How To Train Your Brain To Stop Worrying

Worrying is a huge but unnecessary evil that makes our everyday harder, and might even become a habit that inhibits our happiness.

Some people believe that worrying helps them to learn from their experience, but the reality is that the future cannot be controlled, so worrying only does harm to our overall health.

Depression is focusing on past events that one wishes to change, while worrying is focusing on future events that cannot be controlled. Therefore, we will suggest a few ways help you stop worrying about the future:

1. Write your thoughts down

This technique has been found to provide great effects. If you cannot fall asleep or just cannot focus on anything else that your worries, write them down.

While doing this, the brain will relax and start to breathe as it will no longer need to remember all the details. Scientists believe that chronic worriers may be chronic problem avoiders too.

This was also confirmed by scientists in the journal Anxiety, Stress & Coping, who gave worriers an opportunity to write down three possible outcomes for the situation they were worried about, and then made evaluated the answers for practical solutions. They concluded:

‘When participants’ problem elaborations were rated for concreteness, both studies showed an inverse relationship between the degree of worry and concreteness: The more participants worried about a given topic, the less concrete was the content of their elaboration. The results challenge the view that worry may promote better problem analyses. Instead, they conform to the view that worry is a cognitive avoidance response.‘

2. Exercise to Train Your Body and Brain

Worry is a result of the way the brain has learned to survive by deciding to turn on the fight or flight system. The journal Psychosomatic Medicine published a study which found that exercise is beneficial in the case of anxiety.

Apparently, if the body is not constantly under stress, the mind will receive a message that it is not in a state of heightened arousal.

Exercise also accelerates the heart rate and perspiration and regulates blood pressure, which is another common physical symptom of stress.

When you start worrying, immediately go outside and spend at least 10 minutes walking. Try to focus on the sounds in nature, the motion of your limbs, and your breathing.

3. Meditation

Meditation is another extremely beneficial method to train your brain not to worry too much. Individuals who have mastered the brain training technique claim that you should observe the worrisome thoughts as they enter the mind and then leave it as clouds on a breezy day.

The few moments you find free to pay attention to what really matters to you and ignore all the noise in your life will chase the worrisome thoughts away.