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Good news for the worriers among us (including myself). Worrying can be mastered to a large extent, so you can make your life a little easier. You also have much more time and energy for beautiful thoughts that make you happier and happier.

Worrying is hardly unknown to anyone, but excessive worrying is not for everyone. I also had to make an effort to master less worrying. I always envied people who were only concerned when they really needed to and were not worrying daily. How they did that was a mystery to me. As I became more and more aware of it, and I was disappointed that I was so worried about nothing, I gradually start to read about it more and more. I now listen to my head and body when I feel this stress and have learned to let it go better.

Why is it so important to do something about excessive worrying?

If you worry a lot, you actually live in a constant state of tension that is not good for you at all and that can even make you sick. It increases your cortisol levels, which is bad for your health. The constant state of tension (conscious or unconscious) leads to poor sleep, anxiety, depression, burnout, stress on your immune system, and it also puts a lot of pressure on your happiness.

If you realize that most of the things you worry about are only going on in your head and will never come true, then you have the first step to unlearning the worrying. Because fair is fair, the “what if” scenario is almost never going to happen. You make the world around you much more threatening than it actually is, so worrying has the opposite effect. Worrying only makes you feel worse about yourself and that is not something you want. You just want any problems to be solved, and if you look at the situation honestly, you can work towards a possible outcome more easily.

Worrying makes you feel worse, and what you want to avoid is more likely to happen. It does not solve your problem, while if you look at the situation honestly, you can work more easily towards a possible outcome.

I have listed ways that work for me. There are probably a few that appeal to you and that can help you get more grip on worrying:

– Move. It may be a bit obvious, but a half-hour walk in the fresh air is already a good thing to ease your worries.

– Try not to suppress worry, because then you will only make it worse. Accept it the moment you have it and then move on to what you were doing.

– Live in the present. If you stray, bring your thoughts back to the present. Watch your breathing, how your body feels.

– Eat healthy. Another open door, but a lot of junk food, drinks and other unhealthy food is not good for your head. It does not make you feel better and it makes you think less about yourself.

– Keep a morning and evening schedule, and get enough sleep. Regularity and taking good care of yourself is part of that. That makes you much more resistant to negative thoughts.

– Limit the time you are online. Put your phone away. Watching social media or other things on your phone all the time only makes you more restless.

– If you’re worrying, write your thoughts down. You will see that these thoughts quickly become less heavy. It is therefore much easier to review them after some time and see them in a different perspective.

– Go brainstorming. Make a list of all possible solutions you can come up with to solve your problem. Then you can always make an action plan if necessary.

– Make time for meditation. It will make you come into the present and let your negative thoughts go better. It doesn’t have to be long, a few minutes with your eyes closed is enough.

– Keep your hands busy. If necessary with a stress ball or a bead chain. Fiddling with your hands makes you less able to sit in your head. Or make something else, for example a tasty dish.

– If you worry, ask yourself the following questions: Is what I think true? What is the probability that what I think will really happen? If what I think happens, can I fix it? Does worrying what I do now really help solve the problem?

-Talk about it. Ignoring your thoughts will not help you. They don’t get away from it. What helps is sharing them with other people.

– Feel the emotions that arouse the worrying about you. Isn’t it true that you want to avoid the unpleasant emotions of what can happen? Then accept those feelings. Allowing your feelings to blow them over is more likely.

– Some of us are also worried about what others think of them. That makes no sense at all when you consider that most “others” are not even concerned with you at all. Most people think about their own things and have their hands full with it. So stop thinking about what other people think when you do or say something.

What matters is that you progress in small steps in your goal to reduce worrying. You will not unlearn it overnight, but be aware and train yourself to move forward. What is the first step you can take right now? Do you have that in mind? Then start today, and feel good about it.

Good luck ?