Back in July, we were joined by Emily Anhalt, author of Flex Your Feelings: Train Your Brain to Develop the 7 Traits of Emotional Fitness, where she discussed all things emotional resilience, mindfulness, and healthy traits to adopt for your mental health.
We had a lot of interesting takeaways from Emily’s Q&A with us, but one that really stuck out was something she recommended for people dealing with overthinking or consistent anxious thoughts—something she calls a “worry hour”. A worry hour is a 60 minute period that you block off each week to let out all your worries.
At first glance, this might sound counterintuitive - if I’m consistently worrying, why would I set aside time to worry more? In reality, setting aside time to dedicate to overthinking or letting your anxious thoughts happen - one hour a week - helps train your brain to only worry during that dedicated time. According to Emily, “...your only job during that time is to worry and perseverate and ruminate and obsess, and do whatever you need to do during that time, but the rest of the time, when you find yourself worrying or getting caught up about uncertainty, you can tell yourself, nope, that's worry hour problem, I will let her deal with it.”
Wondering about the benefits of a worry hour? According to Sabrina Romanoff, “The ultimate benefit of worry time is having more time and energy to focus on other important areas of your life that were previously consumed with worries. This frees up mental space to be more present and engaged with other areas of your life.”
If you’re thinking of adding a worry hour to your weekly list, here are some steps to begin:
Set aside a block of time each week dedicated to your worry hour.
Set a consistent place and time.
Focus on being productive throughout the day before your worry hour.
Opt for an evening spot, if possible. Scheduling your worry time later in the day lets you accumulate worries and compartmentalize them until this point.
Address your worries.
Learn to transition out of worry hour.
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