Self-Help Practice 4: Create Worry Time

So far we've described ways you can respond specifically when you are worrying. Now let's look at other techniques that will help you with your worries, but are practiced when you're not worrying.

The first is what I call Daily Worry Time. This is another mental ploy that is paradoxical in nature, similar to the technique of accepting your worry. Instead of resisting your obsessions, you will choose periods during the day that you purposely devote to obsessing. See how peculiar that sounds, to instruct you to actually worry more! That's how you can recognize a paradoxical technique; it sounds wrong!

Set aside, twice a day, about ten minutes that you have designated solely to worry about your problem. Perhaps take the first Worry Time in the morning before you go to work. Sit down in a private place and pay attention to your worries. (I'll describe how to do that in a minute.) Then, at the end of the day, perhaps right after you get off work, sit down again and designate this as your second Worry Time.

When you sit down for this special time, totally devoted to your worries, follow these guidelines. Spend the entire time thinking only of your worries about this topic. Think of nothing positive. Do not try to convince yourself that these worries are unnecessary, do not try to see the positive side or argue in any way whatsoever. Only introduce negative thoughts, and let those continue to come up. More and more of them! As many as you have about the topic! Every angle and aspect of your worries and fears! Just let them come up in your mind, and continue to look for more of them. And try to become as uncomfortable as possible as you review these thoughts.

If, after a while, you run out of worries, recycle the worries you have already stated. Go back to the first ones and repeat them. Your goal is to spend the entire ten minutes focused on your worries, even if you have to repeat them. It is not going to work if you say, "Well, five or six minutes have gone by, and I can't really think of anything else to worry about, so I think I'll stop here today."

No! Don't do that, because there is method to the madness here. I want you to experience, eventually, the kind of frustration that comes with not being able to generate any more new thoughts. People who worry feel as if they worry all day long, but that is not actually what happens. Their worries come in little spurts -- they argue themselves out of the worries, they reassure themselves that things will be okay, or they tell themselves to shut up, or they get distracted -- and then the worries become quiet. But a little later the worries come back, and this battle begins again.

In Worry Time you don't fight or struggle with your thoughts. You clear away your slate, set aside other thoughts, and give total and full attention to your worries. The result is that your worries diminish.

Why does it work? Because it helps you begin to shift your emotions when you think of the problem. During your first few Worry Times, you will probably become upset with your thoughts. After all, you are dwelling on your worst fears, and you are going over them repeatedly (like you usually do in the back of your mind at other times). But what happens when you review the same material in detail twice a day for days? After several days, most people complain about how hard it is to fill the ten minutes. They run out of things to say. Instead of feeling anxious, they get bored. Now wouldn't that be a pleasant change!

That is one of our primary goals. Instead of thinking about a worry and instantly feeling anxious, you begin to have other emotional responses. Your body's emergency system stops kicking in reflexively. If your worry is about airline travel, after a few days you might even catch yourself feeling good about getting to your destination more comfortably (and three days sooner than you would if you took the train).

To make those changes in your emotions you need to follow the guidelines of Worry Time carefully. For instance, don't spend any time during this ten minutes trying to convince yourself that your worries are irrational. Do just the opposite: go ahead and let yourself get worked up. Conjure up all the negative, uncomfortable and distressful feelings that coincide with these thoughts.