In June this year, I wandered into a bookstore at Doha airport, aiming to pick up a detective novel. Not sure how it happened, but instead of a mystery, I walked out with “Calm the fuck down” by Sarah Knight (A Guide to Taming Anxiety and Taking Control of Your Life).

Guess they knew something about me… 😂

Truth be told, I was feeling quite anxious about some new changes in my life at the time. Also, I naturally tend to overthink things. My years of mindfulness practice have been a huge help, but I suspect I’ll remain a work-in-progress till the end of my days 😊. So, maybe the book was spot-on for me after all.

A simple idea from the book that might resonate with you goes something like this:
Worried about something?

1. List down all your worries, get them out of your head.
For each, assign a probability category:
1 = Highly unlikely.
2 = Possible but unlikely.
3 = Probably will happen.
4 = Highly likely.
5 = Inevitable.

2. Now, analyze your list. How many are in categories 1 and 2? How does that feel?

When you try this out, you’ll likely find that most of your worries fall into categories 1 or 2. Realizing this alone can be a relief.

3. For worries in categories 3-5, prepare for them. When are they likely to happen? What’s in my control here? What can I do about it?

It’s a straightforward technique to shift from anxiety and fear into healthier perspective & problem-solving mode.

Often, we stress about things that haven’t happened yet (and might never happen) or things that have already happened (and we can’t change).

Give it a try. Or maybe you’ve got an even better method? Do share with us 😊.