It is much easier to worry when you are feeling run-down, stressed or overwhelmed. It makes sense then to, whenever possible, do what you can to prevent these feelings and help reduce worry. There are several ways you achieve this:

Keep energized.

1. Know how to relax.
When you feel worrying starting to creep up, taking some time to relax can help. Make a list of thing that relax you before the worry starts. Otherwise you might worry that you can’t relax! It doesn’t have to be complicated, simple things like closing your eyes and listening to some music, watch some TV, do some yoga, or have a bubble bath.

2. Rest.
Always allow enough time to get a full night sleep. Feeling fatigued makes all those little things seem a lot bigger and then the worry can creep in.

3. Eat well.
Eating a healthy diet, benefits not only your general health but helps keep you energized. Both of which helps your overall mood and helps keep that worry at bay.

4. Time for yourself.
This is especially important if you are an introvert. If you get busy and don’t give yourself time to rest and relax you will feel fatigued and that stress and worry can start to build. Often you will find that it doesn’t have to be a large amount of time, 30 minutes to read or a 20 minute walk maybe enough to help you re-balance your equilibrium.

Stay on top of things.

1. Keep an organized home.
As much as possible keep you home organized. Mark important dates on a calendar so you know what appointments are coming up. Make school/work lunches the night before are example of small tips that can help keep from that panic rush each morning. This is one thing that really helped me.

2. Get help when needed.
If there is too much to do, get help. Ask family, friends or hire someone to deal with those extra tasks that have crept in. Even something simple like hiring someone to deal with the garden and mow the lawn means one less thing for you to deal to, and can make a world of difference. Sometimes things build up, stress levels increase and so does that nagging worry. Ask for help, get back on top of things and reduce the worry.

3. Focus on one thing at a time.
Try to deal with one task at once. If possible complete tasks or make decisions as they arise. Once a task is dealt with, it should no longer worry you, unlike having 8 partly- completed tasks.

Separately these are all small things, but they can add together and really make a difference at keeping your life worry- free.

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Do any of these sound familiar:

• I’m worried that people won’t like me.
• I’m worried that I will say the wrong thing.
• I’m worried people won’t talk to me.
• I’m worried I will make a mistake.
• I’m worried I won’t do a good enough job.

If you are worried and experience shyness, sometimes one can increase the other.  For example; I’m worried that I won’t know what to say at the party, so I don’t talk to anyone and am now timid and shy all night.  And I’m shy about talking in front of groups and worry that I miss many opportunities.

Of course there are situations where worry and shyness are not connected.  But you will often find that when you are feeling particularly shy, worry is also present.  The good news is that preventing, or reducing one can have the follow on effect of reducing the other.  For example, finding a successful method to stop your worrying can mean you feel more confident and less shy at that party.

Time, shyness and worry.

In my experience the greatest impact worry has on shyness occurs when you have the time to worry.    For example, a job interview, first date, party, or presentation etc. scheduled for next week.  You may worry that you won’t know what to say, who to talk to etc.  These pestering worrying thoughts can eat away at your confidence and increase your shyness.  This is obviously not what we want. 

The best solution here is obviously to reduce or even better stop any waiting time.  Of course this isn’t always practical or possible.  In these cases some solutions that have worked for me include:

1. Delay feeling shy,
2. Watching my thoughts,
3. Using the 5 common ways to reduce worry. 

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There are a number of things that can help to stop or reduce worry, the post how to stop worry examines 5 different methods.   But there is one thing I have found that has lead to the most worry conquering success.

It’s the thought that makes the worry.

It’s the thought that something unpleasant will happen that makes you worry.   If you leave this thought alone and don’t challenge it, it will slowly but surely increase in size. 
But now that you know the secret, how do you use it to your advantage?

1. Stop the worry before it grows.

Catch the thought, stop the worrying thought and think about something else.  It is far easier if you already have a “happy thought” in mind.  Learning to catch your thoughts takes time, when you first start you may find yourself worrying for a some time before you catch it. 

It can become such a habit that you worry without realizing and it can take a while to get to the point where you can stop those worries quickly.  But before this point you can still be successful at reducing your worries just by switching thoughts as soon as you realize that you are worrying.   This will also lead to you being able to catch worries quicker.

