Worrying means thinking about the future considering only, or almost, the negative aspects: Will the people I love leave me? I will get sick? Will they fire me? Would my savings be enough if I needed them? However, those who suffer from rumination anxiety know that the worst thing is not the worries themselves, but the fact that they seem uncontrollable.
Worries are part of the lives of many: in less serious cases, they are psychological mechanisms that are functional, since they help us to cope better with situations and plan things in advance to avoid problems in the future. When worrying, however, becomes a lifestyle, anxious thoughts become so pervasive that they distract the person, undermining their ability to concentrate, their mood, and their productivity at work. In the most extreme cases, the worries become chronic, which considerably impairs the quality of life of those affected. In this online Psychology article we are going to delve into What is chronic worry, its effects and how to treat it.
What is worry in psychology
As long as worry plays a positive role, everything is fine; By meditating on a problem – that is, employing a type of constructive reflection similar to worry – it can be resolved. In fact, the underlying physiological response to worry is vigilance for potential danger, a reaction that has undoubtedly been essential for survival in the course of evolution. When you put the emotional brain in a state of agitation, some of the resulting anxiety serves to focus on the threat contingent, forcing the mind to devise a way to control it, temporarily ignoring anything else.
What is worry for? Worry is, in a sense, a mental review of events, to isolate what could go wrong and decide how to address the problem; The function of worry as a reaction is to find positive solutions in life’s dangerous situations, anticipating them before they arise.
How to know if worry is excessive, pathological or chronic
The problem arises in the case that worries become chronic and repetitive, in the event, ultimately, that they continue recycling ad infinitum, without a positive solution ever being seen. A careful analysis of chronic worry shows that it has all the attributes of a low-intensity emotional “hijacking.” Next, we will look at the symptoms of excessive worry:
- Worries seem to come out of nowhere.
- Excessive worries they are uncontrollable.
- Pathological concerns generate a constant anxiety bubbling.
- They are inaccessible to reason and force the individual to consider the problem from a single, inflexible perspective.
When this cycle of worry persists and intensifies, it can lead to true emotional “kidnappings”, that is, phobias, obsessions and compulsions, panic attacks. Furthermore, many of those who spend their time thinking meet the diagnostic criteria for , characterized precisely by the presence of anxiety symptoms and a state of constant and excessive worry, disproportionate to the reality of the events.
In each of these disorders, worry acquires a different connotation: in phobia, anxieties are fixed on the situation that is the object of fear; in the obsessive, in the need to avoid any feared calamity; In the case of panic attacks, finally, concerns may center on the fear of death or on the prospect of the attacks themselves. In all these conditions, the common denominator is that worry escapes all control. Given the excess of worry about things, what can we do? Below we will see how to avoid excessive worry.
How to stop worrying about everything
If there’s one thing chronically worried people can’t do, it’s follow the advice often given: “stop worrying” (or, worse yet, “don’t worry, try to be cheerful”). After many experiments, however, psychologist Borkovec and his colleagues at Pennsylvania State University discovered some simple measures that can help control the inclination to worry even when it has long been established. Let’s look at this treatment for pathological concern:
- The first step is self-awareness, that is, recognize as soon as possible the episodes that cause concern; The ideal would be to be able to capture them as soon as the catastrophic image triggers the worry-anxiety cycle, or at most, immediately after.
- The next step is to adopt a critical attitude towards your assumptions: is it very likely that the feared event will occur? Is it necessarily true that there is only one (or no) alternative to letting that happen? Can effective measures be taken in this regard? Is it really helpful to stay in these same anxious thoughts indefinitely?
This combination of attention to one’s own thoughts and healthy skepticism would presumably act as a brake on neuronal activation at the base of a slight state of anxiety. Borkovec emphasizes that These strategies trigger mental activity incompatible with worrya method that has been shown to be useful against chronic worry even in some people in whom the disorder was severe enough to require a psychiatric diagnosis.
On the other hand, in the case of people whose concern is so serious that it leads to a phobia, it may be necessary to resort to the use of medication to break the vicious circle. Therefore, it is essential consult a specialist.
This article is merely informative, at Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.
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Bibliography
- Calderone, G. (2021). Come overcome the excessive concerns and the Disturb d’Ansia Generalizzato. Retrieved from: http://www.psicologo-parma-reggioemilia.com/superare_ansia_generalizzata.html
- Epifani, A. (2015). Smettere di preoccuparsi con due simplici domande. Retrieved from: http://bolognapsicologo.net/blog/vincere-la-battaglia-contro-le-preoccupazioni-con-due-semplici-domande/
- Goleman, D. (2011). Emotive intelligence. Che cos’è and perché può renderedci felici. Milan: BUR.