RECAP

TREATMENT FOR WORRYING

Let's recap and put all the information we now know about worrying together, and then have a look at how you can overcome your worrying.

When your worrying is triggered by something external or internal:

1) Very specific worries related to the trigger are set off, and tend to take form of "What if" questions. It is likely that the fact your respond with worrying so quickly, is because you believe that at times worrying can be helpful to you. That is, you hold some positive beliefs about worrying.

2) However, if you keep on worrying, your worries may start to focus more on worries-about-worrying and how uncontrollable and harmful your worrying is. This is because you also hold some negative beliefs about worrying.

3) You experience distressing emotions and unpleasant physical sensations when you worry, which make you feel worse and make you believe even more that your worrying is harmful to you.

4) You engage in unhelpful strategies like trying to control your worrisome thoughts. These often don't work and will make you feel worse, making you believe even more that your worrying is uncontrollable.

5) You may engage in other unhelpful strategies like trying to avoid worrying. This may make you feel better in the short term, but in the long run it will limit your opportunity to find better ways of coping with life than worrying.

From what you know about the process of worrying, it makes sense that to overcome worrying and generalised anxiety, you need to do three things 1) address your beliefs about worrying; 2) deal with the specific worries you have; and 3) learn to use helpful rather than unhelpful strategies.