Double double toil and trouble fire burn and cauldron bubble: or What’s so bad about worrying?

Riddle me this: Have you ever woken up too early and found you were unable to go back to sleep because of worry? How did it go? Did the thing you worried about happen, despite your worrying? Did the thing you worried about not happen and all that worry was for nothing?

What’s up with worrying?

Guess what? Worry is always for nothing! It doesn’t prevent bad things from happening. It doesn’t keep anyone safe. It doesn’t protect you or your loved ones or the country or the world.

But it does keep one thing from happening. Any ideas spinning in your head about what worry prevents?

Cue drum roll. It prevents you from fully enjoying your life!

What’s obsessional thinking like?

It bubbles like the witches’ potion quote in the title above from Shakespeare’s Macbeth.

Here’s an example that is written to show what the obsessive thinking that can be part of anxiety is like. A man I know has generations of breast cancer in his family (his mother, grandmother, two uncles and an aunt died from it), so he has been on a monitoring routine of an MRI each fall, and an ultrasound and mammogram each spring for 20 years.

Yes, men can get breast cancer, though it’s extremely rare (less than 1% of all cases).

Is it this???

Last year when he got his mammogram results, there was a suspicious area, so he was scheduled for an MRI-guided biopsy a couple of weeks later. He awoke around 4am every morning after the mammogram results and worried for an hour or so before he could fall back asleep.

He had signed a contract awhile back to buy an apartment upstate that would give him some financial freedom in the future, but would require him to downsize a lot before the move. The apartment needed some work before he could move in, so he would need to find a contractor. He also had a knee replacement scheduled soon after closing on the apartment.

Or is it that???

He worried about all the changes and the logistics of everything. How would everything get done in a reasonable amount of time? Was there any way to avoid paying rent on his current apartment and mortgage and maintenance on his new apartment? How long would he have to carry expenses for both places? What if he wound up with breast cancer and couldn’t work for awhile?

Should he put off the knee replacement? Should he put off the breast biopsy? How would he pay for everything? Could he trust the contractor, who pointed out problems with the apartment he hadn’t noticed before the closing?

He continued his early morning awakenings and found himself obsessing over the details throughout the day. Now he had trouble falling asleep at night, as well as having difficulty getting back to sleep after his early morning awakenings. There were many mornings his sleep tracker showed that he was getting only two hours of sleep per night.

When in doubt, worry some more!

Then he worried more about his health, because how could he fight off potential breast cancer without decent sleep? He was falling asleep in meetings at work, but unable to fall asleep at night.

There was a delay in getting the results of the breast biopsy because of a holiday, so the results that should’ve taken five business days to get took three weeks. His stress level continued to climb as he worried while waiting.

The results showed that he had an abnormal condition and needed breast surgery.

The contractor ran into additional problems, so there were more delays and his bill continued to grow.

After the surgery he wouldn’t be allowed to carry more than ten pounds, but he still needed to pack for his upcoming move, and what if the breast surgery showed cancer? He also needed to find time for physical therapy twice per week to recover from the knee replacement surgery.

His worries continued to spiral.

What if everything goes wrong???

The night before the breast surgery, he wasn’t able to sleep at all. He was scared about the surgery and there was a blizzard, which could mean rescheduling the surgery, but his surgeon was booked months in advance. He then worried that his lack of sleep would make it more difficult to recover.

He worried that his friend who lived in another borough wouldn’t be able to get to the hospital to pick him up. Then what? He was still recovering from his knee replacement and it was dangerous for him to walk to the subway since the snow removal from the sidewalk between his apartment and the subway was inadequate.

You’ll deal with it!

He took an Uber to the surgery, but traffic was horrible because of the snow. He continued to worry. He called the hospital to say he was going to be very late because of the snow and traffic, and he worried that his surgery would be canceled, since he was stuck in traffic and already two hours late.

Eventually he arrived and the surgery started three hours late. His friend was able to get to the hospital to pick him up, and they marveled at the beauty of the partially frozen Hudson River during the drive back to his apartment afterward, a pleasant moment of awe in an onslaught of worry.

Now he just had to wait for the results of the surgery to see if the problematic tissue that was removed was cancerous.

He continued to worry. The results took longer than the predicted week. He called every day. He worked. He fell asleep in meetings. He stayed awake at night.

Finally he got the results from the surgery. No cancer, but an increased chance of developing it in the future because of the abnormality. It was the best possible outcome, other than everything being perfect.

Eventually the contractor gave him a date for completion of the work on his apartment, but he needed to see the completed work before he could give notice to his rental building that he was moving.

Then he had to schedule a move. The moving company he had used for two previous moves was no longer doing residential moves, so he had to find another mover, coordinate the moves with two difficult management companies, and coordinate with a charity to move the furniture he didn’t have room for in his new apartment.

The only time he could fall asleep was during work meetings.

He continued worrying.

It’s all fine—except for the lost sleep, fun, pleasure!

And you know what? Everything fell into place. The move happened, he settled into his new apartment, recovered from his knee and breast surgeries, and began exploring his new town.

Sorry to put you, the reader, in an anxious place reading about his experience, but I wanted to convey the feeling of intense anxiety, so we can look at that together.

Did all of his worrying protect him from getting cancer? No.

He didn’t have cancer, but not because he was “successful” at worrying. His lack of cancer was just great luck.

Did all of his worrying protect him from a big bill from his contractor? No. But he sold investments and paid the bill.

Did all of his worrying keep him from carrying both apartments for four months? No. But he cut back on spending: one of the “pluses” of recovering from two surgeries was that he wasn’t going out as much.

Did all of his worrying do anything positive for him? Absolutely not!

It kept him from enjoying his life for months that he will never get back!

He was lucky overall to have great surgeons and excellent medical care, but his worrying didn’t accomplish that. His organizing skills and decades-long solid friendships helped him find and get on the surgeons’ schedules. The positive outcomes were due to his actions, not his worrying. To repeat, the lack of cancer wasn’t due to his actions, but was due to luck.

The freak-out is always optional!

Whenever we’re dealing with challenges—health, real estate, financial, whatever!—the freak-out is always optional. When we finish the freak-out, the problems are still waiting for a solution, a series of action steps that we can access only when we regulate our emotions enough to engage our minds! Why not skip the freak-out and start working on the solution?

Good treatment for anxiety is the place to start. Read about treatment for anxiety here, and contact me. Unnecessary suffering doesn’t win any bonus points in life. I’ll work with you to lower your anxiety and engage your very good mind for pleasure instead of angst.