Areas › Worry and anxiety › Breaking the worry loop
Settling the body only goes so far for some people, and there is energy left over afterwards. That leftover needs somewhere to go, or it goes back into the worry.
This matters most if you run hot: the driven ones, the ones who cannot leave a thought alone. You do the breathing, you are still humming, and you conclude the whole thing does not work for you. It did work, it just did not finish the job. Have the next thing ready in advance, something absorbing enough to hold you: a walk with a podcast, cooking, a job that needs your hands.
Qur’an and Sunnah
good things drive bad away (Quran 11:114). Displacement is offered as the method, which is different from arguing the thought down.
وَأَقِمِ ٱلصَّلَوٰةَ طَرَفَيِ ٱلنَّهَارِ وَزُلَفࣰ ا مِّنَ ٱلَّيۡلِۚ إِنَّ ٱلۡحَسَنَٰتِ يُذۡهِبۡنَ ٱلسَّيِّـَٔاتِۚ ذَٰلِكَ ذِكۡرَىٰ لِلذَّٰكِرِينَ
[Prophet], keep up the prayer at both ends of the day, and during parts of the night, for good things drive bad away- this is a reminder for those who are aware
Qur’an 11:114read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
In a controlled comparison against progressive muscle relaxation, a structured attention training exercise improved children's ability to hold off on an immediate reward, which suggests the gain came from training attention rather than from being relaxed. Where attention is pointed looks like a separate lever from how tense the body is. That was a study in children about a laboratory task, so read it as support for the principle rather than for any particular activity.
Murray J, Scott H, Connolly C, Wells A. (2018). The Attention Training Technique improves Children's ability to delay gratification: A controlled comparison with progressive relaxation.. Behaviour research and therapy doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Attention left with nowhere to go returns to the loop by default.
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
Ask one question about the worry: is there something to be done here that has not been done? If yes, make the plan. If the plan already exists, or there is nothing to plan, the worry gets no more of your time.
Sometimes there really is evidence for the fear. Say so. The balance comes from the other column being fuller, not from pretending the first column is empty.
Being told not to worry has never once stopped anybody worrying, including you. If a friend said it to you tomorrow you would carry straight on.