14 DAY TRIAL // We live extremely stressful lives and with constantly increasing problems connected to everything from money to the price of gas, to our jobs and relationships, romantic or otherwise, it's no wonder most of us worry. A lot. In one of the few stress-free moments you do have, while taking a bath or lounging in bed on a Sunday afternoon reading a book and sipping on a refreshing cocktail, have you ever stopped for a second and thought about... worries? Why do you worry? About what? Are there several types of worries, some more powerful, others more routine? Indeed, if you consider the matter a bit, you may find that the whole issue of "worrying" is a lot more complex than you may have initially assumed.
Research shows that only 10% of the things we worry about are really relevant. Money, disease, personal relationships, all of these make us lose sleep - however, the vast majority of the things that cause us concern either never happen (Godzilla playing football with the head of the Statue of Liberty comes to mind) or have already happened - and here I'm talking about break-ups, losing money, a friend, making a mistake at work and so on. Studies also show that those of us who spend a lot of time worrying are less productive in the workplace, get easily distracted from their tasks or - even worse - fail to complete them properly. Worrying burns off mental energy and messes with our moods, often leading to depression.
Most modern worries are not short-term, but rather brought about by long-term threats. Our brains are concerned with what would happen if we lost our current job, whether or not we'll turn out to be good parents or whether or not our current partners will love us forever. The trouble with such worries is that they do have a significant bearing on our existence, but we cannot get any immediate answers to them.
The fact is, we should never allow our worries to take up too much of our time and energy, since they will only end up weakening us, physically and mentally. Chronic worrying was medically proven to wear out our hearts and push us to eat too much, engage in little exercise, drink and smoke too much. As someone once said, worrying is like a rocking chair - it gives us something to do but doesn't really get us anywhere.