Why I Schedule My Worry Sessions

I can't control IF I worry but maybe I can control WHEN I worry

My Why

I write about anything and everything over here, and sometimes that’s fun reflections from my trip to the South of France, and other times it’s about my stress management and coping mechanisms. You’ll surely get a mixed bag from me. This particular topic is very much at the center of my experience as a 26-year-old working girl and first-generation immigrant, navigating my way through adulthood and corporate America. I’m writing this for both you and me.

More Worry = More Control?

I am a chronic worrier. My mind always goes to the worst-case scenario. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to figure out where I caught this “worry bug”. So far, I haven’t been able to trace back my steps and find where my thought patterns went wrong. That’s when I realized I was focused on the wrong thing. It doesn’t matter why I developed this thought pattern. It was more likely than not a survival mechanism of sorts. A culmination of my life experiences. What does matter though is what I do with it going forward.

I developed this little method that helps me and wanted to share with the world in case it helps you. It’s not foolproof and doesn’t work 100% of the time but it sure is better than the “worry at all times” strategy that I often default to. In my mind worry equals control and if I can play out every possible downside scenario, I will be able to prepare for every possible outcome. Do far in my 26-years, I have had a 0% success rate of actually predicting the outcome. Yet for some reason I think the next time will be different. Talk about being bad at probability ha!

“You Need To Do & Be More”

Our newsfeeds are inundated with articles on how to stop worrying, ruminating, stressing, and our bookshelves are filled with self-help books and productivity guides…

…Yet at the same time we are told to meditate, wake up at 5 A.M., do cold plunges, read 10 books a day, have 5 side hustles, don’t settle, be a millionaire…list goes on. Our online and physical realms are constantly telling us that we shouldn’t be satisfied with our 9-to-5 job, our physique, our relationships, or our house. When did it become wrong to be content with where you are in life? Why is it bad that I actually enjoy having a 9-5 job that lets me pay my bills, save some money, and have enjoyable experiences.

Sounds pretty paradoxical if you ask me, no? How can I stop worrying if I am constantly told that I am not doing, being, seeing, or planning enough. While this advice is good in theory, it is based on the deemed idea that by doing these things (taking 12 supplements and journaling until our pens are out of ink) will somehow give us utter control over our lives.

While these habits will surely set someone on a better path than say being a couch potato and sitting around all day. However, this can easily lead to burnout and the reality is that the only thing certain is uncertainty itself (and taxes!).

I recently wrote about my travels to France and how life there seemed so much more well-rounded (fully recognizing that I was on vacation mode).

Worry is a Uniquely Human Ability

Worry is ultimately based on our conscious understanding that we lack control of the future. This is a uniquely human quality. While our ability to “step” into the future before it happened or create alternative realities in our mind can help us plan better and anticipate the consequences of our actions it also makes us aware how little control we have (Exhibit A: COVID uprooting all of our lives and sending us into quarantine for two years). Animals have situational related stress (for instance being chased by a predator or looking for shelter). However, human minds are able to conjure up stress just sitting on the couch. Even more so, there are cognitive differences between men and women in terms of how stress affects them. Sometimes I worry so much about the fact that I worry!

Source: Smithsonian Magazine

Our Brains Are Always “Nexting”

Our brains are always nexting, and that’s just what they’ll do!

To all those chronic worriers like myself, I highly recommend you read “Stumbling on Happiness” by Daniel Gilbert. He does an incredible job of breaking down our innately incorrect understanding of happiness and how / why our brains are always nexting. Nexting is different from predicting because predicting implies a level of accuracy or reliable ability to foresee events, which we ultimately cannot.

The below excerpt from his book was incredibly eye-opening:

“Prospection can provide pleasure and prevent pain, and this is one of the reasons why our brains stubbornly insist on churning out thoughts about the future…Knowledge is power, and the most important reason why our brains insist on simulating the future even when we’d rather be here now, enjoying a goldfish moment, is that our brains want to control the experiences we are about to have…we insist on steering our boats because we think we have a pretty good idea of where we should go, but the truth is that much of our steering is in vain...” (Stumbling on Happiness, Daniel Gilbert)

Essentially, we want a trailer of the movie that is our life. We want to maximize the pleasure and prevent the pain. We might understand on a conscious level that worrying won’t change anything (other than make us sick and miserable) but on a subconscious we can’t help but do just that.

You might now be saying “okay I get it, but what can I DO about it”… ah yes always thinking ahead!

The Goal of Our Brain & Body

One way to short-circuit this behavior is by scheduling your worry sessions. Schedule an X minute block a day or two before the event that you are worried about. If it is worry not tied to a particular event, still schedule a worry session in 5 days, lets say. Put it on your calendar and be prepared to do whatever it is you do when you worry during that allotted time. Whether that be sitting and catastrophizing, crying (it’s cathartic for a reason), screaming into the void, going for a run, etc.

Your brain and body are designed to keep you alive. We have the same survival features as our ancestors who lived 1,000 years ago except we’re no longer chased by lions. We’re just getting the dreaded “circling back here” emails from our boss.

How to Trick Your Brain

This is why we need to trick our brains. While we have advanced societally and technologically, we are still quite primitive biologically.

1. Your brain now has perceived control over when you feel certain emotions even if no control over the actual emotions. This doesn’t mean that you will stop worrying. However, our brains believe that if we don’t worry then the world will fall apart and that by worrying we are somehow not only arming ourselves for what is to come but that we can actually change what will come.

2. By putting off worrying you mind realize the problem or situation might have resolved by that time or might not seem as big as it was initially. You might even realize that you need to postpone your “worry session” by a few days. This creates a powerful mental buffer whereby you tell your brain “don’t worry, we will worry later and try to predict the future later, just not now”.

3. You will be able to feel those emotions in a shorter yet stronger burst, allowing you to expel it more effectively as compared to carrying that emotion all week. Even more so when your scheduled worry session arrives you might have already brainstormed ways to alleviate your future worries or manage them in a constructive way.

Yours Truly,

Katarina

P.S. I’d love to hear how you cope with and manage stress. Anything that you’ve found works and anything that doesn’t?