How to Get off the Worry Wheel
Do you ever feel afraid that if you weren’t energized by anxiety, you might not get through that long to-do list? Have you ever felt like anxiety is your lifeline to productivity? Worrying about what needs to be done next, increased energy from nervousness, or being hyper-alert to your surroundings may feel useful when the responsibilities seem never-ending, but what happens when you truly want to slow down?
Keeping these three tips in mind may help you hit the snooze button on those anxious feelings.
1. Practice Mindfulness
Mindfulness has been defined as a “non-reactive and non-judgmental, present moment awareness and attention for internal and external stimuli as they arise” (2, p. 1183). Engaging in a steady practice of mindfulness over a 5-week period was found to increase participant’s self-compassion and decrease their worry. There are many ways to practice mindfulness. Two basic practices, which were used by authors of the mentioned study, included a breathing meditation and body scan.
Do you have favorite mindfulness practices you can use in your day? If you are interested in learning more about mindfulness, let’s connect.
2. Get Moving
The benefits of physical activity to mental health are plentiful. For example, daily cycling and running over a 5-week period have also been associated with both increased self-compassion and decreased worry (2). In a second example, a review of research on “healthy adults” (adults who experience symptoms of anxiety from time-to-time), found that healthy adults can benefit from physical activity to help with anxious symptoms too - suggesting that we do not have to have an anxiety disorder or anxiety that severely impacts our functioning to experience the benefits of physical activity.
Certain factors may help physical activity be more effective at reducing anxiety in healthy adults. For example, supervised physical activity and physical activity that occurred at a fitness center were found to be more effective at reducing anxiety in healthy adults compared to unsupervised physical activity and home-based exercise.
(Take-home: mindfulness and physical activity may be two useful tools that not only lessen those nagging thoughts about feared future events, but can also help us increase a sense of understanding and warmth toward ourselves).
3. Connect with Nature
Have you ever felt like you replay past events, stories, or experiences 'on loop' in your mind? This might be referred to as “rumination.” When we ruminate, we mull over the past in typically unhelpful ways. When we worry, we can fret over the future, also in typically unhelpful ways. Rumination and worry might even feel productive at times - as though if we replay past events enough times by ruminating or attempt to predict future events by worrying - that we will be able to change the past or control the future. Yet, our human abilities to successfully change the past or control all aspects of the future seem to be meek.
As you might have experienced, rumination and worry are often common experiences of anxiety. In our effort to break the anxious cycle of nervous productivity, research has provided interesting support for the power of nature (1). Authors of one study found that participants who spent 90 minutes walking in nature experienced a decrease to self-reported rumination, whereas participants who spent 90 minutes walking in an urban setting showed no reduction to their self-reported rumination. When a walk in nature is not at your fingertips, research has shown that simply having trees in view from your window can increase a sense of being “at peace” (4). In the days of COVID-19, which seem to be filled with window-viewing, this could be an especially useful informational nugget!
Remember
We are not alone in wanting to be productive and efficient. Yet, we can also likely benefit from knowing when to step off the worrying-hamster wheel and reconnect with ourselves, others, and the environment - for the sake of our well-being and in the interest of being able to sustain productivity.
References
1. Bratman, G. N., Hamilton, J. P., Hahn, K. S., Daily, G. C., & Gross, J. J. (2015). Nature experience reduces rumination and sugenual prefrontal cortex activation. PNAS, 112, 8567-8572.
2. Bruin, E. I., Zwan, E v.d., & Bögels, S. M. (2016). A RCT comparing daily mindfulness meditations, biofeedback exercises, and daily physical exercise on attention and control, executive functioning, mindful awareness, self-compassion, and worrying in stressed young adults. Mindfulness, 7, 1182-1192.
3. Conn, V. S. (2010). Anxiety outcomes after physical activity interventions: meta-analysis findings. Nurs. Res., 59, 224-231.
4. Kaplan, R. (2001). The nature of the view from home. Environment and Behavior, 33, 507-542.
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