Worry Is the Worst

I would even argue that the vast majority of the stress we experience is self-induced. That is, we feel stress when there is no real external threat to us, only some challenged belief, value, or expectation of ours. In other words, a thought. Yep, most of our stress is imaginary. Those no-good stinking unicorns. Worry is a thought process that falls into this category and it is just the worst. Worrying is nothing more than internally generated stress—stress we impose on ourselves thanks to some particularly troublesome thoughts.

Worrying is a behavior, although a mental one, and we often worry about life stressors, but worry itself can sometimes be the cause of additional stress. Let me give you an example, again with the traffic. Imagine you get up a little late one morning and hop in the car for your morning commute. On your way to the highway you start thinking about the fact that you woke up later than usual and because of this you might hit additional traffic. You could think to yourself, Oh man, I bet there is going to be traffic. I am so going to get fired.

Consider what just happened—you are driving normally and you have just caused yourself to elevate your stress level in anticipation of something that hasn’t even happened and may not happen. You have generated stress unnecessarily thanks to your own thoughts. And another thing, Judy, you really should get your life together. I often speak out against worry, and I do so for the reason that it is a really bad habit and one that we may not recognize as such. As a form of mental behavior, worrying too much, over a lifetime, can be a major contributor to developing an emotional disorder like anxiety or even depression. It is a behavior that we can change, and doing so is probably in our best interest.