Several studies have proven that worry not only puts a strain on our mental health, but also on our physical health, too.
Hence, worry in itself is not bad — it gear us into taken some positive actions,however too much of worry can lead to anxiety, which can have a lasting effect on health and happiness.
A research has shown that anxiety can have a negative impact on sleep, it
tax our immune system, raise our risk of post-traumatic stress disorder, and even affect our risk of dying from disease.
The actual issue with worrying is that it becomes a repeating self-reoccuring negative thoughts. In a new study in the University of Surrey researchers described worry as “a chain of thoughts and images that are affectively negative and relatively uncontrollable.”
According to a research study by the University of Surrey in the United Kingdom , worrying can have long-term chronic health consequences, including cardiovascular disease.
A lovely quote from Corrie ten Boom which says, “Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow. It empties today of its strength.”
The following are ten major actions and eight subsidiary other actions you can take to take your mind off of your troubles:
1.CHANGE YOUR BEDTIME
If you like to stay up late at night, you might be feeding your inner worrier.
Researchers at Binghamton University in New York found that people who go to bed very late and sleep for short amounts of time are more overwhelmed with negative thoughts than those who keep more regular sleeping hours.
They tend to worry about the future and dwell over past events, and they have a higher risk of anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder.
“Making sure that sleep is obtained during the right time of day may be an inexpensive and easily disseminable intervention for individuals who are bothered by intrusive thoughts,” said Jacob Nota, one of the study’s researchers.
2.BREATHE SLOWLY
Deep breathing, also called yoga breathing, is known to lower stress and anxiety. In his book Spontaneous Happiness: A New Path to Emotional Well-Being (Little, Brown & Company; 2013), Andrew Weil suggests using a technique he calls the “4-7-8 breath” as a calming practice and tool to use when you are feeling upset.
First, exhale completely through your mouth, then inhale through your nose for a count of four. Hold your breath for seven seconds, then exhale through your mouth for a count of eight. It’s not possible to breathe deeply and be anxious at the same time, says Weil. He recommends using the 4-7-8 breath technique at least twice a day or whenever you feel stressed.
3.WRITE DOWN YOUR WORRIES
Getting your emotions down on paper sounds like it could fuel anxieties, but according to a University of Chicago study published in the journal Science , the activity has the opposite effect. Students who were prone to test anxiety were asked to write about their fears before an exam; those who journaled improved their test scores by nearly one grade point.
“It might be counterintuitive, but it’s almost as if you empty the fears out of your mind,” Sian Beilock, an associate professor in psychology at the University of Chicago, told U.S. News And World Report. “You reassess that situation so that you’re not as likely to worry about those situations because you’ve slain that beast.”
4 . EXERCISE(Get your heart pumping)
Exercise may be a predictable way to beat stress, but it’s only predictable because it’s so effective. Research in animals, for instance, shows that exercise can affect brain activity of serotonin (a so-called “happy” brain chemical) as well as reduce the effects of oxidative stress, The New York Times reported. And Well and Good points out studies showing that exercise interventions can result in lower anxiety levels than people who stay tied to the couch.
“Several studies have found the effects of aerobic exercise to be initially similar to those of medication,” Jeff Dolgan, an exercise physiologist at Canyon Ranch Hotel & Spa in Miami Beach, told Well and Good. “However, in the long term, exercise seems to work better.”
Doing some kind of exercise you enjoy will give you a break from your worries whilst reducing the levels of your stress hormones, stimulating the production of feel-good brain chemicals, and improving your self-image.
If you’re struggling to get your mind to be quiet during exercise, put some fun music on in your headphones or push yourself even harder. When you challenge your body you will need to focus so you won’t be able to worry about anything else other than the exercise itself.
5. PRACTICE MINDFULNESS
Learning to be present will help you keep your mind focused on what you’re doing now rather than worrying about things you can’t change.
Even simple meditations, such as 10 minutes of sitting down just focusing on your breathing, has been shown to reduce everyday stress by as much as 39%.
6. WORRYING ABOUT IF OTHERS ARE TALKING ILL OF YOU
Remember, people don’t think about you and what you do as much as you may think: They have their hands full with thinking about what other people think of them.
And with thinking about what is closest to their hearts like their children, pets, a partner or the job or school. So don’t get lost in worries about what people may think or say if you do something. Don’t let such thoughts hold you back in life.
