Scheduling your anxiety? Sounds weird, doesn’t it? It may not be as weird as you think. Let me explain. When you schedule times into your day, week, month to be anxious, it allows you to have a designated worry time that allows your other times to be less worrisome. According to Worry-Tree.com, “When a worried thought appears during the day, rather than dwelling on it there and then, you can make a note of it, park it for later on and feel free to get on with your day, knowing that you’ve allotted some specific worry time later on.”
Make sense yet? You can schedule your worry time at any point in your day. Have a commute home from work? Have a few minutes after putting the kids to bed? Unfortunately, I haven’t quite mastered this one yet, and my brain seems to think that the appropriate time to do this is right before bed. It definitely doesn’t get me in the mood to sleep. This time can coincide with your journaling time. Sitting down after you’ve taken care of all your responsibilities with your journal and your list of worries you had for the day allows you to process them and write them all out after they’ve already been “dealt” with.
Let’s go into a little more detail. Obviously, trying not to think about something that causes you anxiety is just going to make you think about it more. Ever have someone tell you not to do something and you immediately want to do it? It’s the same concept. Acknowledge that you had the worry, write it down, and stick it someplace that you’ll have access to later. Start a worries note on your phone. Write it down on a slip of paper and put it in your wallet or purse or pocket.
After that, don’t just try not to think about it. Just focus on something else instead. If you’re at work, bury yourself into whatever you’re working on at work. If you’re at home, clean something or watch some TV. If you’re in the car, crank up the tunes and jam out!
Once you’re in your time and place to focus on what worries had happened through the day, make sure you’re in a quiet place and go over each one individually. Why did it give you anxiety? Is there a way for you to prevent it? Be able to recognize things you can and can’t control. You can’t control someone else’s actions or words. You can control how you respond to them though. Allowing yourself that scheduled time to be anxious will allow you to recognize what makes you anxious and also how to overcome that. It gives you control over your brain to tell it, “I’m not thinking about that right now. We can deal with it later.” You are in control. Don’t let your anxiety take the best of you.
If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, please feel free to email me at beatinguncertainty@gmail.com.
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