Shutting off my brain

How do you stop your mind from taking you to the worst possible place?

When you find a lump, how do you stop yourself from thinking its cancer? How do you prevent yourself from planning what you would say in your final good-bye to your husband and kids?

When your child walks to school for the first time, how do you stop yourself from imagining a stranger snatching them up? How do you quit conjuring up images of the horrible tortures that they would face?

When a loved one hops in their car to travel on a blizzardy winter's day, how do you stop yourself from imagining them hitting black ice and going into the ditch? How do you shut your brain off so you won't make their funeral arrangements and write their eulogy?

In my experience, imagining the worst has not helped me deal with the worst when it happens. The moment I got pregnant with Calder and Tripp, my mind would wander to those "what ifs". A mom's worst nightmare happened to me and the worrying I did before didn't prepare me for what was to come.

On the flip side I do think worrying can be good, but only if it inspires us to be proactive. It is only good if we call the doctor and make an appointment, if we educate ourselves and our kids about safety, or if we check the road report and pass on the information to our loved ones.

Worrying is only good for a few minutes. After those first initial moments, if we don't get out of our own heads and formulate a plan to be proactive, we just cause ourselves stress and anxiety. And that stress and anxiety are not doing anything but ruining our mood and spirit in the moment we are living.

I did some searching last night and read quite a few pages devoted to worrying. Here is the best one I found. It has some good, constructive ideas on how to stop worrying.

I am going to try postponing worrying and I am also going to try asking myself if the problem is solvable or not. Often times I worry about things that are almost entirely out of my control.

I know this won't alleviate my worrying, but hopefully it will help me manage it better.

What do you do to shut your brain off?

Comments

  1. So hard not to worry....I am a big worry wart myself so what I do to shut off my brain is play spider solitaire on my phone. I do it every night before bed to shut my mind off, otherwise I lay there thinking, thinking, thinking.
    Speaking of thinking - thoughts are with you :)

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  2. I have always struggled with worrying...I have a bunch of different ways to stop worrying...reading, rationalizing, educating myself...I still worry but I seem to be able to manage better.

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  3. I tell myself that I have no control over what is happening so I find something better to do- like online shop.

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