Worry Time: A Simple and Effective Way to Manage Worries and Anxiety

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, times, and/or situations start to provoke spontaneous worry. The goal of stimulus control is restrict worry to specific times and locations, so that only those times and locations can now elicit worry (Borkovec et al., 1983). On the face of it, this technique may seem counterintuitive, but research supports its effectiveness. A study comparing participants who were assigned a 30-minute time- and place-restricted worry period to a controlled condition showed reductions on measures of worry, anxiety, and insomnia (McGowan & Behar, 2013). 

Here’s how you do it:

• Set aside 30 minutes daily (e.g., 5:30 p.m. to 6 p.m.) as your worry time. This is the time when you will think about all the worrisome thoughts that occur to you during the day. 
• Try to use the same time and location for your worry time. 
• Make sure that your worry time is at least three hours before your bedtime so that the worry process doesn’t interfere with your sleep. 
• Postpone any worrisome thoughts occurring during the day to your worry time. If you feel that you wouldn’t remember these thoughts, then jot down a word or two to remind you of the thought (e.g., upcoming trip, finances, school, etc.). You may keep a pocket diary or use a “to do” app for this purpose.
• When you do get worrisome thoughts, remind yourself that you have assigned yourself a worry time later in the day to mull over these thoughts. Continue to do the task on hand.
• When your worry time comes around, settle yourself in a quiet place that you have planned to use for that purpose.
• Go over your “to do” worry list and if an item on it no longer appears worrisome to you, then skip it.
• Spend the entire worry time thinking about your worries and refrain from doing anything else such as talking, eating, reading, or watching television. You may also want to write your worries down as it may be more helpful compared to worrying in your head.
• If there are some worries that can be solved, then use problem-solving.
• Once the worry time is over, you go back to your daily routine and postpone your worries for the next worry time.
• Do the technique for at least two weeks.

In conclusion, assigning a fixed daily worry time is a simple yet effective way to handle your worries and anxiety. To learn more about evidence-based self-management techniques that are proven to work for anxiety and depression, check out Dr. Duggal's Author Page.

HARPREET S. DUGGAL, MD, FAPA

REFERENCES

Borkovec, T. D., Wilkinson, L., Folensbee, R., & Lerman C. (1983). Stimulus control applications to the treatment of worry. Behavior Research and Therapy, 21(3), 247-251.

Lewinsohn, P. M., Munoz, R. F., Youngren, M. A., & Zeiss, A. M. (1986). Control your depression. New York, NY: Fireside.

McGowan, S. K., & Behar, E. (2013). A preliminary investigation of stimulus control training for worry: Effects on anxiety and insomnia. Behavior Modification, 37(1), 90-112.