Another favorite subreddit of mine, r/LifeProTips (abbreviated LPT).
Someone asked this:
Posted byu/wee_g
2 years ago
LPT Request: How do I stop worrying so much?
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/LifeProTips/comments/59ahda/lpt_request_how_do_i_stop_worrying_so_much/
The top answer was about imagining the super worst-case situation, and more often than not it comes with the anxiety-reducing effect. Read more below:
by dudefaceguy – 3.8k points – 2 years ago
Think through the worst case scenario in detail, and what will happen afterwards. Don’t stop at “I’ll lose my job and my house.” Go on to “I’ll get another job and another house.” It’s true that bad things will happen to you, but you will deal with them and continue.
This is the method used in cognitive behavioral therapy, and it is effective. You can try a CBT book called “The Anxiety And Worry Workbook.”
Also I recommend “Meditations” by Marcus Aurelius, and other stoic philosophy. In our society we are taught that happiness is the result of our circumstances, and we can control our circumstances, so we should never be unhappy. This set of beliefs causes huge amounts of unhappiness and worry.
He also mentioned about “Meditations” by Marcus Aurelius, it is a great book from a Roman Emperor from the 1st century (120 AD – 180 AD). It was written 1900 years ago, yet the philosophies and life lessons are still very relevant with our modern living conditions today. So I guess I put some of the most important quotes here, for your convenience:
- “You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”
- “The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.”
- “If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.”
- “When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: the people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous and surly. They are like this because they can’t tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own – not of the same blood and birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine. And so none of them can hurt me. No one can implicate me in ugliness. Nor can I feel angry at my relative, or hate him. We were born to work together like feet, hands and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is unnatural. To feel anger at someone, to turn your back on him: these are unnatural.”
There’s another user who points out a simple flowchart to handle your worries:
heykody – 82 points – 2 years ago
There’s a good flowchart as follows : Ask yourself. Can you do something about it. If you can, then why worry. If you can’t, then why worry!
And also, it reminds me to a scene on a 2015 movie, “Bridge of Spies”: (good movie)
“Do you never worry?”
“Would it help?”
