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Challenging Worry


13 years ago 0 118 logo logo logo logo logo logo logo logo logo logo 0
Davit
 
I agree with you about the difference between worry and consider.  Here is another way to look at what you did. You considered all the angles you know it is an event that you can not change so you changed you attitude towards it. This is the only thing you can do other then worry about it. Also you said you have planed for it. I think I this case when you plan for an event in the future you take away as much of the uncertainty about the situation. So if you plan you have a modicumn of control, which gives you a sense of control over the situation. If you have some control over the situation then you are not left with total uncertainty, and that where I think we get into trouble. In my support group we have a saying to Plan, Decide and Act from a sesne of security not from a sense of fear. This has worked for me. If I see the worst possible outcome as likly I Plan, Decide and Act so I have a sense of control. So I am prepared for the worst and if I am prepared for the worst then I can not worry about it. This does not mean that you should plan for catastrophy in every situation. If you have a definate event in the future that you can not change then do all you can do to take what ever uncertainty out of the situation, which leaves you with a sense of control, or in your words you planned all you could and drooped the rest because there is nothing you can do about it.
 
PS. I hope the surgery goes great.
Dizzy
13 years ago 0 118 logo logo logo logo logo logo logo logo logo logo 0
 

Ashley, Health Educator

Thanks for your post. I to see that the triggers for my attack are words or events, that when I say or do them, I worry that an attack is going to happen. I have proven every one of them wrong (my triggers do not always cause an attack). My only conclusion is that it is how I perceive my worrying or triggers. Worrying is what gives the words power and how I perceive the trigger words or thoughts. Is this Meta cognitive thinking where they try to discover what you think about what you thinking? In other words, you can worry but it is your perception about how you see the worrying that counts. I took your thread last night and concluded that this is most of my problem with attacks. The problem I see hear for me is, it is like Google illness you look up justifications for what you think you have, or like first year med  student  who comes down with every illness that they read about. I wonder about this in cognitive behaviour therapy or psychology where I look for the answers to my panic attack and everything I read about cognitive therapy I think is the solution to my problem. Not everything in your toll box rings true for me, but is the reason that identify with so much of what you say and post is that we all have the same underlying problem anxiety and panic attacks, and that people with the same mental problem are very much alike underneath, although our individual experiences are unique. In other words, what you posted rang true for me because it explained how a mere worry (trigger words) could have strength to cause an attack. So I did some exposure to it last night and this morning when I said the trigger worry words I said “crap I should not have said them “, which then caused me to try to find something positive to say to counteract the worry. I believe that both these reaction gave further power to the worry trigger words. I think the answer for me to taking away the power of worrying is, ambivalence. I have read some other people techniques about attack and they say the way to get out of one is to not worry about having another or in another case they said to get rid of attack is to want to have one. In both these cases the thing there trying to accomplish is not to worry about having another attack or not to treat as you said worrying as a danger and to just let it pass. Can you tell that I think excessively much about things?

Dizzy

13 years ago 0 6252 logo logo logo logo logo logo logo logo logo logo 0
Ashley

This whole exercise and program in my eyes is about negative verses positive. I have lots to worry about but I don't. Here again I'm going to throw in two words that are close but not the same. Worry and consider. One negative and one positive. Take my pending operation. I can worry about it and the more I worry the more I will even if I try not too. Especially if I try not to. 
Instead what I have done is consider it. It will happen, I am reasonably prepared, I have done all I can, and the rest is out of my hands.
I have covered the same bases as worry but in a positive way instead.
I like the elephant and I agree the more you try not to worry the more you will. At least he is not pink.

Having a lovely fall. (even here in the hospital)
Davit.
13 years ago 0 286 logo logo logo logo logo logo logo logo logo logo 0
Ashley,
 
Thanks for this discussion of cognitive exposure. As I've been conquering some of my initial fears, I've found that one worry after another comes in to take their place. I have been trying to tell myself to stop worrying, and after reading your post I can see why these thoughts continue to swirl around in my head every day. Maybe I just need to set a little time aside to worry (and challenge my negative worry beliefs), and before long my thoughts will move on to something else more important, just like in the elephant experiment.
 
Teebs
13 years ago 0 11210 logo logo logo logo logo logo logo logo logo logo 0
Members,

Finding healthy coping mechanisms is an important part of a healthy lifestyle.  There are a number of CBT techniques that are commonly used to help people challenge worry including: thought records, thought stopping, worry time, challenging the value of worry, problem solving, experiments to increase intolerance of uncertainty and cognitive exposure. Let’s take a look at them one at a time:

Cognitive Exposure: People who worry often try very hard not to worry. In fact, people can do all kinds of things to try to not worry. People try hard not to worry for all kinds of reasons including a belief that worrying about something makes it more likely that if they worry too much they will go crazy. Certainly many of the things that people worry about (finances, illness and death) can be very scary. However, by trying hard not to worry we can give our worries more power than they deserve. To see how this can happen, consider the following example. For the next two minutes, try as hard as you can to NOT think of a white elephant. Do everything that you can to Not think of a white elephant. Take two minutes to do this experiment. We will be here when you are finished.

What happened?

Well, if you are like most people, the harder you tried not to think of a white elephant, the more you thought of a white elephant. What does this mean about you…or white elephants? Nothing! It just means like most people trying hard not to think of something makes you think of it even more. How do you not think of white elephants? How do you get them out of your head? Why, by thinking about them of course. If you are like most people, if you start daydreaming about white elephants, you will soon end up somewhere else all together.
 
So what does this experiment prove?  
 
What this experiment proves is that the more you try to NOT think of something, the more you will think of it. Now imagine that we ask you to NOT think of something but this time instead of a white elephant we ask you to not think of one of your worries. What should happen? That’s right, you should have a hard time getting the worry out of your head. In fact because it is one of your worries (not just a white elephant), you should have an even harder time NOT thinking about it. OK, so now what does this mean about you…or your worry…? The right answer is nothing! It just means that the harder you try not to think of something, the harder it is to get out of your head. And this is the tricky part where you can get into trouble. It is easy to believe that not being able to NOT think of a white elephant means nothing about you or the white elephant (If you have to, read that last sentence a couple of times). On the other hand it is hard not to think that not being able to not think of a worry means something about you or the worry. Common beliefs that people have about not being able to get worries out of their mind are that “there must be something wrong with me,”  I am losing control of my mind,” and “this worry must be important.” Maybe you can see how it is these beliefs about worries and worrying that lead to the most trouble of all.

Ashley, Health Educator

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