Flow

Can’t stop worrying
at night?

At 11pm there is nothing you can do about tomorrow’s meeting, the text you haven’t answered, or the bill. That is exactly why the mind keeps rehearsing them: a worry with nowhere to go loops.

Give it somewhere to go

Write the worry down in a sentence, as it sounds in your head. Then pick a day you’ll look at it again: tomorrow, next week, after the appointment. Psychologists call this postponing worry. You aren’t ignoring it; you’re moving it to a time when you can actually do something.

Then check what happened

When the day comes, read what you wrote and note what actually happened. Most people are surprised. In a 2019 study of people with generalized anxiety who tracked their worries, most of those worries never came true (LaFreniere & Newman, Behavior Therapy). A record in your own words is harder to argue with than reassurance.

If the loop won’t stop

Breathe out longer than you breathe in, a few times. Name five things you can see. Then write the one thought that keeps coming back, and set it down for later.