Harnessing your worry instead of resisting it.

Worry can feel like an uncontrollable tornado. You might find yourself wanting to simply be present and go through your day but your brain has different plans in making you ruminate and focus on your stressors.

The instinct is to fight the worry. It’s to say to yourself that you don’t need to be stressing about these things or that you can’t do anything about it anyways. The issue is that you probably already figured out that this doesn’t work.

For whatever reason, not only does resisting worry not work, it tends to make it worse. Our brains do not handle resistance well. On the flip-side, the other option, accepting the worry, doesn’t feel too comfortable either.

So what are your options? Resisting worry doesn’t work but neither does accepting it…..

The trick is learning how to harness your worry rather then resisting it. This is where what is called creating a “worry window” comes in.

A worry window is an exercise where you look at your schedule and you find a block of time (I tell clients somewhere between 5-15 minutes). To intentionally sit and allow yourself to ruminate, worry and catastrophize about whatever has been taking over your mind.

By utilizing a window window you are not telling your brain not to worry. You are telling your brain “not now”. Brains tend to respond better to delay then rejection. A worry window allows you to take control of all of that energy and release it on your own terms. rather then letting your brain run the show.

If worry and anxiety is something that you struggle with, Philadephia therapist Noam Dinovitz can help.

He can be contacted at Noam@Dinovitzcounseling.com or 484-424-7722