We all worry. We are anxious about money, our relationships, work, our health and pretty much anything else we care about that we can’t absolutely control.

Sometimes it’s hard to tell what’s more exhausting. You may sometimes find yourself asking, “Am I going to be this anxious for the rest of my life”?

How to know if you should “worry” about your “worrying”

  • Worry paralyzes you
  • Worry keeps you up at night, every night
  • Worry is hurting your relationships
  • Worrying makes you sick

There are steps you can take right now to hit the pause button on worried thoughts and give yourself a time out from relentless worrying.

Here are 5 ways to make your brain stop worrying according to science:

Get more sleep

Sleep is as important as fresh food and exercise to enhance our well-being. If you don’t get enough sleep, your ability to manage worrying is compromised. Sleep develops your energy level, reduce stress and you won’t fall sick often.

When you are worrying on something that keeps you awake, going to sleep is far easy said than done.  Breathing exercises such as exhaling all your worries and inhaling your good times could make the task a little easier.

Set a fixed daily bedtime and wake up time and maintain this even during the weekend. This method will let your brain to understand that it is the right time for a nap.

Go for walks

Walking can help you to control your thoughts because walking is a type of remedy that can actually make a very real difference in your ability to cope with your brain.

When you’re walking, you’re feeling the ground and the wind, you’re processing the information that’s around you, you’re smelling different things. Therefore, it will help you to forget all the negative thoughts which are bothering you.

Many believe that the increased blood flow caused by walking also has many health benefits.

Reduce caffeine

Caffeine is a psychoactive drug that can cause stress and anxiety.

Caffeine affects the body through increased heart rate, blood pressure and overall levels of stress hormones.

If you’re going to drink any caffeinated drink, make it green tea which contains relaxing compounds.

Make a “to worry about” list

In a notebook make an ongoing list of things that you need to worry about and things which come in your way just to bother you.

You need to find a time to sit down and review the list. You’ll realize most of it is pure nonsense. However, there will be a few points on the list that you need to pay attention.

Finally, make an action plan to resolve what’s worrying you. In the end, you’ll gain self-confidence by addressing what’s weighing on you and realizing how insignificant and irrelevant most of your worries are.

Make a set time to worry.

This may sound funny, but trust me, this step does really work. Schedule a worrying time for each day of the week.  Set it in your calendar and allocate 15-30 minutes during the morning or afternoon as per your convenience. You should not schedule worry time right before you go to bed.

Many therapists believe that some people are prone to worry and anxiety.  Rather than worry all the time, save it up until a predefined time and then worry your heart out.

You should understand clearly that this 15-30-minute block is for worry time, and you will do your best to not pay attention to these worries outside of this time each day.

After practicing this method for a week, you’ll start to notice an increased ability to control your mind when and where you worry. It will bring you a positive feeling.

As long as we care about people and situations, we will always have something to worry about.

Hopefully, some of the above techniques will help you to worry less. The more you start to incorporate these easy methods into your life, the less control worrying will have over you.