No Worrying After 8 PM
A Cup of Jo has a very good trick for managing anxiety at night, which is just don’t do it. Don’t worry. Like in the same way that you tell yourself that you’re not going to eat after dinner, and then you do whatever you need to do to not eat after dinner. You give yourself a cut-off time for worrying — for instance, 8 pm — and then after that time, you tell yourself that you are totally allowed to worry tomorrow morning. Just not tonight.
I also really love the idea of giving my anxiety voice a name and separating the anxiety from myself. Because then it becomes this other entity ringing into my head and trying to get me to pick up the worry phone. It’s like a worrying phone solicitor, and I should treat it just as I treat the real SPAM callers and not pick up the damn phone and engage.
I’m putting the ChickieNob on the case to get me a name for my separate-from-myself-trying-to-get-me-to-worry voice. I keep sort of returning to the name Phil, but I’m open to any suggestions you may have.
6 comments
How about Charlie? “Charlie made me do it!” has a nice ring to it, IMO.
oh, I wish that worked! I got distracted by a late night text (9:00pm is late for me) last night and didn’t sleep well the whole night. It was from a friend, it wasn’t anything earth shattering, I just felt this need to continue the conversation even though I needed to go to sleep. I made myself put the phone on Do Not Disturb and lay down, then I slept fitfully the whole night. man….
I like Charlie, or Bob…oooh what about Hank?
Hmm, considering I do 99.9999999999999% of my worrying in bed, at night, while not sleeping I see the merit but I’m not convinced of my ability to just not worry. If I could manage that I think I’d already not be worrying. LOL
This works for my daughter. She deals with anxiety and OCD (real OCD, not “i like to have things a certain way.”)
Her therapist had her name her OCD voice and they practiced talking back to her.
At 7, it’s empowering and exciting to use “grown up” language and be a little mean to the voice – telling her to shut up, for example, which my daughter would not say to anyone else. It works really well, with practice.
I love this idea! Definitely going to try it.
What a great idea, you’ll have to let us know if it works. I have a terrible time shutting up that voice that tries to get me to worry about everything, but I love the idea of naming her and telling her she has a curfew. I like Phil. How about Wemberly?