Chronic worry

What is chronic worry

• If you are experiencing chronic worry you will probably find yourself worrying most days, and that your worries and worrying creates a feeling of high levels of anxiety and distress.

Worrying

• Worrying can take the form of feeling worried but not being able to pin point why.  Worrying can also involve repeatedly worrying about one or many different things. Worrying can also involve focusing on negative streams of thoughts or images which fee uncontrollable or distressing. Worry tends to focus on things that have not yet happened. Worrying often involves the fear of dread or an impending catastrophe. 

Ruminating

• Another type of worry is called rumination. When a person is ruminating they go over and over things again and again. Rumination is different to worry in that it is focused on things that have already happened. 

Symptoms

• You may find that your worry or ruminations can last minutes or hours. 
• Worry often feels uncontrollable, because various anxieties connected to worrying makes it feel like your worries are difficult to control for the following reasons.  
• You may feel compelled to worry so that you can reason out your problems. 
• You may also feel compelled to worry to keep yourself safe, and so that you can prevent a dangerous situation from occurring. 
• You may also worry about worry itself, especially when you begin to experience worry failing to help you solve your problems. 
• Worry about worry can often focus on worry about the symptoms of anxiety such as tension in the body, or other forms of anxiety listed below concerning your emotions, thoughts, behaviours and physical or somatic symptoms. 
  

Emotions

• Feeling anxious or apprehensive most of the time
• High anxiety
• One or many anxieties
• A sense of dread or doom
• Feeling high levels of frustration
• Feeling like you are on the edge of mental or physical collapse or both.

Thoughts

• You may feel you are in danger because something terrible might happen.
• You may believe that worry is difficult to control
• You may feel keyed up and on the edge
• You may have difficulty concentrating
• You may experience your mind racing or going blank
• You may feel unreal or disconnected (An other word for this is dissociation).

Behaviours

• Restlessness
• Irritability
• Avoiding or neglecting things

Physical and somatic

• Difficulty relaxing because your body can feel constantly tense
• Feeling easily fatigued or muscle tension
• Racing heart, trembling, shaking or feeling sick
• Difficulties falling or staying asleep or restless unsatisfying sleep