Mind-body strategies for stepping out of the worry loop and into ease.

Lately, I’ve found myself in these impossible situations. Here’s how it typically plays out: there’s some kind of uncertain situation that doesn’t have an immediate resolution (e.g., feeling anxious about how something in the future may unfold that I have no control over). My mind immediately goes into problem-solving mode — trying to think and think and think about the situation as if to find a way out, to find a resolution. Enter my good friend, worry.

As much as my problem-solving mind serves me very well in many circumstances, when it comes to uncertainty about the future, other people’s choices that I can’t do anything about, things that haven’t happened yet, and situations I can’t influence, that same thinking mind tends to get me in trouble. It can turn my thoughts into worry, rumination, and obsessive thinking. I know I’m not alone.

It’s like driving around and around a dead-end street, thinking maybe this time I’ll find a way out. Or like I’m trying to use a hammer from my toolbox to unscrew a screw. It’s the wrong tool in that situation, yet I keep picking up the hammer because it’s my go-to strategy that is so habitual.

In the face of life’s uncertainties and things we can’t control, where can we turn if not to our problem-solving mind? How can we interrupt the worry loop when habitual thinking only gets us more stuck?

Science, psychology and the wisdom traditions offer us some guidance.

1. Practice cultivating a wise heart.

Expansive, heartfelt qualities such as compassion, self-compassion, acceptance, and equanimity can step us out of our looping mental chatter, decrease stress, increase well-being and help quiet the worrying mind. They are a helpful antidote for the obsessive, thinking mind.

In my clinical and personal experience, these heartfelt qualities offer a kind of alchemy when they touch more painful parts of our human experience. When I can bring acceptance to what I am feeling in my body (e.g., this tension, this clenching) and self-compassion to my emotions (e.g., anxiety), this helps make space for greater ease.

Try this: The next time you find yourself in a worry loop, pause and place a hand on your heart. Instead of going into thinking mode, go into feeling mode. Acknowledge how you’re feeling, that this is a moment of difficulty, and say to yourself, “I see and accept all my feelings just as they are.” (Acceptance doesn’t mean you like what’s there, just that you allow it space to be.) Then sense a feeling of care surrounding you. You might imagine the caring presence from a friend or family member, a spiritual leader or being, or a sense of being held in a beautiful place in nature. Let this feeling of care sit side-by-side any difficult emotions, sinking in deeply into the body and heart.

2. Get some psychological distance from the worry part of you so you are no longer overtaken by it.

When we are gripped by worry, we can get lost in our thoughts. The field of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy offers tools to unhook from our thoughts so we are no longer caught in and “fused” with them. When we can get a bit of space, this helps loosen the grip they have over us.

Try this (part one):

First, say “I’m so worried, I’m so worried” and notice how this feels in your body. (For me, I notice tightness and constriction when I say these words). Then shift your words to: “I notice that a part of me is feeling very worried in this moment.” What do you notice when you change these words slightly? (When I do this, it feels like I’ve taken a half step back and can observe that there is a part of me feeling worried that is not the whole of me).

Internal Family Systems Therapy offers us further guidance. It is an evidence-based therapy that posits that our mind is made up of sub-personalities (e.g., this worry part of me might be one such sub-personality), and that there is a core “Self” that is by nature compassionate and wise and ultimately can be an inner leader that offers healing to our hurting parts. While this form of therapy can be quite helpful (and takes time), here is a quick “dip your toe in” experience to try:

Try this (part two):

Once you’ve named this worry part (as in the step above), you might be playful and curious and notice what shape, form, color, size, and/or age that it is. You might imagine it sitting across from you. What can you observe about it? If it could talk, what might it say? What does it need or want? How might it be trying its best to protect you? How might it want you to be with it? Reflecting on these questions can help to further provide some psychological distance between you and this worry part, to unhook from its tight grip.

3. Practice mindfulness and other mind-body strategies to activate different parts of your brain and nervous system.

Soothing your brain:

When we are stuck in worry, we tend to activate a part of our brain called the default mode network. This part of our brain is involved in thinking about the past, the future and self-referential thinking. When we engage in mindfulness meditation, activity in the default mode network region of the brain is reduced. Practicing mindfulness meditation is one way to strengthen pathways in the brain that can help us reduce worry looping.

Try this: Engage in mindfulness meditation. Set aside five or 10 minutes to practice observing thoughts as they arise. Instead of getting pulled into habitual thinking about thoughts, when you notice a thought arising just label it as “thinking” or “worrying” or “planning”. The thoughts will try to pull you in, but see if you can come back to just observing and labelling.

Notice the difference between being caught in a thought and observing a thought. For example, a thought might come up, “What if I give this talk and it’s not well received?” If you get pulled into the thought, it might go down a familiar rabbit hole (“Maybe I’ll make a fool of myself, maybe people will think I’m not smart, what if it really goes badly and then I’m let go at work and then how will I pay my bills?…”). Instead, you might practice noticing this thought, labeling it as “worrying”, and watching it go the way you would watch clouds pass in the sky.

Soothing your nervous system:

Besides learning to activate different parts of our brain to counteract worry, we can also learn to activate different parts of our nervous system. Worry can activate the branch of our nervous system called the “sympathetic nervous system”, involved in the fight-or-flight response. Learning mind-body practices to elicit the “relaxation response” (that activate the ventral vagal pathways of our parasympathetic nervous system) can act as a kind of antidote to this.

Try this: Choose a word or phrase that is soothing for you (for example, “calm” or “peaceful” or “safe in this moment”). Let that become the focus of your attention as you repeat that word as a kind of mantra. When your mind wanders (as it will), gently redirect it again and again to your chosen word or phrase. You might also pair this with slow exhalations, focusing on softening and releasing tension as your breath out.

The next time you’re faced with worry, instead of trying to think your way out of it, try one of these strategies. While not a magic pill, over time you might just loosen its grip a bit and discover a more effective way to cope.

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Originally published on Psychology Today.