A 3-point guide to worrying well

For prehistoric people, fear was a core survival ability. “Going back to the Stone Age, it helped us adapt and survive,” says Dr Kamna Chhibber, head of psychological well being and behavioural sciences at Fortis Memorial, Gurugram. “Worry has served as a protective function, helping humans think through problems, plan ahead and gain mastery over their environment. It’s why we’re so good at it.”

It follows, then, that there’s a great way and a foul solution to fear. “There are obsessive worriers, and then there are effective ones,” Chhiber says.

So, are you doing it proper? A key test is to ask if what you’re worrying about is previously or the long run. If it’s previously, can you turn from worrying to studying? If it’s the long run, what’s the probability that the issue you’re predicting will really happen?

Worry has a operate and that operate is fairly straight ahead: to attract our consideration to the truth that there’s one thing we ought to be getting ready for or stopping, Kate Sweeny and Michael D Dooley, each professors of psychology at University of California, Riverside, wrote within the journal Social and Personality Psychology Compass, in 2017. Done proper, with a concentrate on problem-solving and studying for higher outcomes sooner or later, worrying can result in higher well being, extra success and better well-being, the article states.

So are you doing it proper? Here’s a three-point guidelines.

Define the issue: Here, you will need to distinguish between fear and concern, solvable and unsolvable. Productive, solvable worries are these you possibly can act on. If the foundation of your fear is just not solvable, attempt to embrace the uncertainty or the end result you’re dealing with, says Chhibber.

Focus on options: Worry is commonly combined with anger, resentment or insecurity. If you possibly can untangle your ideas from these related feelings and concentrate on the issue you’ve outlined, it might make it easier to make necessary selections on the proper time. If you are worried a couple of job interview the correct manner, you’re more likely to put together for it higher. Worry about it the fallacious manner, in the meantime, and also you’ll find yourself losing that prep time remembering previous interviews that didn’t go properly, or imagining the sorts of candidates they could choose over you.

Set a timer: “Worrying the right amount is better than not worrying at all, but you must learn when to let go,” says Chhibber. Schedule a time to consider issues. This technique of suspending fear might help by way of the remainder of your day too. In your allotted fear time, as cave man did, you possibly can then plan perceptively, assess conditions and potential threats, put together for contingencies, and thereby achieve a measure of consolation, safety and, crucially, management.