Tips for Reducing Daily Worries

7/27/2020

by Wendy Humphris, ROHP

Having worries and fears is a part of being a human adult, but at a certain point, your worries go beyond what is normal and realistic. For some people, they think about their worries so much that it leads to severe stress and anxiety. In fact, this is one of the reasons some people deal with chronic stress, where it never really seems to go away.

If you feel like you are experiencing more daily worries than the average person, then these tips can help.

Understand What Your Worry Thoughts Are

In order for you to reduce the worries you experience on a daily basis, you need to understand what your actual worries are. These worry thoughts are probably what is adding to your stress and overwhelm. If you are dealing with burnout, it could be making that worse as well. Worry thoughts are sometimes very obvious, while other times they come from very surprising places.

The first thing you need to do is figure out what your biggest worry thoughts are, then look for good resolutions to put these to rest. Not all of them will have a good resolution, but you might find that some of your thoughts are just you overthinking or making a bigger deal out of things that you really need to.

Write Down Your Worries and Analyze Them

Not sure what your worry thoughts are? Write them down! This is yet another benefit of using a journal when you struggle with stress, worry, or overwhelm. Take a few minutes to write down anything you are thinking about. What you will notice is a lot of your thoughts on paper are things you are worried or concerned about. This typically happens naturally without having to think too much about it.

You can do this in one big brain dump, or write in your journal a few minutes every day and look for patterns in your thoughts. Do you always seem to complain about the same person? Is work causing most of your worries? Is your home life becoming a problem? These are patterns you want to look for, so you can figure out what your main worries are.

Know Where Your Main Worries Come From

Now that you have all your worry thoughts written down, you can figure out what the main source is. As with anything else in your life, you won’t be able to avoid everything that is causing worry and stress, but you might find some things that can be improved.

For example, if a lot of your worries are about not having enough free time or personal time to spend with family, take a look at your work schedule. Can this be altered at all? Are you working extra hours for a specific reason, or can you cut down on it a little?

Analyze every worry you have, looking for a pattern, the source, and what a possible resolution could be.

Be Mindful to Reduce Daily Worries

To reduce those daily worries, start practicing mindfulness. It is not a miracle cure for every concern in your life, but being more mindful helps you understand your state of mind during each activity, helps you maintain a more positive attitude, and will allow you to stop judging yourself and others.

All you have to do is focus on being more mindful during daily activities. Focus on what you are eating, where your mind is while you are working, your emotions while driving, walking, or playing with your kids. Being more mindful is a great way to start reducing those daily worries, especially the ones that are based on assumptions, not reality.

Practice Breathing Exercises

Breathing exercises can also help with worry and stress you endure each day. You will be able to practice your breathing in just about any environment you are in. If you don’t get the opportunity to do your breathing exercises at home, there is no reason you can’t close your office door and do them at work.

Breathing will give you a few minutes of peace and quiet, where you are mindful of your breaths, and can relax your mind for at least those few minutes every day.

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