Areas › Worry and anxiety › Breaking the worry loop
Every worry has something you love sitting underneath it. Fear about the exam means you want to do well. Fear about your mother's drive home means she matters to you.
This does not make the worry pleasant, and it is not a trick to make it disappear. What it does is stop the second layer, the part where you are angry at yourself for being like this. Say the underneath part out loud when the worry comes: this is here because I care about that. Then decide separately what, if anything, needs doing.
Qur’an and Sunnah
You have not created all this without purpose (Quran 3:191). The verse comes from people reflecting rather than spiralling, and what you fear for is usually what you were given to care about.
ٱلَّذِينَ يَذۡكُرُونَ ٱللَّهَ قِيَٰمࣰ ا وَقُعُودࣰ ا وَعَلَىٰ جُنُوبِهِمۡ وَيَتَفَكَّرُونَ فِي خَلۡقِ ٱلسَّمَٰوَٰتِ وَٱلۡأَرۡضِ رَبَّنَا مَا خَلَقۡتَ هَٰذَا بَٰطِلࣰ ا سُبۡحَٰنَكَ فَقِنَا عَذَابَ ٱلنَّارِ
who remember God standing, sitting, and lying down, who reflect on the creation of the heavens and earth: ‘Our Lord! You have not created all this without purpose- You are far above that!- so protect us from the torment of the Fire
Qur’an 3:191read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
A laboratory experiment on going over an anger provoking event found that how people thought about it, not simply whether they thought about it, decided whether the feeling stayed. The frame you put on a memory or a fear is part of what determines its grip. That study was about anger in a controlled setting, so it supports the general principle rather than this particular phrasing.
Ray RD, Wilhelm FH, Gross JJ. (2008). All in the mind's eye? Anger rumination and reappraisal.. Journal of personality and social psychology doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Seeing what a fear is protecting takes the shame out of having it, and shame is what makes it heavier.
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
Some people never ask for help because they assume everyone's head is like theirs. If yours has been running like this since you were small, it does not feel like a condition. It feels like being you.
Three moves, in this order: notice what is happening, settle the body, then put your attention somewhere useful. Short enough to remember when you are already going.
Sourness, shutting down, snapping at everyone: these are as often worry as they are attitude. The person is not giving you a hard time, they are having one.