Worry is the fuel of anxiety. It's what feeds generalized anxiety disorder. If you want to
learn how to control generalized anxiety disorder, you have to learn how to control
your worry. But if you tell someone to stop worrying, they'll just like shake their head
because it's not that easy. Worry is hard to control. It's an old habit that's worn deep
grooves into your neural pathways. And you do it because your brain thinks it protects you,
but it really weighs you down. In this video you'll learn why your brain likes to worry,
why your brain thinks it's helpful, and you'll learn a really practical way to set boundaries
on your worrying because when you do, you can decrease anxiety massively, like 75%.
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the anxiety cycle. We start here at stimulus, and at some point we perceive danger. We believe that
we're in danger, whether that's real or in our head. That's what triggers the anxiety response;
it's our thoughts of danger that make us feel anxious. And for most people it's worrying that
fuels anxiety disorders. When we worry we imagine future dangers, like being rejected or losing our
jobs or failing at life, and that creates a real physical reaction in our bodies, the
fight/flight/freeze response. And while it seems like the logical answer is to just stop worrying,
it doesn't work like that because our brain likes to worry because because sometimes worrying keeps
us safe. Sometimes worrying protects us, and our brain is designed to keep us alive, not to
make us happy. So let's review the two reasons why your brain likes to worry. There's a bonus
video after this one in the course that goes into a lot more detail on this, but here's the summary:
worry is a mutated form of problem-solving. Humans have these super powerful brains that can imagine
future scenarios and find solutions to them, and our ability to plan for the future is why
we attend school or save for a rainy day. Right? Good problem-solving is intentional. You choose
to do it. It's focused on your locus of control, what you can change, and it's action-oriented. But
worry is like a cancer. It starts to spread to all the areas of your life. And it's telling you when
and where to do it, and it often focuses on things that you can't change. So worry is maladaptive
problem-solving. Worrying secretly feels good. Your brain secretly believes that worrying is
preventing bad things from happening. It's a sneaky form of magical thinking. So let's say
that your child is going on a long drive, and you worry about your child getting into a car crash,
and they don't get into a car crash. Your brain subconsciously believes that worrying prevented
bad things from happening, and it's going to reinforce that worry. It's going to make you worry
more. Someone commented on one of my videos, "If you stop worrying about this, it means you're not
taking care of this so it's going to be a disaster and it's going to be your fault entirely." That's
the first reason your brain believes that worry protects you. One day after I learned some of
these skills to stop constant worry I was driving down the road one day and I wasn't worrying. And
I was really like, I was realizing how good that felt and to not feel so anxious. And then out of
the blue I was struck by a very loud thought that said, "What if I get too comfortable and happy
and then something bad happens? What if God has to send some trials because I was feeling too happy?"
And as soon as I noticed this thought I literally laughed out loud because I know exactly what that
thought is. It's a worry trying to convince me to keep worrying. I don't actually believe that
God is like that, and I don't actually believe that worrying prevents bad things from happening,
but this is the exact reason why my brain likes to worry. It believes that worrying is keeping me
safe. This is faulty thinking. But if you tell someone to stop worrying, what will they say?
They'll say, "Oh, it's not that easy. I wish I could. I feel like I have to" or "That's just
putting my head in the sand." And even though it seems impossible, you can learn how to stop
worrying. So let me teach you how. Also, I need to give credit to Nick Wignall for really condensing
a lot of this psychology into practical, actionable skills. If you'd like to learn more,
please check out his course Worry Free. Uh link's in the description. Okay. So step number one: you
need to know the difference between a worry and worrying. There are two types of thoughts. Number
one is the type of thought that just pops in and out of your head all day. Your brain is a word
machine. It's going to make random thoughts all the time. The second type of thought is something
we engage with. It's active thinking. It's engaging in a behavior. Thinking is something that
we're doing, and we need to be able to use two different types of skills for two different types
of thinking. For the random pop-in thoughts, these automatic thoughts, it just doesn't help to engage
with them, but it also doesn't help to struggle against them. If a worry thought pops into your
head, you just notice it, say, "Hey, brain. Thanks for making that worry thought. Moving on." So with
worry thoughts we use cognitive defusion. You don't struggle against your worry thoughts. That
just makes them stickier. But worrying, that's a different thing. Worrying is when you're allowing
your mind to dwell on troubles. Worrying is the action that you are doing of turning a problem
over and over in your mind. It's when we engage with worry thoughts and we keep thinking them.
This is something that you are doing. It's not something that happens to you. To control anxiety
we need to set boundaries on our worrying. So let's think about worrying as if it were a train.
