Worry Time: A Technique to Address Worries and Reduce Their Burden on Your Life

Right now life is full with a lot of unknowns. The “what ifs” and worst case scenarios may be swirling around your head, impacting your mood and capacity to move through your day. If you are feeling overwhelmed by your thoughts, worrying may be taking up more time than you’d like it to. A useful tool to help you through this is “Worry Time”. 

Worry Time

Worry time is probably what you imagine it to be! It is space in your day that is used to engage in worry. Many of us attempt to brush off or resist our worry thoughts. The further we push these distressing thoughts away the less impact they have on our lives, right? I wish this was the case! Instead the more we resist our worries the stronger they fight back to be heard. 

By acknowledging our worries in a productive and helpful framework, we give them a voice and ourselves the ability to engage in life without bombardment or distraction of worrying. The hope is that by engaging in worry time, we reset the cycle of worry. We no longer let worry take over our thoughts and instead we get ourselves back into the driver’s seat.    

How To

First step: Pick a place you would like to set up as your worry spot. Make sure this place is one you don’t have to spend that much time in. For instance, try to avoid using your bedroom for this activity. If you are tight on space, which many of us are these days, you can also use a place outside as your designated worry spot. 

Next: Set up the amount of time you would like to dedicate to worry time. Aim for something between 5- 20 minutes. If this seems too long or too short, this number is flexible! What is important is intentionally setting up the amount of time prior to beginning the activity. 

Third step: Pick the time of day you would like to engage in your worry practice. Think about what barriers may come up and attempt to carve out an uninterrupted time slot in your day. Make sure to be realistic and account for things like work related conflicts, your partner or roommate's schedules or even when you need to take the dog out. What time of day would be easiest for you to spend alone and devoted to self care? 

What may also be important to factor in is your natural worry cycle. Do you find that you worry more during a particular time of day? Some people find that worries feel most intense when they wake up in the morning, while others find that worries feel most overwhelming right before falling asleep. Take into account your individual needs and structure your worry time around when you feel the most impacted or flooded with worry thoughts.

Final step: Once you have set up the time of day, place and allotted time to engage in your practice, it’s time to begin! Set a timer that indicates when your worry time starts and stops. You can bolster in a few minutes more on your timer to help you move from this practice into your next activity of the day.

Worry Practice FAQ 

When engaging in your worry practice, let your mind be free to worry however you normally do and about whatever is coming up for you that day. There is no right or wrong! Try to be gentle with yourself and sit with your thoughts and worries without judgement. You can choose to let the worries express themselves through an internal dialogue or you can write them out in a journal. 

If you choose to, you can also add a grounding exercise to your routine to mark the end of this practice and the beginning of the next phase of your day. For example, engaging in diaphragmatic breathing can help you feel grounded and a sense of calm. I recommend this especially for those of you looking to set up worry time just before you go to sleep. 

It is natural, especially at first, to have worry creep in outside of your worry time. When you notice or catch yourself worrying outside of worry time, you can note it by saying something like “this is a worry thought, I am going to save this to think about during my worry time”. After noting the worry, try to move through this thought by refocusing on what you were doing in the present moment. If your worry feels difficult to detach from, you can also try writing down your worry to bring with you to your next worry time session. 

Engaging in worry time takes practice. Don’t be discouraged if this feels very hard for you to accomplish. Try to stick with it and the difficulty will decrease over time.