How Do You Stop Caring About Things You Can’t Control
When it comes to worries, one of the problems you should stop worrying about is something you can’t control. The idea is to put your energy into something you can control, but for many, this is hard. Here are some ways you can stop worrying or caring.
- Make a list of what you can and can’t control. Focus and put your energy toward what you’re able to control, and hopefully, you’ll start to worry less.
- Practicing meditative mindfulness is a good way for you to stop caring. Mindfulness teaches you to let go of any self-defeating thoughts or circumstances you can’t control, and instead worry about the here and now.
- Notice how you cope with your worries. Do you spend time thinking about them endlessly, or do you come up with solutions? When you start to focus on what you can change, come up with a plan. Mentally strong people solve problems and they dont ruminate as much.
- Seek help from a therapist. One technique a therapist can teach you is cognitive behavioral therapy, where you can learn to control how you react by changing your thoughts and habits.
They can help identify your fears concerning what you cant control. For example, if youre always predicting a catastrophic outcome, why do you do that? The people and circumstances youve faced can be one reason why you feel this way. Learning to spend less time with catastrophic predictions and endless rumination may require some therapy.
Tip : Interrupt The Worry Cycle
If you worry excessively, it can seem like negative thoughts are running through your head on endless repeat. You may feel like youre spiraling out of control, going crazy, or about to burn out under the weight of all this anxiety. But there are steps you can take right now to interrupt all those anxious thoughts and give yourself a time out from relentless worrying.
Get up and get moving. Exercise is a natural and effective anti-anxiety treatment because it releases endorphins which relieve tension and stress, boost energy, and enhance your sense of well-being. Even more importantly, by really focusing on how your body feels as you move, you can interrupt the constant flow of worries running through your head. Pay attention to the sensation of your feet hitting the ground as you walk, run, or dance, for example, or the rhythm of your breathing, or the feeling of the sun or wind on your skin.
Take a yoga or tai chi class. By focusing your mind on your movements and breathing, practicing yoga or tai chi keeps your attention on the present, helping to clear your mind and lead to a relaxed state.
Practice progressive muscle relaxation. This can help you break the endless loop of worrying by focusing your mind on your body instead of your thoughts. By alternately tensing and then releasing different muscle groups in your body, you release muscle tension in your body. And as your body relaxes, your mind will follow.
Relaxation techniques can change the brain
Realize Youre Doing It
The first step in putting a stop to overthinking about everything is to acknowledge that youre a worrier. Think it sounds easy? Not exactly.
Its hard for us, as human beings, to admit weve got a problem big or small. However, realizing that you overthink things is the only way youll even have a desire to put a stop to it or make a change.
The next time you catch yourself worrying about something, pump the brakes. You dont have to dig into the underlying cause of that worry just yet. Instead, acknowledge the fact that you might be overthinking the subject.
That simple pause and acknowledgment can help you come back to the reality of the situation and make it feel less scary and overwhelming.
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How Do You Take Things Less Personally
Some people take everything personally, even if it isn’t about them. Here are some ways that you can stop taking things so personally.
- Find ways to make yourself feel more confident. If you lack confidence, you may be offended at every remark, or think that everyone is talking about you. By changing your behavior to think more highly of yourself, you can stop taking things so personally.
- Realize that people are probably not talking about you, and if you make a scene, it shines a spotlight on your insecurities. Not every vague Facebook post is about you.
- If someone doesn’t stop making personal remarks toward you, cut them out of your life. While you shouldn’t let every remark get to your personally, it goes both ways.
- Learn to ignore the haters and not feed the trolls.
- Meditation and mindfulness can help increase your chances of not letting everything get personally.
- Find other hobbies or habits to spend on your energy on rather than worrying about how people will perceive you. Practice ways to increase your confidence or find healthy stress relievers.
- Seek help from support groups and therapists. Changing your mental effort and attitude toward taking things personally may be the answer.
How To Practice Focused Meditation
Here are six tips to help you practice focused meditation. Based on your availability and interest, these tips may change and evolve. Thats the point: to create a structured practice that caters to your needs.
1. Find a Comfortable Seat
As with any meditation practice, comfort is truly key. The physical body responds to meditation practice by alerting you to whether it is comfortable and supported or stressed out and in pain. This is best observed in practitioners who tend to slouch and lose the tall, supported spine that is essential to meditation practice.
