: How to Stop Worrying and Enjoy Life (Peter, 2018).