How To Make Your Brain Stop Worrying, According to Science

Susan Krauss Whitbourne, Ph.D. and Professor Emerita of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, gives us a “five-step playbook” for successfully overriding the limbic system:

1. EXAMINE YOUR IRRATIONAL BELIEFS.

We often have illogical beliefs that lead us to see threat where no threat actually exists. Most of these beliefs involve our need to live up to life’s “must’s.” Find a more realistic balance between your ideal and your actual self, and your worries will retreat.

2. LEARN HOW TO TALK YOUR WAY THROUGH YOUR FEELINGS.

In cognitive-behavioral therapy, clients learn to counter their illogical thoughts with more clear-headed evaluation. Much of this process involves substituting the negative ways people think with more neutral or positive thoughts.

3. SET YOUR FEELINGS ASIDE WHEN YOU MAKE IMPORTANT DECISIONS.

We are easily swayed by emotional arguments. Trial lawyers make a successful business out of appealing to emotions of jurors, hoping they will let their sympathy for the victim outweigh their judgments about legal liability. No human will ever be completely dispassionate in such situations, but the more you can separate logic from emotion, the more likely it is that you’ll make fair and reasoned choices.

4. GET SUPPORT FROM SOMEONE WHO CAN HELP YOU.

Our emotions react quickly and forcefully to certain experiences, and try as we might, we can’t rein in those feelings. This is why sponsors are so crucial to programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous. That other person can serve as your “cortex” when your own is heavily under the influence of an addiction that is ruling your limbic system.

5. BUILD CONFIDENCE IN YOUR SELF-CONTROL.

According to the notion of self-efficacy, people can gain control over their problematic behaviors when they see themselves as able to exert that control. As you gain strength from good decisions, from conquering your worries, or controlling your impulses, you gradually find that those impulses and fears dominate you less and less.