3 ways to train your brain to stop worrying
3 ways to train your brain to stop worrying
It is said that depression focuses on past events that you wish you could have changed and that the concern focuses on future events over which you have no control. You could also tell yourself about worrying, that you think you have no control over the future when you can actually choose to take action to help prepare for whatever is worrying you. In this article, we are going to look for active ways that can help train your brain to stop worrying.
- Stop your brain of concern when writing it
When you are training your brain to stop worrying, it is said that this technique is the most important. If your brain stays alert during the night thinking about something, put it on paper or in electronic format. Doing so will allow your brain a mental sigh of relief for not having to expend energy trying to remember those details. If you are going to worry about what you are going to serve at a meeting of friends, write down ‘What is there to serve?’
Writing it down is also a way for you to put your brain on notice by saying, ‘This is important enough to write it down.’ Your brain will have been alerted to put resources towards solving this problem instead of being worried or having to remember that important thing that concerns you.
Why write it? Researchers now have evidence that individuals with a chronic concern can also be avoiders of chronic problems. Scientists in the Anxiety, Stress & Coping magazine gave a group of people who cared about the opportunity to write down three possible outcomes for the situation they were worried about, then analyzed the answers looking for practical solutions. The scientists said: ‘When the degree of concreteness in the elaboration of the problems of the participants was observed, they showed an inverse relationship between the degree of concern and the degree of specificity: the participants most concerned about a given topic, were less specific in the content of the elaboration of the solutions. The results challenge the opinion that concern can promote a better analysis of problems. Instead, they conform to the view that worry is a response of cognitive avoidance. ‘
- Meditate to have a brain without concerns
Meditation can help train your brain to stop worrying. Researchers in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine studied the effects of meditation and found that meditation is especially good for reducing cognitive anxiety, or worry. Although some people believe they do not have time to meditate, meditation is as easy as choosing to close your eyes at this time for 30 seconds or more. The act of choosing not to pay attention to other sources of stress is an active step to train your brain to stop worrying.
- Exercise to train your body and your brain to stop worrying about
The concern is how the brain learns to survive with the decision to activate the fight or flight system. If a puma jumps near you, it will feel like an adrenaline rush. This fear response is the same as what is happening to your body when you worry, albeit at a much lower level for a longer period of time.
The same study in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine found that exercise, on the other hand, is good for when your body feels symptoms of anxiety and nervousness. If your body feels less of the physical symptoms of stress, your mind will interpret that there must be less to worry about because the body is not in a state of increased arousal.
Exercise seems to give the body a secondary reason for the acceleration of the heart rate and perspiration so that we can feel it on a small level when we worry. Exercise can help lower blood pressure, which is another of the physical symptoms of stress in the body. If you can identify that you are worrying, take a 5-10 minute walk, outside if possible. Appreciate the sights and sounds of nature while focusing on the movement of your limbs and the breaths you take.