Worry is tricky to address but can really impact people's lives, says psychologist Gwendoline Smith.
"Every time you worry, you're switching on your fight-or-flight mechanism… too much cortisol, too much adrenaline."
So what's a worrier to do?
Photo: Sodanie Chea / CC BY 2.0
First off, confirm that worry – which Smith defines as 'the prediction of negative, catastrophic outcomes' – is, in fact, the problem.
Young people tend to give the name 'overthinking' to what's keeping them up at night and making their bodies tense, Smith says.
"When you scratch beneath the surface a little bit you find the overthinking is troublesome because it's negative. And most worrying thoughts start with 'Yeah, but what if?'
Worry (known by the clinical name 'generalised anxiety') is ruminating on anything and everything that could possibly go wrong.
"A bit like a vacuum cleaner, worriers just go around picking up things to worry about."
When people 'catastrophise' they journey to places in their mind that are not based in fact, she says.
"Then I'll lose my job, then I won't get another one, then I'll have to do this, then I'll have to do that, then I won't have any money and I'll be homeless..."
Gwendoline Smith Photo: supplied
Worriers sometimes believe the act has the power to prevent the worried-about thing from happening – therefore it's unsafe not to do it.
"Completely superstitious and utter rubbish," says Smith.
Distraction can be helpful for moving away from worry, as can mindfulness and meditation, but those practices are sometimes a bit too challenging for people who have this tendency, she says.
The word worry suggests an endless spiralling process, so Smith recommends reframing worry as 'concern' – a word which implies action and intention.
"I am concerned about that." "OK, so what are you gonna do?"
Smith encourages people to write down their concerns and plan a course of action.
"If your concern is something you can't act on at that time, write down when you will be able to take some action."
Read Gwendoline Smith's essay Worry Beliefs, Myths & Fairytales.
She has written a book for younger people about mental health coping mechanisms called Knowing.
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