Useful and Not so Useful Worry

Chronic worriers often get advice that may not be helpful to them: “Don’t worry”, “It will all work out” or “You need to believe in yourself”. Worriers seldom find this well-meaning advice to be helpful. In fact, they often find it to be invalidating.
Worriers often get mixed messages about their worry. On one hand, they might feel the worry is “driving me crazy”, but on the other hand they get something from their worry. Worriers believe that their worry can help them prepare, avoid uncertainty, or get motivated. There is some truth in the idea that worry can help people prepare and avoid uncertainty. However, when worry becomes extreme it can cause tension and stress.
It is useful to distinguish between productive and unproductive worry. Productive worry can be distinguished from unproductive worry if something can be done about it today. That is, the worrier can do something today to prepare or be productive.
To take an example regarding someone who is worried about his health. This person notices aches and pains that are unusual. He begins thinking, “I wonder if I have cancer.” This thought then leads to worse and worse scenarios of getting sicker and sicker. These images lead to further thoughts and ‘what-ifs’ such as, “What if the doctor doesn’t diagnose me correctly?” and “What if it’s too late?” In this example, the person has a productive worry about his health. This productive worry leads him to contact a doctor and schedule an appointment. However, this person also has unproductive worry in imagining all the worse case scenarios. This worry is unproductive because he cannot do anything else except call his doctor.
We could think of the utility of worry in this way: “Can I do anything about this?” If the answer is yes, then it is productive worry. Then it would be wise to do what we can to change the situation and then stop worrying. If the answer is no, then our worry is serving no purpose other than making us more anxious.
Another example is a person having an exam coming up next week. She is worried and thinking, “What if I fail? What if I get thrown out of school? What if I end up homeless? What if my parents disown me for letting them down?” All of these “what-ifs” are unproductive worries. They are unproductive because she can not do anything to solve the problem. Since she has not taken the exam, she does not know if she is going to pass. Thus, she cannot solve the problem of being homeless. She can’t solve problems that don’t exist. Unproductive worry is about what-ifs, in which nothing can be done. Productive worry allows us to take action. In the above example, she could set time aside to study over the next week. Productive worry helps to take action. To figure out what we can do to change the situation. It allows to get ‘out of our heads’ and do something to solve the problem. If we cannot do anything to solve the problem, then we might say to ourselves that worry is not helping me out in this situation.