Tag Archives: anxiety

Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday

Is it possible to rid of worries completely? Is it possible to let absolutely nothing bother you? How difficult would it be to achieve complete imperturbability? The trouble is things such as stress, anxiety and worries pretty much define relaxation, calm, peace and relief. So it appears that you can’t quite have one without the other.

The real issue here is that of habit. Worrying by itself isn’t a problem, however, once it is habituated it can throw up concoct of side effects. Like most things it is a learned or conditioned behaviour that is bestowed upon us by the society at large. Age old cultural conditioning has made us believe that happiness must be “earned” by grovelling through a period of misery. This scaremongering eventually percolates through the physiological fabric and as a result becomes the de facto method for negating happiness.

The trick is to learn to rearrange the mental clutter. Cultivate a habit of postponing worries and thus begin the process rewiring the brain not to dwell on worries in the present. Plan to worry later! It is a technique that has known to work as it bypasses the physiological obstacle of negating happiness. The mind is tricked into thinking it hasn’t given up worrying. The result is that you lose the habit of worrying in the present.

I am not for one moment suggesting that one should not deal with pressing matters and genuine concerns that causes these worries… A little anxiety is a useful thing – if it wasn’t for the motivation of a little anxiety, we would never catch a train, pass an exam or meet a deadline. But is there such a thing as too much anxiety? The answer is, there certainly is. There are people who constantly worry about money, their job and their health and anything else they can think of. Their anxiety becomes so all-embracing that it takes over their whole lives.

The simple truth is habitual worrying only leads to inertia. Certain types of worries and anxieties need reprioritisation and remedial actions whilst other types require acceptance. An ability to disconnect, disengage and a bit of stoicism often helps.

Life is a journey and it is not the arriving at the destination that matters but the process of the journey itself. So reprioritise, take positive actions and accept the inevitable for today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.

Further information on General Anxiety Disorder (GAD).