7.SMELL A GRAPEFRUIT
Breathing in certain aromas can help reduce stress. In a study at James Cancer Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, researchers tested the effect of pleasant-smelling essential oils by diffusing them in the central nurses station.
Oncology nurses, who frequently suffer from work-related stress, compassion fatigue, and burnout, reported significant improvements in tension, worry, and demands over the course of the study.
One of the essential oils tested was grapefruit, which is refreshing and revitalizing, and helped boost the body’s feelings of energy and happiness.
8.EAT CHOCOLATE
While sweets can cause you to have a sugar high and crash, researchers have found that a little chocolate can be beneficial for worriers. According to a study published in the Journal of Proteome Research, dark chocolate can help calm your nerves. Participants who ate one and a half ounces of dark chocolate a day for two weeks had reduced levels of stress hormones.
9. ACCEPT THE WORRY and MOVE ON
Worrying about worrying is a dangerous cycle to fall into. A 2005 study in the journal Behaviour Research and Therapy showed that people who
naturally try to suppress their unwanted thoughts end up being more distressed by said thoughts.
Meanwhile, “those who are naturally more accepting of their intrusive thoughts are less obsessional, have lower levels of depression, and are less anxious,” the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee researchers wrote. Therefore, people who get caught up in worry when they try to force themselves to stop worrying may want to try a different strategy — acceptance.
10. KEEPING YOUR HANDS BUSY.
Engaging in activities that keep your hands busy and mind distracted could help prevent flashbacks from traumatic experiences, according to research from the Medical Research Council in England. While the study didn’t examine how this strategy impacts everyday worry, the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s Bob Hirshon pointed out that “ keeping your hands and mind busy interferes with storing and encoding visual images.”
BONUS
Step 1: Recognize how little worry can help you. Worry doesn’t have the power to prevent anything bad from happening in your life. Also, the bad things that you worry about may never end up happening, and many good things can happen instead. So worry is completely useless.
Step 2: Recognize how much worry harms you. Worrying doesn’t benefit you in any way, but it does harm you in many ways. Worry harms your health physically (such as by contributing to high blood pressure, causing insomnia, and suppressing your immune system), mentally (by sending a stream of negative thoughts into your mind), and spiritually (by encouraging fear rather than faith in God). Worry also wastes valuable time and energy that you could be using for better activities.
Step 3: Distinguish between worry and concern. While it’s healthy to be concerned about something, it’s unhealthy to worry about it. That’s because concern motivates you to do something to solve problems or plan helpful ways to cope with them, but worry keeps you stuck on problems and distracts you from planning any helpful ways of dealing with them.
Step 4: Identify what triggers worry in your life. You can begin to worry whenever: you encounter a situation that feels out of control; you feel vulnerable or powerless; you let your imagination run away with negative thoughts about what may happen in the future; or you experience a loss that’s traumatic, difficult, or unexpected. Once you understand what triggers worry in your life, you can begin to guard against worry in those situations.
Step 5: Make a crucial choice. No matter how hard you try, you can’t stop bad things from happening, because you live in a fallen world. However, you do have the choice of how you respond to whatever happens. You can decide to stop dwelling on worrisome thoughts after they enter your mind, and to pray about those thoughts instead, inviting God to work in the situation about which you had been worrying. Choose to pray instead of worrying.
Step 6: Change your worrisome thoughts rather than suppressing them. The more you try not to think about something that worries you, the more preoccupied your mind becomes with that thought, which makes you think about it even more. So suppressing thoughts about your worries doesn’t work. Instead, pray for the Holy Spirit to renew your mind and help you evaluate how every thought that enters it compares to biblical truth.
When the Holy Spirit shows you that a worrisome thought doesn’t reflect what’s true, you can replace that thought with a new thought that’s based on the reality of what God says is true.
Step 7: Develop healthier lifestyle habits. Unhealthy lifestyle habits may make you more prone to worrying than you would be if you took care of yourself the way God intends. So eat nutritious meals, drink plenty of water, reduce or eliminate alcohol and caffeine, avoid smoking, get plenty of sleep, exercise regularly, say “no” to activities that you don’t really want to do or can’t reasonably handle in your schedule, and practice relaxation techniques such as deep breathing and releasing tension in your muscles.
Step 8: Live in the moment. Worry focuses your attention on the future, anticipating negative events that may never happen, and which you can’t prevent if they do happen. Decide to live in the present, taking one day at a time as Jesus says you should do, trusting that He will empower you to handle every worrisome situation that comes your way.
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