2. Is there anything you can do now, to stop or reduce the waiting time?

Sometimes there is the chance to take action NOW that can stop a worry from building and developing.   At high school when ever there were speeches or group presentations due, I always asked if I could go first.  Some people looked at me like I was mad, but I knew that once I had finished I could sit back and enjoy everyone’s speech.  If I was at the end of the speaking order I would sit and worry and not enjoy any of the other speeches.   Just by reducing the waiting time, reduced the worry time.

If you are a big worrier take a few moments to look at the real reason you worry.  Before you let the uncertainly worry you take a step back and look at the situation, ask; is there anything I can do now to stop or reduce the waiting?  If you still have to wait, watch your thoughts closely, catch any worry thoughts and replace them with happy, sitting on a warm beach reading and relaxing thoughts. 

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Worry is that feeling of being concerned, uneasy or troubled about something, usually relating to a possible future event.   People can worry about just about anything.  But what it really comes down to is that we worry because we are scared of the uncertainly in our lives, or the not knowing what will or won’t happen.    In fact you have probably found that the actual event happening or not is easier to cope with.  

Endless worry can consume our lives and rob us of our happiness.  But staying “Don’t worry” does very little to help, so how can you stop or reduce your worries?   

Ways to reduce your worries.

The most successful method to reduce worries will vary between people.   So the best thing you can do to is try many different approaches and tricks until you find one (or several) that works.   The following is a list of ideas that can be used to reduce or stop worry.

1. Stay rested.
Coping with life’s little bumps is considerably easier when you are well rested.  Being tired can make everything seem that little harder.   I’m sure you have heard the saying, or some variation of “Things will look brighter in the morning”.  The key reason things look better is that you are rested and now better able to cope with things. 

2. Keep busy.
If you find that idle time means those small worries gnaw away at you, keeping busy may be the solution.  Keep your mind busy and your thoughts on the task at hand.  Taking action, even if it not related to your current worrying topic, does help.  That feeling of accomplishment helps boost confidence and self esteem.

3. Have something to look forward to.
It’s amazing how having some to look forward to can improve your overall mood and keep you mind off worrying.   It doesn’t have to be anything big, it can as simple as a weekly movie night with some friends, or your favorite TV show is commencing a new season, or you finished a project.  The key is to have something to look forward to, something that is not too far into the future and something that you can get excited about and look forward to.   

4. Postpone the worry.
If you are worried about something that might happen on Monday then put off worrying about it to Tuesday or Wednesday.  You can try writing down your worry with the intention to revisit it after a week.  This allows a whole week to pass, and there is a good chance that what you would have worried about never happened.

5. Replace worry.
Simply saying “stop worrying” doesn’t work.   Left alone with nothing much to think about those worrying thoughts can reappear quickly.  Keeping busy can help here, but even so there are times when you rest or pause.  The trick here is to monitor your thoughts and when a worry starts to creep in block it with a positive thought.   And rather than scrambling to find a stuible positive thought, have on ready.  Take a moment now to think of a positive thought.  Keep this thought tucked away and next time you notice you are worrying, replace the worry with your positive thought.

Reducing life consuming worries.

Those larger life consuming worries often need a little extra help:

6. Get an action plan.
If there is a worry that is eating away at you, taking action can help stop the worry from consuming your life.  Work out the worst possible outcome and then in your mind accept that outcome. Now you can start to make a plan, as calm as possible try to think of possible actions that will improve this worst case scenario.   Taking action like this not only improves the outcome but also helps to reduce the worry because your thoughts are now on taking action rather than just the worry.

7. Think: “What are the chances of it actually happening?”
Once you start worrying about something it can quickly grow.  It can often be challenging to keep small worries from becoming huge.  One way to achieve this is working out the real odds.  For example if you worry a great deal about flying, know that plans land and take off safely, every second somewhere in the world.  Flying is actually very safe.  I wouldn’t suggest looking up any statistics about a current worry, as that is only going to feed it.  But after that worry is put to rest, it can be helpful for next time if you know that the chance of that thing actually happening is quite low.

Worrying is not fun, but you can take steps to stop or reduce your worries.   Try several of the methods until you find one that works.  If you already use a method that works for you, I would love to hear it so please leave a comment or send me an email.   This post was written as participation of the blog writing project over at Dailyblog tips.

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