“Worry” is a common feeling universally experienced, not just by practically all humans but also across the animal kingdom. We think of it a merely a feeling, an outward expression of emotions and separate from physiological actions within the body and brain, but in truth it is a much more complex manifestation of biochemistry. Like most emotions and our largely predictable responses to them, it is likely an evolutionary adaptation serving a larger protective function. Worry tells us something, warning of danger or serious consequences if not attended to, and intends to keep us safe.
When potentially threatening stimuli activate anxiety or fear, a series of biochemical reactions are set in motion that ready us for action (“fight or flight”). This reaction is generally associated with immediate dangers arising suddenly. But the same general reactions take place whether the threat is immediate (acute) or ongoing (chronic), and the body has a hard time distinguishing between lethal threats and what we’ll call “status threats” (threats to relationships, financial stability, career success, social status, etc.) that also occupy space in our minds. Now far removed from the worries of our distant ancestors in whom modern worry evolved (the fear of being violently killed, keeping the children from being violently killed, finding sufficient food and shelter, and competing with other early humans and tribes for resources, land, and sex partners in order to produce offspring about which to worry about keeping alive), the modern world has far more things available to trigger ancient instincts.
For a lot of us, the worry response to both acute and chronic threats will be brief, temporary, and focused. Action is taken, the threat eliminated or mitigated, and we move on. For others, worry has taken more permanent residence in our psyche. Feeling overwhelmed, threats are perceived everywhere, or we are unable to get on top of and feel secure about those we do (or believe we do) face. Problems (threats) pile up and create a cumulative effect of worry and uncontrolled rumination, and these can lead to anxiety, depression, sleep issues, relationship problems, and even manifest in serious physical symptoms and illness.
Stressors are real and they are everywhere, and worry is a natural response, reminding us to pay attention to and manage them, but worry needs to be managed lest it become a problem itself. Coping skills must be developed to manage our tendency to ruminate and bring about the negative effects of worry. Failure to develop or use coping skills allow simple stressors to overwhelm and send our thoughts out of control.
Fortunately, with effort and practice, coping skills can be developed and honed to avoid the downsides of excessive and chronic worry by applying and adapting the following principles.
Learn to stay “Focused in the Present”
Examining and understanding our pasts and planning for our futures are certainly important, but a common trait of people plagued with worry are that they live their mental lives obsessing over mistakes and lost opportunities of the past – things that can never be changed or gotten back – or obsessing over the fears of events yet to happen.
Knowing when (most of the time) and how to stay in the present is a critical coping skill, and one we’ve learned the importance of and mention frequently.
“Mindfulness,” as defined by The Greater Good Science Center at the University of California-Berkley, is a “moment-by-moment awareness of thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, and surrounding environment, characterized mainly by ‘acceptance’ – attention to thoughts and feelings without judging whether they are right or wrong. Mindfulness focuses the human brain on what is being sensed at each moment, instead of on its normal rumination on the past or on the future.” Without ignoring past events or future concerns, mindfulness puts them in perspective and combats worry by placing focus on the present.
Learn how to “Get in the Flow”
Psychologist and researcher Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi – one of the pioneers of “Positive Psychology” – learned through his research, and presented in his book “Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Performance”, that people are happiest when their thoughts flow. In a 1996 interview with Wired magazine, Csikszentmihalyi described flow as "being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you're using your skills to the utmost."
Anxiety is self-focused. Being mindful and “in the flow” is complete absorption in a moment and its activities. It sets aside worries, refocuses the mind, and allows for a different mind to relax and heal.
A simple way to start practicing flow is to schedule activities or time with positive people likely to create happy, pleasurable moments. Find ways to deposit positive experiences in your emotional bank so that when the negative moments in life present themselves, you have something to draw from. Engaging in planned and scheduled “distractions” to learn, play, or work helps keep your mind active and diversified, and helps to compartmentalize those things that create the most worry.
Beware of ‘Thought Distortions’
Stanford University psychiatrist and researcher Dr. David Burns identified ten common Thought Distortions experienced when feeling worry and anxiety. They function to convince us of something that isn’t really true and reinforce negative thinking and emotions that sound rational but really only keep us feeling bad about ourselves or our circumstances. Distorted thinking feeds on itself, grows in power and hold, and comes to be accepted as fact. Research indicates that once a thought distortion forms the mind has only 60 seconds to gain control and overcome the distortion before it becomes ingrained.
Burns thought distortions are:
1) ALL-OR-NOTHING THINKING: You see things in black-and-white categories. If your performance falls short of perfect, you see yourself as a total failure.
2) OVERGENERALIZATION: You see a single negative event as a never-ending pattern of defeat.
3) MENTAL FILTER: You pick out a single negative detail and dwell on it exclusively so that your vision of all reality becomes darkened, like the drop of ink that discolors the entire beaker of water.
4) DISQUALIFYING THE POSITIVE: You reject positive experiences by insisting they “don’t count” for some reason or other. In this way you can maintain a negative belief that is contradicted by your everyday experiences.
5) JUMPING TO CONCLUSIONS: You make a negative interpretation even though there are no definite facts that convincingly support your conclusion.
a) MIND READING: You arbitrarily conclude that someone is reacting negatively to you, and you don’t bother to check this out.
b) FORTUNE TELLING: You anticipate that things will turn out badly, and you feel convinced that your prediction is an already-established fact.
6) MAGNIFICATION (CATASTROPHIZING) OR MINIMIZATION: You exaggerate the importance of things (such as your goof-up or someone else’s achievement), or you inappropriately shrink things until they appear tiny (your own desirable qualities or other fellow’s imperfections). This is also called the “binocular trick.”
7) EMOTIONAL REASONING: You assume that your negative emotions necessarily reflect the way things really are: “I feel it, therefore it must be true.”
8) SHOULD STATEMENTS: You try to motivate yourself with should and shouldn’t, as if you had to be whipped and punished before you could be expected to do anything. “Musts” and “oughts” are also offenders. The emotional consequences are guilt. When you direct should statements toward others, you feel anger, frustration, and resentment.
9) LABELING AND MISLABELING: This is an extreme form of overgeneralization. Instead of describing your error, you attach a negative label to yourself. “I’m a loser.” When someone else’s behavior rubs you the wrong way, you attach a negative label to him” “He’s a damn louse.” Mislabeling involves describing an event with language that is highly colored and emotionally loaded.
10) PERSONALIZATION: You see yourself as the cause of some negative external event, which in fact you were not primarily responsible for.”
(Burns, David D., MD, The Feeling Good Handbook; New York: William Morrow and Company, 1989)
Know When and How to Relinquish Control
Worry is rooted in frustration over our inability to control future events and the futility of trying to gain control. Knowing what you have control over – and that lying beyond your control – allows you to focus your efforts where they really can make a difference and let go where it is futile.
This is very difficult for police officers; maintaining situational control and ensuring safety for yourself, your partners, and the public is Job #1. Losing control and allowing safety to be compromised is failure, and when either happens the tendency second guess yourselves or become hypercritical armchair quarterbacks of others is powerful.
But certain things are forever beyond your control. The emotions you and others feel, what other people think or do, (realistically) most of the situations you’ll ever encounter, no matter how hard you try, and a literally infinite number of unseen events shaping your future.
Control what you can, accept what you cannot, and remember that you are only responsible for your how you react to what you encounter in life.
Worry is universal and normal but, unchecked and uncontrolled, can easily harm us and make life decidedly unpleasant. By learning, adapting, and practicing these four principles, you can avoid being trapped into destructive patterns of worry.
