Breaking The Worry Loop

Let Go Of Anxiety And Live The Life You Want

We all worry. We all have anxiety. Even though neither of those feelings are pleasant, they are useful. Every aspect of our mind that exists–good or bad–serves a purpose. Our psychology didn’t slowly develop over hundreds of thousands of years without intention. It developed the way it did because it’s what we needed to survive. 

Thinking about our minds from that perspective lightens the burden of the challenging mental states we experience. Worry, anxiety, fear, anger, and self-limiting thoughts are there for a reason. They exist to protect us. That might sound weird, but at the end of the day, our brains are far more concerned with whether we survive rather than if we feel bad for a few hours. 

It’s easy to forget that most unpleasant mental states originated before modern societies, smartphones, and TikTok. So, when we experience painful mental states, they feel like they are coming from nowhere for no reason. But they aren’t. 

For example, we are wired to worry because it makes us give our actions a second thought and keeps us from mindlessly making decisions that could harm us. In a primal context, this is invaluable. It kept our ancestors from turning themselves into a human hors d'oeuvre by going to pet the fluffy 500lbs tiger they crossed paths with in the wild. Fear, of course, serves a similar purpose. It’s our body sending us feelings that are more clear than thoughts that the area isn’t safe and we should flee. Even anger originated to help protect us. There’s a reason we feel angry when we are attacked. It’s because a primal switch flips, which puts us on the offensive to protect ourselves when we face threats.  

In a modern context, we continue to feel the same negative mental states, but they are triggered by current problems rather than ancient ones. And the issue is that living in such an information-dense world, we face hundreds of things a day that can trigger our negative mental states. The heroic dose of nervous system stimulation we all experience makes it easy to get caught in a cycle of anxiety-based living. But just because we can feel these protective, unpleasant mental sensations doesn’t mean it should be normalized in our daily lives. 

I like to call these cycles worry loops. That’s because these states of mind are feedback systems that reinforce themselves. For example, we worry about something specific, which gives us general anxiety. That general anxiety causes our feelings to bleed over into other areas of our lives, which gives us more specific things to worry about. This loop can simply keep expanding until we are exceedingly anxious. Or, it can create a contained ecosystem–like a garden of anxiety–in which new mental discomforts bloom forever.

We can break these worry loops by following a few simple mindful steps: 

• First, it’s important that you notice when you get caught in a worry loop. 

• Confronting the thought pattern you’re in creates mental space, which allows you to pull out of the drama of the negative experience and see it from a logical outside perspective. 

• Doing this breaks the feedback loop because you stop the momentum of worry, step back, and see the big picture. 

• Next, you should consider that your worry is likely a story that your mind has created to prepare you for the future and isn’t based on fact. 

• Label your worry as a mental tool that’s trying to keep you safe by focusing your attention on potential negative outcomes.

• Then, let go of the story you’re telling yourself about reality that is causing your worry. 

• Refocus your mind on positive outcomes and use your imagination to create a story of best-case scenarios of how your future will unfold. 

Being conscious of when you’ve fallen into a worry loop and mindfully breaking out of it is an invaluable skill to add to your toolkit.

Because even though the stories we tell ourselves about the future aren’t real, they influence our actions and mindset in the present.

The more you can focus on the life you want to live instead of the one you fear, the greater the chance you’ll turn that life you desire into a reality. 

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