Overcoming excessive worry will improve your mental health, general output and total peace of mind.
Worry is a form of mental distress due to concerns about an impending or expected outcome. Worrying can be normal when it is not excessive and constant.
It is normal to worry about how you’ll pay your next rent, why you are having pimples on your face or how you’ll perform in that upcoming examination.
If you worry about something that you can change or influence by taking a particular action, then it’s better to focus that energy to figure out solutions to the issue causing you to worry.
When does worrying become excessive?
Excessive worry, especially over uncontrollable circumstances, results in stress and unquantifiable emotional suffering which can consequently take a toll on your physical wellbeing.
It could result in headaches, reduced concentration in your routine activities, irritability, loss of appetite, abdominal discomfort, loss of sleep and a whole other set of issues.
These are a few ways you can overcome excessive worry:
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- Avoid reliving your mistakes:
Mistakes made can become a source of excessive worry when we dwell over them constantly. There is no perfect human being in existence. Everybody is prone to making several mistakes in life. Mistakes are in fact necessary for self improvement and self discovery, if you learn from them.
You need to realise that you are not infallible, so you should worry less over your mistakes. When next you make a mistake: maybe you reacted harshly to a neighbour or colleague, you failed a test, you made a bad financial judgement, don’t overstress it.
Don’t burden your heart with excessive thoughts on the incident. Just take the lesson from it, and use it as a guide when next you are faced with a similar issue.
- Don’t be overly critical:
Unfair evaluation of your or other people’s actions or intentions can become a source of excessive worry. It is possible you may have misread the intentions or actions of the person for which you are getting anxious.
Instead of making up reasons for other people’s actions, it is better to have a nice conversation about the situation. You may find out there was a completely different reason and justification for the person’s actions.
- Avoid negative self talk:
Encourage yourself whenever you need some pep talk. Negative self talk can cause excessive worrying. Focus on your strengths, when you feel the tug to whip yourself over a misdeed.
Give yourself a pat on the back quite often, for little wins. Avoid entertaining thoughts that seem to magnify your weaknesses. You can choose which thoughts dominate your mind, make those thoughts pleasant.
- Be more open-minded:
An open-minded person is someone who is progressive, flexible, liberal, generous, unselfish and receptive to ideas.
When your mind is not fixated on a stereotyped expectation, it is easy to overcome excessive or unnecessary worry.
- Reduce Procrastination:
Taking action is the opposite of procrastination. When you put off things that you can actually accomplish per time, you inadvertently create a source of worry for yourself. When you keep procrastinating. the work piles up and you start worrying excessively.
You cannot regain any time you’ve lost. When you frequently procrastinate, you make stress a part of your life. Then you’ll start worrying about when you’ll get them done.
Doing things as and when due, will essentially help you overcome excessive or unnecessary worry.
- Share your worries:
A problem shared (with the right person) is half solved, they say. There’s an appreciable level of relief gotten when we share our worries with someone we trust.
Sometimes, our confidant might be able to see the issue from a different perspective, that can make a whole new sense to us.
Have a circle of trusted confidants, such as friends or family members who will be there to offer comfort, advice or just a listening ear.
- Assess your Relationships:
The quality of your life is greatly influenced by the quality of relationships you keep. Regularly conduct an assessment of the relationships you have.
Systematically cut off any of them that is toxic or drains you mentally. A relationship where you are constantly striving to meet an expectation will be a source of constant worry.
Your relationships should be healthy enough to accept your person. And likewise, committed enough to help you become a better version of yourself, without pressure.
- Learn to Pray:
There is a God who cares about your wellbeing. Develop a personal relationship with God, who is ever ready to take away your worries.
He hears your faintest cry, and He desires above all things that you prosper on all fronts. Talking to God in fervent prayer lifts up the soul from the valley of excessive worry.
Cast all your cares on Him for He cares for you.