No sweat? Why we worry and why it’s oK

Are you sweating the small stuff again? Do you find that traffic jams, long lines at the grocery store, delayed flights, broken household appliances, etc. are once again pushing your sanity to a tipping point? The good news is that you’re not alone and the even better news is that this does not mean there’s something wrong with you.

Falling back into old habits is, quite frankly, its own habit. Due to our neurological and psychological makeup, we are destined to revisit old patterns of thinking and behaving. Sweating the small stuff, aka worrying about unnecessary details, is one of the most ingrained, widely used, and most challenging habits we have.

For starters, the concept of trying to get a grip on worry has been around as long as we’ve been able to use our brains to imagine and remember—the two engines that drive the worry bus. Similar expressions throughout the years include, “Don’t make mountains out of molehills, don’t take things so seriously,” and the even more direct, “chill out!” What all of these have in common is that they make good posters, coffee mugs, stress balls and countless New Age trinkets but have little staying power in helping people keep things in perspective.

The book Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff … and It’s All Small Stuff spent over 100 weeks on the New York Times Best Seller list. One might think that given the numbers of readers who turned the pages looking for relief, we would be surrounded by molehills spread over a chill-out zone. That this is not the case, and that so many people are trying to find out what “it’s all small stuff” means suggests that a key element is missing. Not only do people continue to worry about small things, but they worry about worrying about small things.

As a self-inflicted phenomenon, worry is a reflexive response to life’s uncertainties and an attempt to replace fear with a sense of control. Both hardwired into the brain and reinforced by repetition, it has a slippery bar of soap quality in that the more one tries to get a hold of it, the more it eludes us. In addition, attempts to interrupt the process leads to what psychologists refer to as an ironic rebound wherein trying to suppress thoughts paradoxically results in them returning. A classic example of this is trying not to think of a pink elephant.

The other reason there is a resistance to not sweating small stuff is that “small” is a subjective measure. Who determines what constitutes the size of our concerns? Is being told that there is only small stuff a benefit or a judgment? What is the impact when one fails at trying to ignore the nagging thoughts of “what if”?

Like many cancer survivors, I clearly remember that when the “big stuff” of chemo and radiation therapies entered my life, I was no longer sweating things like rude people in grocery stores, sub-par service in restaurants, more bills coming in than income, etc. Then, like many others who had their perspective altered by the arrival of a life-altering event, I noticed the return of the annoyances, irritations, and frustrations. Rather than berate myself for losing my “at least it’s not cancer, so what are you worried about” vibe, I understood that my mind was simply doing what it was programmed to do: look out for my best interests.

Many of the clients I’ve seen over the years have, in an apologetic tone, shared with me that they know they shouldn’t worry about this or that, but that they couldn’t seem to help themselves. When I pointed out that their worries were, in fact, a manifestation of trying to help themselves, the self-condemnation was lessened. I then offer the following tips for not sweating their sweat:

1. Set time aside for structured worries: Known as “prescribing the symptom,” many people find that when they give themselves permission to act or think a certain way, they gain more control and find that they have less intrusions throughout the day.
2. Think about your thoughts: Known as metacognition, this practice has us examining whatever arises in our minds with a curious and nonjudgmental approach that aids in learning from even our most troublesome thoughts.
3. Call it by its name: Worry, anxiety, concern, etc. are just fear in disguise. Decreasing the experience of fear is a natural human response both genetically and neurologically wired into us. The antidote to fear is awareness and acceptance, not avoidance.
4. Train your brain: Understanding that we can rewire our brains, known as neuroplasticity, allows us to use our worries to actively initiate the relaxation response through practices like meditation, deep breathing, progressive muscle relaxation, etc. In this way both large and small things become associated with calm rather than fear.
5. Let them see you sweat: Trying to put on a brave face—pretending not to be worried—is seldom convincing to those around us and reinforces the idea that there is something wrong with us for having a natural reaction to life. There is no shame in having a normal reaction to abnormal events.