Areas › Worry and anxiety › What worry does
You do not have to win the argument in your head before your body is allowed to settle. The two run on separate tracks and you can work on either.
Plenty of people stay locked in the thinking, sure that once the question is finally answered the shaking will stop. It rarely happens in that order. Walk, breathe out slowly, put your hands under warm water, and let the body come down with the question still open. The question tends to be easier to answer afterwards anyway.
Qur’an and Sunnah
when afflicted with a calamity, We belong to God and to Him we shall return (Quran 2:156). Short words to say, given instead of a settled argument.
ٱلَّذِينَ إِذَآ أَصَٰبَتۡهُم مُّصِيبَةࣱ قَالُوٓاْ إِنَّا لِلَّهِ وَإِنَّآ إِلَيۡهِ رَٰجِعُونَ
those who say, when afflicted with a calamity, ‘We belong to God and to Him we shall return.’
Qur’an 2:156read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
In a laboratory experiment, getting people to worry rather than relax changed how their heart and autonomic system responded to a later stressor, in healthy volunteers, high worriers and people with generalised anxiety disorder alike, with worry linked to blunted reactivity. Thinking and body clearly speak to each other. It was a controlled task in a small sample, so it shows the link rather than how large it is in daily life.
Fisher AJ, Newman MG. (2013). Heart rate and autonomic response to stress after experimental induction of worry versus relaxation in healthy, high-worry, and generalized anxiety disorder individuals.. Biological psychology doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Settling the body does not depend on the thought being resolved first.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.
Near this one
Listen to the tone, not only the content. Sorrow and flat negativity about someone's online world can be the clearest reading of their mood you will get.
Almost everyone says they are a bit addicted to their phone. What separates a heavy habit from a problem is whether it is damaging work, sleep, study or relationships, and whether that has gone on for a while.
When a young person seems impossible to satisfy, the complaining is usually a symptom rather than ingratitude. Saying that plainly to a parent changes what they feel.