How to Stop Worrying and Start Living

While worrying is a natural part of life, too much of it can be disruptive to a calm peaceful life. Worrying can keep us awake at night increasing our stress levels during the day. While some worries are legimate,like worrying about an ill family member or a life threatening event, most of our worries are easily solveable.

So why do we worry constantly about seemingly little things? Our worry has little to do with the event we are worrying about and more to do with our reaction to the event. For example, a perceived cold shoulder by a friend may be totally misinterpreted but we may start reading all sorts of things into the action. While someone may shrug it off and think that the friend is just pre-occupied, another person's reaction may be completely different.

One small worry can escalate to a huge worry in no time. You may start to imagine things and feel that your friend must have heard something bad about and hates you. These kinds of reactions han be hurtful to you and the other person, since your worry may lead you to react negatively to the person in question.

How do you overcome these worries that haunt you and prevent you from having a good nights sleep? Here are some things you can do to help yourself.

Rate the worry

Choose a rate level for the worry you are experiencing from 1 to 10, 1 being low and 10 being very high. Once you decide what level you are at, tell yourself that you will reduce it to on level lower. In other words, you are attempting to lower the intensity of the worry by rating it lower than it is.

Compare the worry

Sometines when we worry about something, it helps to put it into perspective by comparing it to other more serious problems that someone you know may have. For example, you are worrying about say an embarassement moment you think you had and you recall that your neighbour had just had a serious accident and is hospitalized. Your problem doesn't seem so big anymore. Try to think about how your neighbour is feeling right now and what she would give to have your problem instead.

Write it down

By writing down what you are worrying about and how you are feeling, you will be removing some of the power from the thing you are worrying about. When you see it on paper, it may not look so bad and you would have removed it from your mind and unto the paper.

Replace it with an activity

The worst time to worry is at night when you would rather sleep. If you have to get up to get to work in the morning then you are also worrying about not sleeping. Stop trying to sleep and change the pattern. Pick up a book or your laptop and try doing something to occupy your mind. For example, I am a writer so if a worry is keeping me awake, I grab my laptop and start writing a story or even an article perhaps about How to stop worrying.

There are many other things that you can do to reduce the distress associated with worrying. Practicing relaxation techniques, deep breathing and watching a funny show are all guaranteed to make your worry disappear. Remember,your worry may have more to do with your reaction to an event than the event itself.