When a train is moving it's got a ton of momentum. If you try to stop a train, it's super hard. It's
impossible to do quickly. But it's relatively easy to direct a train to a specific track. You
can channel that train into a different direction. We're going to take all that worrying energy and
we're going to tell it when and where it's allowed to go using a skill called scheduled worry. So you
are going to worry on purpose. Here's how you do it: plan a time each day when you are going
to sit down and worry for 15 to 30 minutes. And I want you to pick a consistent time. This is an
exercise, not a coping skill. We're strengthening your brain's ability to set boundaries, not just
trying to feel better when you're anxious. So you need to be consistent if you want to develop these
brain boundary muscles, basically a new groove in your brain, a new train track in your brain.
So choose a time that you can be consistent. And I do not recommend first thing in the morning or
last thing before bed. Like, don't do it in your bed or some other place that you want want it to
be relaxing. This is worry time. Like, kitchen counter might be a good place for this or your
desk at work, something like that. Right? It's easier to tell your brain when and where to worry
than to tell it to not worry. Then during this time, during this consistent time, I want you to
write down all your worries. Putting them down on paper makes them more concrete and it shows your
brain that you're serious, that you'll address these worries so that it doesn't have to keep
reminding you throughout the day. And if you'd like, you can clarify some of your worries. You
can also choose if there's one or two things you want to plan to take action on, or perhaps there's
a problem you need to solve. Like if you're worried about money, maybe you need to stick
to a budget this week by using an envelope system. Right? But this this exercise isn't really about
problem solving. And we're going to talk more about problem solving in chapter 4. The goal of
this exercise is to tell your brain, "This, right now, 6 p.m. for 15 minutes is when I worry." Then
when your timer goes off, step away. Leave the paper in the space and go do something different.
So it can be nice to call a friend, go for a walk, play with your dogs, whatever is engaging for you.
Your next worry session is in 24 hours. So what do you do in the meantime? When a worry comes up,
you want to notice it and redirect it. So it's going to sound something like this: "Oh,
oh hi there, worry. Let's talk at 6:00, okay?" And then redirect your attention to what you do
want to be doing in the present moment. What do you care about? Is it your work? Is it the people
around you? Shift your attention to them, and if a worry pops up again, you keep having these
worries pop up, you say, "Thanks for telling me. Those are some really strong worries. Let's talk
about them at 6." And you go right back to your values, what you care about right now. "I want
to be playing with my kids right now." "I want to be noticing the sunset." With our minds we need to
redirect our attention to the present moment and our values. We, you need to pay attention to what
we want our life to be about instead of dwelling on future fears or allowing worrying to take over.
Remember, this isn't a coping skill. This is an exercise. Um so for example if you find yourself
feeling really fat and out of shape and like you get winded really easily going upstairs, you might
start working out, uh exercising physically to improve your cardiovascular health. When
you find yourself drowning in anxiety, this is the exercise to do for a few weeks to a month. Right?
Do it for three weeks minimum every single day at a scheduled time. Don't use it as a coping skill
for when you feel worried. I get this question a lot, actually: Can I use distraction to help me
stop worrying? So if I, if I notice I'm worrying, can I watch TV? If I notice I'm worrying, can I
look at YouTube? Right? In general, distraction is not a helpful long-term solution. So for example,
if you start worrying during the day and you constantly turn to your phone to avoid your
worries, that phone usage, that distraction is going to interfere with your ability to
live your values, to engage with the people or to do your work, and it's also a sign to
your brain. It's a form of avoidance right here, which gives you some relief in the short term,
but it tells your brain that that thought is, that worry thought is important, and your brain
is going to make it louder. Distraction feeds worrying and avoidance in the long run, and it
makes your life less meaningful and less vibrant. However, in a short-term training period you can
use limited distraction paired with scheduled worry to train your brain. So for example,
if you're struggling to set boundaries on your worries when you're trying to fall asleep,
uh listening to a moderately boring audio book might redirect your brain away from worrying,
and you can say, "I will think about that tomorrow at 6." Now, this really is a fine line. Right?
Distraction is not a good long-term strategy, um but you can use it to break the worry habit in the
short term if you pair it with scheduled worry. The long-term skill that will be helpful here is
mindfulness. This is the ability to control your attention. But we're going to talk about that in
the next video. So here's what you can expect from practicing the skill of scheduled worry: you are
going to spend less time worrying. The majority of your worrying will happen at once, leaving you
much more of your day to not be worrying and doing something else. Also, by being intentional about
your worrying, you might be able to solve some problems. And worrying on purpose will decrease
chronic anxiety and stress. Your body is really well adapted to short-term stress. It's okay to
get anxious or worked up in short bursts. It's the chronic stress that's harmful. So by putting
in all your worrying at once, you give your body a chance to relax and regulate throughout the day.
Okay. So go ahead and schedule a time and place to worry every day for 3 week. Come come back to this
video and tell me how it went and how much your anxiety decreased. I'm so excited for you to learn
how to set boundaries on your worrying and to get healthier. Thanks for watching, and take care.
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