Worry Just Makes You Feel Anxious
Many of us worry about things
that have not yet happened; this may result in feelings of stress, caused by
the release of hormones due to the body going into fight or flight. Fight or
flight physiology is the body’s natural alarm system that indicates that there
is a danger present. Unfortunately, evolution dictates, because is it better to
respond to something that isn’t threatening than to not respond to something
that is threatening, our brain is unable to differentiate between actual and
perceived threats. Something as simple as a thought (or worry) can trigger
fight or flight.
When we go into the fight or
flight state a chemical is released in the brain that shuts down communication
with the frontal lobes, the ‘thinking’ part, because if it is a life or death
situation we just want to be able to react, not stop and think about it. In
order for our bodies to react we need to get the energy to the extremities so
our heart rate increases to pump the blood out to the arms and legs in
preparation to run or fight. We don’t need to waste energy digesting food, so
our bodies evacuate anything in the duodenum or oesophagus. The oesophagus
tightens which causes pressure on the windpipe and affects breathing, so we
start to hyperventilate to get enough oxygen into our body. This creates an
imbalance of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the blood, which can make you feel
light headed (when people panic they think they might faint, but you only faint
when your blood pressure is low, which it isn’t when panicking!).
When in a life threatening
situation we don’t notice this physiology as we are focused on the threat.
When the anxiety physiology is triggered by something we perceive to be
threatening, such as a negative thought like ‘everyone hates me’ we notice the
anxiety physiology which, firstly, makes us believe that the thought must be
true, and, secondly, we try to do something to either escape or avoid the
discomfort, for example, avoid certain situations, drink alcohol or overeat to
dampen down the physiological response. However, the avoidance and escape keep
the anxiety going as we never discover what we were thinking isn’t true,
because we avoided situations that might risk us finding out it’s true. To get
rid of the anxiety in these situations we have to expose ourselves to the
situations that cause the anxiety, feel the fear and do it anyway!
In any situation in everyday life
there are four areas interacting and influencing, what we think, what we feel
emotionally, what we do and what we feel physiologically. Cognitive Behaviour
therapy calls this a four areas formulation for the maintenance of behaviours
(There’s more about this in the book Mind Over Mood by Dennis Greenberger and
Christine Padesky)
There are two types of worry, hypothetical ones (about things that have not yet
happened and current problems (when something has happened that you now have to
deal with). The trick is to let go of the ones you can’t do anything about and
problem solve the ones you can.
It’s easy to become trapped in
the vicious cycle. To prevent this, we have to look at things differently by
challenging our thinking and changing our behaviours. The first step in
stopping ourselves from worrying is to recognise that it does not serve us.
Worrying means that we are not living in the 24 hours and the only function it
serves is to make us feel anxious. So why do many people continue to worry?
Research has come up with 5 reasons people carry on worrying (Dugas &
Robichaud, 2007). They believe that:
1.
Worry will motivate them – ‘If I worry about my
health it will motivate me to lose weight’, what usually happens in this
scenario is the worry actually results in an increase in the behaviours that we
hope to stop, as they are the comfort counteracting the uncomfortable
physiology.
2.
Worry is a way of problem solving – Worry means
to go over and over the same thought in your head. This isn’t problem solving,
problem solving means to generate a variety of potential solutions and to pick
the most appropriate one based upon the pros and cons.
3.
Worry as a way to protect against negative
emotion – sometimes we worry as a way to prepare ourselves and buffer against
potential negative emotions. Unfortunately, there is no way to do this and if
something negative happens it will upset us, all worry does is create negative
emotions (anxiety) before anything has even happened.
4.
Worry as a way to show that we care: ‘If I worry
about my kids, it shows that I love them’, however there are many other ways to
show that we care and often our behaviours to reduce the anxiety caused by
worrying can get in the way of our relationships.
5.
‘Magical thinking’ – this one is a bit like
superstitions such as touching wood, as if touching wood can influence events
in some way.
Once we are able to believe that
worry is not serving us, other than to make us feel anxious, we would be more
inclined to stop doing it. If you struggle to identify which of the positive
beliefs your worry fits into then ask yourself ‘If this were true, why would it
be a problem to me?’, that will usually give you a good idea, it’s important to
identify the exact worry. One way to stop worrying is to challenge it, try to
generate alternative thoughts that offer a more realistic alternative than the
worry that you are focussed on (these are usually worst case scenarios and, as
such, we respond as if the worst case scenario has happened). An easy way to do
this is to think what you might advise a friend to do if they were in this
situation.
Another way to reduce the anxiety
around worry is to stop engaging in what are known as behaviours that create
certainty (Dugas & Robichaud, 2007). These are things that we do to stop
the uncomfortable physiological sensations that go along side anxiety emotions,
for instance, someone we love has gone out for the day. They don’t text or
ring. Our thoughts (worries) may be ‘They’re hurt’; or ‘They don’t love me’.
Worrying wouldn’t actually change either of these things if they were true but,
to reassure ourselves we may send a text or try to ring them. This reduces our
anxiety (fight/flight physiology) for a while, until the thought enters our
minds ‘they haven’t replied’ (revert to original worry).
What happens with this uncomfortable
fight/flight physiology when it is triggered is that it starts to rise. To stop
this discomfort we act in a way that reassures or comforts us and reduces the
physiological symptoms but this doesn’t last. The best way to reduce the
anxiety fully is to allow it to reach a peak and then it will eventually drop
as, unless we are in a life threatening situation (where we need it) fight/flight
physiology will quickly fade away, so the first time we attempt to face fear it
will get really high before dropping down again. The second time we face the
same fear it won’t go so high and will drop down quicker, until facing that
fear doesn’t create such anxiety (as in the graph below). In the case of
behaviours that create certainty (those behaviours that we try to manage worry
with), the fear that we are facing is not being in control, which will cause
anxiety. So we have to not carry out these behaviours (i.e. texting to seek
reassurance, overeating to dampen down physical symptoms) so that the anxiety
reduces permanently.
Another way of reducing the anxiety that we experience is looking at a thought two different ways, this is called ‘theory A’ and theory B’. Theory A being that the worst case scenario will come true. Theory B being ‘I am experiencing heightened anxiety because worry has triggered fight/flight, what’s more likely to be true is …'
Along with the other books that
I’ve mentioned, the website Centre for clinical interventions has some great
workbooks to help to manage worry at:
http://www.cci.health.wa.gov.au/resources/infopax.cfm?Info_ID=46
these include a problem solving tool, ways to challenge worry, relaxation and
letting go of worry techniques.
References
Dugas,
M.J. & Robichaud, M. (2007). Cognitive-Behavioural
Treatment for
Generalized
Anxiety Disorder.
London
Greenberger,
D. & Padesky, C. (1995). Mind Over
Mood. Guilford Press.
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