Ways to Manage Worry Instead of it Managing You – Part THREE
Worry! Ways to Manage Worry Instead of it Managing You – PART THREE
Strategies to Help you Manage your Worrying
I am glad you are back again to read the final part of my blog Worry! Ways to Manage Worry Instead of it Managing You. In part three of my blog, I will give you some specific strategies to help you manage your worrying.
Here are some specific strategies and tools that can help you avoid toxic worry. Let’s get to it shall we?
Hallowell’s Strategies of Managing Worry:
Identification
Knowing your pattern of worry or finding the correct diagnosis of your worry patterns can easily be identified by consulting a mental health professional or coach.
Education
You can get help by self- educating yourself through self- awareness books, internet articles, Youtube videos, seminars, etc.
Constructive thinking
Listen to yourself through self- talk or self- dialogue. This is something we did as children when we spoke to ourselves out loud. We were told to stop that at a certain age. Try talking to yourself out loud, preferably with no one in the room, or people may think you have gone crazy. Also, the use of journaling can also help. If you dialogue with yourself it can help to erase old patterns of automatic negative thinking as much as possible. It is important to not berate yourself or get unnecessarily angry with yourself.
Do your best in the moment and don’t expect to resolve the worry perfectly. The reality is, as human beings, we can only try to do our best.
Connectedness and reassurance
Make connections to family and friends. Though electronics can increase 
worry and anxiety, the electronic world can also be helpful. Use your cell phone to call a friend for coffee, Whatsapps or even email a friend. By doing this, it may make you feel that you are part of a larger world than the world of you worrying.
Plan your worries ahead of time
If you notice that a certain situation may illicit worry or anxiety, write out a plan and possible solutions before your worrying escalates.
Change of physical state
As we talked about earlier, worry is a physical state of mind, as well as a psychological state. Slow your worrying down gradually (it is not very healthy to try to stop it abruptly, it is not natural and has a boomerang effect and could cause unconscious resistance) by changing your physical state. Try daily exercise, listen to music, do meditation, yoga, etc. to help calm you down. If you can take “mini vacations” or long weekends away from home and work several times a year and not just one big vacation one time a year.
Medication
You may need medication to better manage your worrying. If you need such assistance go to a qualified medical professional for this type of support.
Unfortunately, sometimes people try to “self medicate” themselves with drugs (either illicit drugs or getting medication through their doctor), alcohol or other addictions to help manage their worry and anxiety. This is defiantly not the way to manage your worrying. In a future blog I will talk more about addictions and how it affects and interferes with peoples’ lives
Seek Out Psychotherapy or Life Coaching
Psychotherapy or life coaching can also help you to understand the sources and causes of your toxic worrying. Together with your coach or therapist you can develop a treatment plan to help you lower your worry level.
I hope in my third and last part of my blog, Strategies to Help you Manage your Worrying, has given you some suggestions and strategies to better manage your worrying on a day to day basis.
There are 50 more tips in Dr. Hallowell’s book Worry-Hope and Help for a Common Condition. Please contact me and I will be happy to e-mail these tips to you.
In conclusion, am I saying that we should never get or feel worried?
Absolutely not! Worrying is like any other feeling. It is an important feeling that we need both biologically and psychologically. Imagine, if we did not have this emotion how vulnerable we would be physically and emotionally.
Worrying keeps us safe and helps with fight or flight reaction which can motivate us to get things done.
Worry also propels us to double check what we are doing to prevent errors. It reminds us that we are human and not super human.
Just like we need to pick our battles in life, we need to select when and how much we need to worry.
Remember, learning to manage your worrying is not an event, it is a process.
I hope after you have read all my blog entries and you have a better understanding of toxic worry and the tools available to manage your worrying in a healthier way. Feel free to go back to my previous blog entries and review the information I talked about on how to manage worrying more effectively (part one; The Emotional and Biological Factors that Cause us to Worry, part two General Recommendations and Thoughts about Dealing with Worry).
Managing your worry in a healthy way will allow you to free yourself, renew your energy and give you a greater ability to love yourself and others.
Just remember the acronym that I have ended each of the three parts of my blog, I hope it will continue to help you manage your worrying and avoid toxic worry.
Wait
One minute
Relax
Refocus
Yourself
Remember don’t worry, too much.
Reference and extra help:
- Edward M. Hallowell, M.D., “Worry, Hope and Help for a Common Condition,” Random House Publishing Group, Copyright 1997
- Dr. Hallowell also recommends that self -help groups can be a great addition together with professional mental health professionals to help people manage their worrying. I recommend that you attend a self- help group called Emotions Anonymous. Their website is: http://emotionsanonymous.org/. Just go to the website you will find a wealth of information. On the website press on the tab, “Find a Meeting,” and you will find meetings all over the world including in Israel.
*Please feel free to contact me directly; your feedback about my blog is greatly appreciated.
Daniel Baum, M.S.W. I am trained psychotherapist with over 32 years of experience. At my clinic, “Growing Change,”
I specialize in treating men and women who suffer from different types of addictions as well as other emotional and psychological problems.
For more information about my services and professional experiences: Cell Phone: 054-5819591;
E-mail: [email protected]; Web-Site: www.growingchange.co.il
