Make Time for Anxiety
Anxiety can be incredibly exhausting. Anxiety can us down physically and emotionally. One reason anxiety is so taxing is that, once in our mind, it takes almost complete control. Fears and worries grow and they stick. It’s a vicious cycle: anxiety makes us worry, and the more we worry, the bigger anxiety grows, and the bigger it grows, the more we worry. However, even when anxiety grows so large it threatens to consume us, there is a way to shrink it back.
Anxiety Wants Us to Constantly Worry
Anxiety has strategies for keeping power over us. One such strategy is to demand constant attention. It’s much like a toddler, actually. Picture it jumping up and down in your mind, being noisy and shouting, “Watch me! Pay attention to me! Me! Me! Me!”
When we listen to anxiety and give it constant attention, we turn it into a worry monster. It would be wonderful if we could just tell anxiety to go away, but sadly, that doesn’t work. What does work for many people, though, is to set aside time each day to worry.
Making Time to Worry Allows Us to Take Control
When we set aside time to worry, we are regaining power over our own minds. We cease to let anxiety tell us that we have to worry all day, and instead we tell anxiety that we will decide when we worry. As this happens, we become less anxious and more mindful.
I invite you to tune into the video for a more in-depth exploration of how to do this and why it works.
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APA Reference
Peterson, T.
(2014, October 30). Make Time for Anxiety, HealthyPlace. Retrieved
on 2024, December 23 from https://www.healthyplace.com/blogs/anxiety-schmanxiety/2014/10/make-time-for-anxiety
Author: Tanya J. Peterson, MS, NCC, DAIS
Thanks very much for this article. I suffer from anxiety and sometimes it gets such a sound grip I actually can feel my entire body surrendering to it. It just starts out of nowhere and before I know it, it takes totally over.
I worry about everything and when there is nothing to worry about I worry about having nothing to worry about.
I will indeed practice putting aside the time to worry. I never thought about that. I have practiced how to put time away to dream so I am sure this could be a great stress releaser.
Hi Rose,
Thank you for reading and sharing your thoughts. I'm so glad that this might be something that is helpful to you. There are a great number of people who can very much relate to what you describe -- myself included. I've found that setting aside time to worry and stopping the anxiety that keeps taking over is definitely helpful in keeping anxiety from having such a sound grip over me. I wish you success!
Hi Rose, just wanted to say I love the article. I first found out about mindfulness from dontworryaboutanxiety.com and have been researching it ever since. It has certainly been a staple in my recovery from anxiety.
Hi John,
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I'm glad to hear that you liked it and that you've discovered mindfulness (thanks, too, for sharing your resource). I, too, find mindfulness to be very powerful in calming the mind and reducing anxiety. I'm glad you're finding things to reduce your anxiety!
I think this blog message was very helpful for clients that suffer from anxiety, because it can really take over a person's life and interfere with a person's daily life. sharing way to reduce anxiety is the best way to reduce it, by remaining clam, taking deep breaths, time management, and relaxing is the most important thing. this blogger gave information that would promote a good client nurse relationship.
Hello LHudson,
Thank you for sharing your insights!
I feel like a need a buddy on this to do it with me but I don't know who to ask.
Hi Serena,
Doing this with a buddy is a fantastic idea! I understand your comment about not knowing who to ask. Anxiety can make us feel isolated, and it can make us hesitant (or even downright afraid) to reach out. Think about one or two people you would be most comfortable doing this with. You can either jump in with both feet and just ask them, or you can test the waters for awhile first, getting more comfortable before asking. Either way, you might be surprised -- they just might be very willing to do this.