03 Sep Try this science-backed scheduling trick to relieve your anxiety
via Fast Company by L”Oreal Thomson Payton-Shine
My brain and my laptop are quite similar—both have about 20 tabs open at all times.
But, unlike my laptop, I can’t seem to shut down my brain at night.
My thoughts immediately become consumed with my to-do lists, forgotten tasks, and overall work-related anxiety.
And it seems like the harder I try to force out the thoughts or drown them out with my noise machine, the louder, more incessant they become.
That’s why when I stumbled upon a Medium post by sleep therapist and psychologist Nick Wignall about “the art of deliberate worry,” it immediately grabbed my attention.
I thought of the Erma Bombeck quote “Worrying is like a rocking chair. It will give you something to do, but it won’t get you anywhere.” It seemed like deliberately worrying would set me up to get stuck in that rocking chair—but I was intrigued by Wingall’s five-step approach nonetheless, so I figured I’d try it out myself.
According to Wingall, “Deliberate Worry is the practice of consistently making time each day to acknowledge your worries externally, and if necessary, make specific plans for addressing genuine problems.”
Essentially, you’re training your brain to spill out all of your worries, concerns, and anxieties at a set time, sort of like a brain dump. Here’s how I put it into practice…
… keep reading the full & original article HERE