worry isn't something that happens to you it's actually something that you
do that you subconsciously choose to do because it serves a function your brain
rewards you for it and then it becomes a habit if you want to learn how to worry
less you need to understand why your brain likes to worry because that will free you
to find a replacement for that habitual type of thinking so in this video you'll learn the
three subconscious benefits you get from worry and how to retrain your brain to worry less
now first off i have to credit dr martin rossman he's the author of the worry solution
and he's an expert in mind body medicine this video is basically a concise excerpt from
his longer and i would have to say excellent youtube video how your brain can turn anxiety
into calmness and i'm going to link to that video in the description okay so worry serves at least
three functions but real quick let's define worry worry is a form of thinking it's cognition it's
imagining future outcomes usually the bad ones it's it's considering all the things that could
possibly go wrong and stress is the physiological response it's it's what happens in your body when
you're physically threatened so let's say a huge dog jumps out to attack you your adrenaline surges
your heart rate and your breathing increase and your blood pressure goes up so while worry
happens in your mind stress is what happens in your body and your body doesn't just respond to
physical threats you can have a physical response to a emotional threat or a cognitive threat right
you can have a physical response to being rejected by your peers or getting an angry email from your
boss anxiety is the emotional response it happens in the limbic system in your brain
and i consider it to be a combination of thoughts and those physical reactions but basically anxiety
creates a strong motivation to avoid a threat so if you're anxious around heights it makes you back
away from a cliff edge if you're anxious about an upcoming test you may try to avoid that anxiety
either by studying or by procrastinating okay so back to worry which is the thinking part of fear
worry or imagination is how our ancestors survived on the african plain they couldn't run faster than
cheetahs they couldn't swim faster than alligators they had no armor they had tiny little clowns
and very small teeth and very little fur right they used their imagination to survive
so for example our ancestors could think about how the day was going to get hot they could imagine or
worry that they would get thirsty and they could plan how they would need to get water right they
could worry about how the alligators might be at the watering hole and then they could use their
imagination their amazingly large brains to think of a way to get water from the stream instead
because it would be safer so human survival and in some ways dominance is due to our ability
to imagine ways to get food to imagine ways we could get eaten and imagine ways how to avoid that
to imagine dangers to our children and to prevent it right our ability to imagine future events that
haven't happened yet is powerful and this is the first function of worry it anticipates problems
and it seeks for ways to prevent them but worry can develop into a really unhealthy habit
so if you constantly imagine that the worst thing is happening then your stress response is always
getting triggered and you just feel sick and anxious all the time it makes it hard to be
present and you don't actually solve problems you just feel unhappy now our imagination
is a skill that most people haven't been taught how to use optimally you can learn to use your
imagination in a way that helps you and not hurts you and we'll get to that in a minute but first
uh let's talk about the other two subconscious reasons why your brain actually likes to worry so
reason number two this is called magical thinking your brain mistakenly thinks that if it worries
and then the bad thing doesn't happen that it's worrying that made the bad thing not happen
the brain doesn't like randomness it wants a reason for why things are the way they are
and it likes a sense of control dr rossman shares this story he said there was this man in england
who noticed that every day at 3 pm his neighbor walked around his house three times and he asked
his neighbor why he was doing that and she said because it keeps the tigers away and he said oh
there are no tigers here and she said see it's working now i hear this all the time people will
say oh i'd rather worry about it and it not happen and then i'll be pleasantly surprised then to not
worry about it and have something bad happen the magical thinking says that if i expect good things
to come i'll jinx myself or if i let my guard down or if i hope for the best then something
bad will always happen so there's something about this that feels emotionally true so every time you
do catastrophize like you think oh i'm gonna get fired and then the catastrophe doesn't happen you
don't get fired then your brain makes this weird connection thinking oh because i worried about
getting fired that prevented me from getting fired where it was much more likely that doing your work
actually is what prevented you from getting fired but when the brain makes the connection between
worrying and bad things not happening it rewards you for worrying it thinks oh let's do that again
you should do more of that it worked and then it reinforces that habit which makes you worry more
okay so third is worry is a great way to avoid feeling so if you experience some unpleasant
emotions like sadness and anxiety and then you switch your brain into analysis mode or planning
or thinking mode then you can use worry to distract yourself from your feelings and this can
work pretty well in the short term but in the long run it actually makes you more sad more anxious
and more fearful so you're basically trading short-term relief and short-term avoidance for
long-term misery okay so worry as problem-solving magical thinking or avoidance that can become
habitual it feels good for a little while and your brain rewards you for doing it so this basically
makes deeper neural pathways for worry which makes you worry more and and you get the idea
right we basically can become addicted to worry but you can learn to worry less and you can learn
to use the amazing powers of your imagination to help you uh instead of harm you so let's talk
briefly about what to do to stop worrying this is obviously a much bigger topic that we can
cover in a short video but let me give you a few ideas number one do intentional problem solving
so we need to take worry from something we're doing unconsciously and make it intentional so the
first thing you need to ask is is it likely that i could actually do something about this problem
if the answer is yes or most likely then it may be worth it to actually spend time imagining future
problems and their solutions but then i would just say schedule in a time to do this just schedule
in 30 minutes to worry each day and this is to actively problem solve right don't let your brain
choose when you do it because it would always be right when you're trying to do something important
like sleep or play with your kids right so if this idea of scheduled worry sounds crazy to you
it isn't it's a super effective way to train your brain to use its imagination in a helpful way
you can learn all about this in the course worry free where nick wignell can teach you in about
two hours how to stop the habit of worrying i've got more information about that course down in
the description so check that out if you'd like to learn more about worrying and and that very
specific skill of scheduled worry okay number two we've got to challenge your magical thinking
you could try to run some experiments so you try imagining good things happening for a while and
then just see if that made bad things happen when you don't worry and the bad things don't happen
it retrains your brain that the bad things aren't prevented by worry now dr rossman's book teaches
you how to use guided imagery to replace worry and i really do like his book so you could also
check that book out that is not a paid promotion by the way okay number three instead of avoidance
learn to get better at feeling stop using intellectualization and worry as a way to
avoid your emotions so instead i would say increase your willingness skills
uh willingness is our ability our skills around feeling feeling emotions then a couple ways you
can do this is you can keep an emotion journal you can talk with people about your feelings
you need to just address your feelings when you practice feeling your feelings they become
less scary and you can develop more confidence in your own ability to handle them and my motion
processing course goes into a lot of detail on this so you can also check that out if you'd
like to learn that skill i hope that's all helpful thank you for watching and take care
you