How to Worry Less and Be Happier

According to research from 2020 in the journal Behavior Therapy , 91 percent of the things studied participants worried about did not come to pass. This means that for every bad thing that happens, chronic worriers suffer for 10. If nothing else, this is a colossal waste of valuable time, and we should all find ways to avoid it.

A number of psychological theories have been advanced to explain chronic worry. One of the most prominent is called the avoidance model, which explains how worry can become obsessive and intrusive in our lives. This model argues that inveterate worriers replace thoughts of clear outcomes of problems, especially potentially catastrophic ones, with a... See more

So, on your worry list, write down the best outcome for each problem, the worst outcome, and the most likely outcome. Then add what you would do in each instance. This makes the source of worry specific and gives you a management plan.

Anxiety, of which worry is a component, is essentially just unfocused fear.