How to overcome your worries

"... Since most worries never come true, worries often are forced to admit, 'I can't recall what I was worried about."

EVERYONE SEEMS to worry, yet chronic worriers--those who worry all the time--wait almost 10 years to seek out psychotherapy; that is if they ever decide to go. Moreover, they have been heating bad advice all the while: You have to think more positively, they are told. You should believe in yourself. Why are you punishing yourself? Do you want to suffer? Just stop worrying. This is like saying to someone who is anorexic, "Why don't you have a pastry?" The chance that this advice will work is about zero.

So, what are the rules for being a worrier?

* If something bad can happen, then it is your responsibility to worry about it.

* Do not accept any uncertainty--you need to know for sure.

* Treat all of your negative thoughts as if they are tree.

* Anything bad that could happen is a reflection of who you are as a person.

* Failure is unacceptable.

* Get rid of any negative feelings immediately.

* Treat everything like an emergency.

Now that you know the roles, you can worry every single day of your life about something that probably will never happen. Congratulations, you are on the royal road to misery.

Worriers believe that they need to worry in order to be prepared for--or to avoid--the bad things that are going to happen to them. There is a lot of excellent research on the nature of worry as well as how to get control of it. What follows are seven steps to conquer those worries:

Distinguish productive from unproductive worry. Ask yourself, "what is the advantage that I hope to get in worrying?" Worriers believe that simply having a thought--"I might fail"--means that they should wont about it. They think that worry will prepare, motivate, and keep them from ever being surprised.

If I am going to fly from New York to Rome, productive worry involves action that I can take now. For instance, I can purchase my airline ticket and reserve a hotel room. Unproductive worry involves all the what-ifs that I cannot do anything about: What if my scheduled talk does not go well? What if I get lost in Rome?

Accept reality and commit to change. Research shows that worriers cannot tolerate uncertainty, treating it as if it was a sure negative. Ironically, 85% of the things that worriers worry about turn out to have a positive outcome, and even when the outcome is negative, 79% of the time worriers end up saying, 'I handled that better than I thought I would." Demanding certainty is hopeless. Instead, look for the advantages of having some uncertainty. These include novelty, surprise, challenge, change, and growth. Otherwise, life is boring.

Along with accepting some reality and uncertainty, we know that worriers try to avoid uncomfortable experiences. So, as therapists, we ask worriers to list all the things that they are avoiding--and then begin doing these things. The goal is "constructive discomfort" and "successful imperfection." An individual has to be uncomfortable to grow, and change and success are purchased at the price of imperfection. These ideas can be quite empowering. Once someone realizes that he or she already is uncomfortable (since the individual in question is a worrier and probably a little depressed), that person at least can use discomfort to make progress.

Challenge your worried thinking. Worriers have thought-reality fusion. The thought process goes something like this, "If I think I might get rejected, it will turn out to be true unless I worry about it and do everything to be sure it does not happen." Worries are like obsessions in this sense: worriers treat their thoughts like they already are facts. Typical thinking errors include mind reading (he thinks I am a loser), jumping to conclusions (I don't know something, therefore I will fail), emotional reasoning (I feel nervous, so things will not work out), perfectionism (I need to be perfect to be confident), and discounting the positive (the fact that I have done well in the past is not a guarantee of anything). Worriers also have sudden-emergency ideas, such as slippery slope thinking (if this trend continues, things could go downhill in a real hurry) or trap door mentality (I could make a mistake and my whole life could fall apart).

In response, worriers should challenge and test out their thinking: What is the worst, best, and most likely outcome? What are 'all the things that I could do to deal with a real problem? Is there any evidence that things could turn out okay? Am I making the same incorrect predictions that I always do?

Look at the deeper threat. Personality plays a role in the problem of worrying. People differ from one another in what they worry about. Some are obsessed about money: others, health: and, still others, what society thinks of them. Cognitive therapy techniques help modify these concerns. Is there any real advantage in thinking in such perfectionistic and demanding terms? What would be the upside in cutting yourself a little slack? How about treating yourself like a human being?