CHRONIC CONCERN: what it is, its effects and how to cure it

Worrying means thinking about the future considering only, or almost, the negative aspects: Will the people I love leave me? I will get sick? Will they fire me? Would my savings be enough if I needed them? However, those who suffer from anxiety due to reflection know that the worst thing is not the worries themselves, but the fact that they seem uncontrollable.

Worries are part of the lives of many: in the less serious cases, they are psychological mechanisms that result functional, since they help us to better cope with situations and to plan things in advance to avoid problems in the future. When worrying, however, becomes a lifestyle, anxious thoughts become so penetrating that distract the person, undermining their ability to concentrate, their mood, and her productivity in the job. In the most extreme cases, worries become chronic, significantly reducing the quality of life of those affected. In this online Psychology article we are going to delve into what is chronic worry, its effects and how to treat it.

Index

1. What is worry in psychology
2. How to know if worry is excessive, pathological or chronic
3. How to stop worrying about everything

As long as worry plays a positive role, all is well; meditating on a problem - that is, employing a kind of constructive reflection similar to worry - can be solved. In fact, the underlying physiological response to worry is vigilance for potential danger, a reaction that has undoubtedly been essential for survival in the course of evolution. When the fear puts the emotional brain in a state of agitation, some of the resulting anxiety serves to focus on the threat contingent, forcing the mind to devise a way to control it, temporarily ignoring anything else.

What is worry for? Worry is, in a sense, a mental review of events, to isolate what could go wrong and decide how to approach the problem; the function of worry as a reaction is to find positive solutions in life's dangerous situations, anticipating them before they arise.

The problem arises in the event that worries become chronic and repetitiveIn the event, in short, that they continue to recycle to infinity, without ever envisioning a positive solution. A careful analysis of chronic worry shows that it has all the attributes of a low-intensity emotional "hijacking." Here are the symptoms of excessive worry:

• Worries seem to come out of nowhere.
• Excessive worries they are uncontrollable.
• Pathological concerns generate a constant bubbling anxiety.
• They are inaccessible to reason and force the individual to consider the problem from a single, inflexible perspective.

When this cycle of worry persists and intensifies, it can lead to true emotional "kidnappings", that is, to anxiety disorders: phobias, obsessions and compulsions, panic attacks. In addition, many of those who spend their time thinking meet the diagnostic criteria for the Generalized anxiety disorder, characterized precisely by the presence of anxiety symptoms and a constant and excessive state of worry, disproportionate to the reality of the events.

In each of these disorders, worry takes on a different connotation: in phobia, anxieties are fixed on the situation that is the object of fear; in the obsessive, in the need to avoid any feared calamity; In the case of panic attacks, finally, concerns may center on the fear of death or on the very prospect of the attacks. In all these conditions, the common denominator is that worry is out of control. In the face of excess concern about things, what can we do? In concession we will see how to avoid excessive worry.

If there's one thing that chronically worried people can't do, it's to follow the advice that is often given: "stop worrying" (or worse, "don't worry, try to be cheerful"). After many experiments, however, the psychologist Borkovec and his colleagues at Pennsylvania State University discovered some simple measures that can help control the inclination to worry even when it has been established for a long time weather. Let's look at this treatment for pathological concern:

1. The first step is self-awareness, that is, to recognize as soon as possible the episodes that cause concern; Ideally, it would be possible to capture them as soon as the catastrophic image triggers the worry-anxiety cycle, or at most immediately afterwards.
2. The next step is to be critical of your assumptions.: Is the dreaded event very likely to occur? Is it necessarily true that there is only one (or no) alternative to letting that happen? Can effective measures be taken in this regard? Is it really helpful to stay in these same anxious thoughts indefinitely?

This combination of attention to one's thoughts and healthy skepticism would presumably act as a brake on neuronal activation at the base of a mild state of anxiety. Borkovec stresses that these strategies trigger mental activity incompatible with worry, a method that has been shown to be helpful against chronic worry even in some people in whom the disorder was severe enough to require a psychiatric diagnosis.

On the other hand, in the case of people whose concern is so serious that it leads to phobia, in the case of obsessive compulsive disorder or in the panic attacks, it may be necessary to resort to the use of medications to break the vicious cycle. Therefore, it is essential consult a specialist.

This article is merely informative, in Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.

If you want to read more articles similar to Chronic worry: what is it, effects and how to cure it, we recommend that you enter our category of Clinical psychology.

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• Epifani, A. (2015). Smettere di preoccuparsi with due semplici domande. Recovered from: http://bolognapsicologo.net/blog/vincere-la-battaglia-contro-le-preoccupazioni-con-due-semplici-domande/
• Goleman, D. (2011). Emotional intelligence. Che cos’è e perché può renderci felici. Milan: BUR.