A simple rule in meditative sitting is to ensure that your hips are higher than your knees. Therefore, choosing to sit in a chair instead of on the floor may be a smart decision or perhaps propping yourself up on a cushion. For meditation techniques overall, it does not matter how you sit. All that matters is that you are supported and comfortable sitting for some time.
2. Choose Your Object of Focus
Every meditation training session is going to be different because no single day is the same for any one person. Therefore, experienced meditators know that choosing an object is more about listening to what you need at this time versus following any doctrine or rule.
3. Set Your Desired Time or Go With the Flow
Likewise, if you have the time, you can also listen to your body and come out of your meditation when you feel its right to do so. This is often a beautiful practice of listening and tuning in.
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Only Think About Things Outside Your Control If They Help Inform Decisions
Now lets say you are dealing with something completely out of your control.
There is no reason to spend time thinking about that thing, UNLESS it is informing strategic decisions that are in your control.
For example, lets say you are in a global pandemic. *Hypothetically*
You want to keep up to date with the pandemic only so much as it helps you make better decisions.
That is, how to prevent yourself and others from getting sick.
But you dont want to spend all day getting consumed by it. Since that will only lead to additional anxiety and suffering.
How To Stop Worrying
This article was co-authored by Liana Georgoulis, PsyD. Dr. Liana Georgoulis is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist with over 10 years of experience, and is now the Clinical Director at Coast Psychological Services in Los Angeles, California. She received her Doctor of Psychology from Pepperdine University in 2009. Her practice provides cognitive behavioral therapy and other evidence-based therapies for adolescents, adults, and couples.There are 16 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page.wikiHow marks an article as reader-approved once it receives enough positive feedback. This article has 11 testimonials from our readers, earning it our reader-approved status. This article has been viewed 109,265 times.
Nearly everyone worries sometimes. But, worrying too much can get in the way of living a happy life. It can make it harder to sleep, and distract you from positive things in your life. Worrying can even make it harder to deal with the problems you are worrying about. Worse still, some research shows that too much worrying can even lead to physical health problems.XResearch source Constant worrying is a habit that can be hard to break. The good news is, there are many things you can do to stop the pattern of excess worry and live a happier life.
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Recognize The Things Which Are Not In Your Control
Think about all the things you stress about. I bet you some of them are things which are completely, or at least mostly, out of your control.
Yet you still spend a ton of time worrying about them.
If you can identify those areas which are out of your control, and tell yourself I cant control this, then your anxiety level will go down.
For example, every so often, my wife gets stressed out, and she can at times express that stress in the form of anger or irritability.
Now, Im not gonna lie, there certainly are times where I HAVE actually done something which made her angry. I will totally admit that!
But there are also a good amount of times where her frustration comes from a different place. And she is reviewing this article and would admit that :-).
When my wife gets upset, even if not at me directly, its sometimes hard to not start stressing out too.
And that only makes things worse, leading both of us into a vicious cycle of stress madness.
But when I recognize that I cant control her emotions, and the best thing I can do in this situation is to keep my cool, then I dont worry quite as much.
Stop Worrying By Sharing Your Fears With Supportive Friends And Family
Its easy to get lost in your thoughts as a chronic worrier, forgetting about family and friends without realizing it. Connecting with others is a powerful method to transform your emotional well-being, even when you feel like isolating.
Sharing the source of your stress, anxiety, or worry with a family member or friend can help you maintain perspective. Many times, our worries are irrational, but they dont seem that way in our own minds.
Talking with supportive friends or family can offer a new view of the situation and be an effective way to stop worrying.
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Why Is It So Hard To Stop Worrying
Constant worrying can take a heavy toll. It can keep you up at night and make you tense and edgy during the day. And even though you hate feeling like a nervous wreck, it can still be so difficult to stop. For most chronic worriers, the anxious thoughts are fueled by the beliefsboth negative and positivethat you hold about worrying:
Negative beliefs about worry. You may believe that your constant worrying is harmful, that its going to drive you crazy or affect your physical health. Or you may worry that youre going to lose all control over your worryingthat it will take over and never stop. While negative beliefs, or worrying about worrying, adds to your anxiety and keeps worry going, positive beliefs about worrying can be just as damaging.
Positive beliefs about worry. You may believe that your worrying helps you avoid bad things, prevents problems, prepares you for the worst, or leads to solutions. Maybe you tell yourself that if you keep worrying about a problem long enough, youll eventually be able to figure it out? Or perhaps youre convinced that worrying is a responsible thing to do or the only way to ensure you dont overlook something? Its tough to break the worry habit if you believe that your worrying serves a positive purpose. Once you realize that worrying is the problem, not the solution, you can regain control of your worried mind.
