Anxiety tends to be pervasive and it can interfere with your daily life. A helpful technique to prevent worry from distracting you from the task at hand is to create a fixed daily “worry time” and postpone your worries to that time (Lewinsohn et al., 1986). The purpose of this activity is not to avoid thinking about the things that worry you, but to let you decide when the best time is to focus on the worries. Individuals with anxiety, especially generalized anxiety disorder, have excessive worry about many different aspects of their daily life and this lack of a specific trigger for anxiety makes it harder for these individuals to gain control over their worries. Worry time offers a way for these individuals to gain more control over their anxiety through a psychological process called stimulus control. When people with generalized anxiety disorder worry throughout the day, the worry becomes associated with many places, times, and/or situations. Over a period of time these places, tim...
Written by a board-certified psychiatrist and an expert on self-management of depression, Harpreet Duggal, MD, this blog focuses on practical and proven methods of treating depression that go beyond medications and traditional therapy. It discusses elements of healthy lifestyle, positive psychology, relationships, values, strengths, communication, and wellness. No AI-assisted technology has been used in this blog. The content of the blog is not to be construed as treatment advice.