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Worry - a wasted emotion?

By Peter Honey (August 2005 Issue)
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I’m convinced that some emotions are what you could describe as unproductive. I’m thinking of emotions such as feeling worried, anxious, fearful, guilty, angry and inadequate. Negative emotions like these tend to drag us down and inhibit our performance.
I was fascinated to read about the physical and mental toll the experience of his13 week trial has had on Michael Jackson. Apparently his anguish has been so great that his weight dropped below 6.5 stone – the sort of weight found among prisoners liberated from Japanese camps after the end of the Second World War.
Even in such dire circumstances, is excessive worrying absolutely inevitable? One has to wonder whether there was anything Michael Jackson could have done to alleviate his suffering?
By contrast, I was amused to read Robert Crampton’s column in the Times Magazine (11 June 2005) where he set out to dispel the impression that he is a laid-back sort of guy by keeping a log of his worries. He claims that in a single hour one Saturday morning he worried 38 times (my tally - I may have missed some!) about such things as whether he’d locked up his house properly, whether the washing machine would catch fire while he was out and whether having a £20 note would cause problems at a kiosk.
Amidst all these low-level worries were some more substantial ones. He worried about whether he had done enough with his life, what people would think of his column (’Appearing in print makes me squirm. Indeed, the only thing I can conceive of as being worse than appearing in print is not doing so’) and, of course, he worried about worrying so much.
Whilst I’m sure Robert Crampton was exaggerating the extent of his worrying, it does show how often it can be triggered by ordinary, even trivial events. My late mother was a chronic worrier. The habit was so thoroughly established, that if there was nothing in particular to worry about, she would worry about not feeling worried. Worrying literally blighted her life. Without doubt, a propensity to worry takes its toll on people’s health, happiness and general wellbeing.
Inspired by Robert Crampton’s worry log, I decided to conduct an experiment of my own. My log was different (and a great deal less onerous). At the start of the week, I consulted my diary and, in the light of the various commitments, wrote out a list of everything I felt anxious/worried about. It included things like:
  • Whether the PowerPoints I needed for a keynote address at a conference and had carefully submitted in advance, would in fact be loaded up and ready-to-go as had been promised. (I have had numerous mishaps with PowerPoints that lead me to feel uneasy about them.)
  • Whether I had run off enough handouts for an evening talk I was giving where, despite my enquiries, the organisers had been vague about the likely number of participants. (I hate not having enough handouts. It leads to ugly scenes as people fight to acquire a copy.)
  • Whether I had allowed enough time to travel to Guildford so that I would arrive promptly at 8.30am as I had promised. ( I hate being late)
  • Whether I had been a clot to agree to review a book with a particularly tight deadline – and when I was going to read the blasted book so that I could write an informed review. (I hate reviewers who have only glanced at the contents page!)
  • Whether my computer would crash if, once again, I elected to postpone renewing the anti-virus protection until next week when I had the illusion that there would be enough time to stay calm and remember how to do it. (I hate viruses – particularly the one that attacks my inner ear from time to time and makes me feel dizzy and nauseous.)
  • Whether anyone would have already heard the jokes I was planning to tell at an event where I had been invited to be amusing and light-hearted. (I hate the idea that people might have heard me telling the same joke on a previous occasion – so much so that I usually modify them on each outing.)
As you can see, these examples have been drawn from my work commitments. I hesitate to bore you with the ones I wrote down about hedge trimming (a perilous business) my son’s driving (he’s just passed his test) and the dog annoying the neighbours (she barks incessantly, not at them, but at squirrels of which we have a plague).
Having made my worry list, I put it away and carried on with my week as normal. At the end of the week, before consulting my list of anticipated worries, I reviewed the week and, with the benefit of hindsight, compiled a list of all the things I probably should have worried about if only I had known they were going to happen! There was no correlation between the two lists.
My conclusion? Worrying is futile; a wasted, misdirected, needless emotion. It doesn’t add any value and, besides being unproductive, it is an unpleasant feeling to experience. Is worrying an inevitable part of the human condition? No, it is a learned behaviour than can be unlearned. The key is to accept that your thoughts trigger your feelings and, since you can choose your thoughts, you can choose to nip worrying in the bud.
Ah well, it all reminds me of the saying, ‘Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday’.
Dr Peter Honey, FRSA, FCIPD, FIMC is a Chartered Psychologist and founder of Peter Honey Publications. He can be contacted on +44 (0) 1628 633946, at peterhoney@peterhoney.com or visit www.peterhoney.com

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