Why Do I Worry About Things I Can’t Control
Worrying about things, even what we can’t control, is natural. It may come from an evolutionary leftover, where people were always worried about an enemy attacking or the weather making it hard to get water. Another reason is that we dont like to feel powerless. We would like to believe you can change the world, change peoples minds, or even change the weather, but we cant.
For example, you may believe that you can change someone’s ways when they are set in what they believe. Even your family may not listen. For example, a parent can give their child advice, but it may be the child’s choice in the end, especially if they’re an adult.
In the end, when it comes to people’s choices, share your opinion, but realize that the opinion might not matter much.
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Break Out The Bubble Gum
Feel like you’re becoming unglued? Grab a stick of gum. Research suggests that chewing gum can help relieve both stress and anxiety. It may be that the rhythmic motion of chewing helps boost blood flow to the brain. An alternative theory suggests that it’s the taste and smell of the gum that elicits the relaxation response. Next time you think, “I can’t stop stressing,” grab a stick of gum as a stress relief technique that is inexpensive, effective, and you can do it virtually everywhere.
How Do You Not Worry About Things
When someone tells you to stop worrying about things, its easier said than done. There are a lot of things in life to worry about, after all. Your brains likes to micromanage, refuse to delegate, and stay on thoughts for far too long. A little bit of worrying is good, but you usually let worrying take a minute of your life, and then soon its taking over. Peoples worries keep them occupied in a self-destructive cycle that is hard to break.
Heres how you can stop worrying so much.
- First, think about the things you can change in life versus what you cannot change. What you cannot change in life should be ignored.
- For the things in life you can change, start making a plan to improve. For example, if you have a business and youre worried about sending the business to fail, spend time thinking of improvements. Delegate tasks related to your business in a more efficient manner.
- Learn to differentiate between ruminating and problem solving. Mentally strong people do not ruminate about their problems over and over, but look for solutions.
- Calm yourself. Take a walk outside, practice meditative breathing, and get plenty of rest.
- Avoid using drugs and alcohol as a way of masking your emotions.
- Develop healthy affirmations that replace your worries. In other words, look at what you do right and keep thinking about it. Say to yourself, Today, I remind myself that Im eating right, or something to the effect. This thought especially works if you have eating disorders.
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Breathing And Relaxation Exercises
Many people find exercises that focus on breathing and muscle relaxation to be helpful in relieving stress. The playlist below will help you to understand how stress works and start feeling better. These exercises can be done anywhere and are designed to help you feel more relaxed in general, as well as helping you feel calmer if you are becoming stressed.
This playlist is free to download, and you can also stream it using the Soundcloud website or app. You can download and listen to individual tracks if there are particular exercises that work best for you. If you’re listening to it for the first time, it’s best to start from the beginning.
To access a BSL version of this playlist, .
Find out more by checking out these 10 stress busters.
Stress From Tier Three: No Control
Elements of your life where you have no control lead to stress in multiple ways:
- First, the feeling of being powerless to change things is not a good feeling.
- Second, you often think that there is something you can do, even when there isnt. This can lead you to put pressure or blame on yourself.
- Third, the consequences are real, and when things dont go your way, they can be incredibly tough to deal with.
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Create Your Own Hand Scrub
If your hands have a lot of dead skin, lotion alone wont be able to soothe it. Consider creating hand scrub at home that has the same beneficial effects as the expensive stuff sold in stores. The Beauty Departments blend of lemon, sugar, coconut oil, and Argan oil is instantly enriching while exfoliating skin.
See The World Or At Least Your Community
Did you know that travel is scientifically proven to ease anxiety, stress, and depression? Sounds like a perfect excuse to buy that plane ticket and plan a trip to go backpacking in Europe, right?
Traveling can help to give you a new perspective on life. It also gives you something to look forward to, which can be a welcomed distraction from your worries.
To put it simply: a holiday can make you happier. A 2002 study performed by the University of Surrey found that people who know they have a vacation coming up are happier.
It also helps to give your brainpower a boost and increases your overall satisfaction with life. More satisfaction means less time to worry!
The good news? You dont necessarily have to leave the country, or even your state to take advantage of the benefits of travel. Explore your community, spend a night at a local bed and breakfast, take a staycation or take part in a local tourist attraction youve never seen before.
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