Lockdown 2 Resilience Tips - Day 14

Day 14 today – we are half-way through the second national lockdown!

Today’s idea is to allocate worry time. It’s natural to worry, and at times like this, lots of us will be doing even more of it. But it can become debilitating if we are worrying all the time, especially if it is about things we have no control over.

So, one way of reducing the anxiety that worrying can cause is to limit it by setting aside 10-15 minutes a day to focus on your worries. Anytime that works for you is fine – you may need to experiment a bit to decide what helps the most. Just avoid right before bedtime or your brain might be too busy to drop off to sleep.

Get your worries out of your head by writing them down, no holds barred. Then have a look at them. Sort out which ones you have some control over, so can do something about (‘helpful thoughts’) and which ones are ‘useless worries’ that you have no control over or that may never happen or are highly unlikely.

For the worries you have some control over, think what you could do about them. Make a plan, or a first step. Put it in your diary or set a reminder.

For the worries you have no control over – try to acknowledge that and let them go or decide you will only think about them if they actually happen.

End worry time after the 10-15 minutes. Maybe set a timer to help do this.

Do this every day, so you can trust that you will deal with whatever is worrying you, without having to worry all the time. Then when a worry pops up at any other time, you can say to yourself, “Not now thanks – I’ll think about that in worry time.”

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