Worry: It's In Your Head! What creates it and how to minimize it.

Worry is a feeling that something terrible will happen, and it’s not just a thought but an emotion. The worry centres in your brain get activated when you think about something and your emotional response to it. For example, if you’re thinking of a time when someone made fun of your hair, or you saw an advertisement with a model who looks like you, and she’s wearing something you don’t have the money for.

Worry can seem to come from different places: Sometimes it’s because we’re afraid of being judged by other people; sometimes it’s because we don’t feel good enough; sometimes the worry comes from feeling overwhelmed by all the things we have to do, and sometimes it’s because we’re worried about what other people will think about us if they know what we’re thinking or doing! 

It’s hard not to worry when we’re feeling anxious. When we’re worrying about something, it feels like our brain is saying, “Hey, this is important; you need to focus on this.” And sometimes that’s true! Sometimes it does make sense to focus on the essential things. But there are many times when worrying isn’t helpful: It just makes us feel worse or sadder than we did before we started thinking about whatever made us anxious. 

Worry can sometimes be a strategy for avoiding other feelings, like when you worry so much about what to wear that you don’t have time to think about how sad you fee. That’s because worrying is a distraction— it keeps us from dealing with our emotions!

Why do we worry?

We worry for a lot of reasons, but it serves a few purposes:

1. Worrying helps us prepare for the future by imagining what could happen and how we’d deal with it.
2. It allows us to manage the present by giving us something to focus on other than whatever bad thing is happening.
3. It prepares us for the worst-case scenario so that if it does happen, we’ll be ready to cope with it.

Worrying also has some downsides: It can make us feel like we’re missing out on life because all we’re doing is thinking about what might go wrong instead of enjoying what is going right. It can also cause stress in our bodies and minds, leading to health issues like headaches and insomnia.

When we worry, we usually try to solve a problem or make a decision. But worrying doesn’t help us solve problems or make decisions. Instead, it makes us feel like we’re doing something productive, even though we aren’t getting anything done.