If any of you have successfully given up worrying...

Mey --15.12
That is me now , I concur with everything you say .

I just DO NOT worry any more , and you know what it is great !

Frank most people"s income does drop when they retire so you are not alone .

Suppose it is a case of cutting your cloth according to your material .

that serenity prayer well if only I could accept the thing I can`t change ie get my daughter back, trouble is I try to hope so can`t really accept it, gosh thats sounds muddled!!

I have always worried, I used to worry about the most stupid things, think am bit betternow!!

only time i felt sick and could not eat was when I was clinically depressed andgthat is not a feeling I would wish on anyone.

Worry dolls – small wooden creatures from south America, I think but I could easily be wrong. You tell each one a worry and it becomes their problem. As the doll is wooden, you can pour out your heart and anger without anyone else knowing what you are saying.

If the worries happen in the middle of the night and keep you awake, then concentrate on something completely different. I find picturing HM the Queen trooping the colour on a pogo stick works quite well. There was also one night when I planned 300 different packed lunches for children somewhere between 3 and 5 in the morning.

Well, I'm not depressed at all, celebgran, thank goodness, and when I'm worrying I don't actually feel as though I'm going to throw up, rather that if I ate I might!

I agree that the serenity prayer is fine in principle, but it's not so easy to believe that you will ever have the wisdom to know the difference.

Thank you Mey. Unfortunately faith doesn't do it for me any more. It did once upon a time and I wish I could have it back - it was reassuring! Glad it works for you.

I've always been a worrier, and think I got it from my mother. As a child I used to hear her say what a worrier she was and how it affected her stomach. She used to marvel at my father who didn't worry about anything - and why would he need to because she did it all for him!
When I wake up I start to feel anxious - but then, after a short while things fall into place and unless there really is something going on to cause a problem, I find myself relaxing again. I find that going out for a long walk really does help if things get too bad.

Thank you all, worriers and non-worriers alike. I have read all your posts with interest.

I'd still like to know what non-worriers think about. For example, what do you think when you first get up in the morning?

It's not first thing in the morning for me - that's taken care of with having to get up to go to work most days. It's those middle-of-the-night waking and not sleeping hours...

glad to hear it Ana, that is just how it took me when I was very ill with it, couple times in my life I prefer to forget!!

Agree would be more helpful if we could tell difference easily with what we can`t change

What do you think about when you first get up in the morning Grossi

Ana when that happens to me I count backwards from 100, it works 9 times out of ten for me.

I'll try that, Mey - but as you're no longer a worrier I'm not sure it would work as well for me!

I usually put on some classical music and REALLY listen to it. It works for me. A friend of mine used to say if money will put it right ,it's not worth worrying about. I never did get to ask her what happens if you don't have the money!

I have come late to this post.
I am another dreadful worrier. I do far too much "whatifing". There is a big difference between this and carefully thinking out a solution to a current problems.

My worst time for "whatifing" is 4 to 6am. I sort of think that if I dont "worry" about things, what ever it is might turn out even worse.
If you expect the worst then you will not be shocked or dissapointed and things might just turn out better than expected. I am very perverse!

I like the serenity "prayer" Its basic reasoning is sensible and its good to remember. I also think meditation can help. If you can start controlling the mind away from pointless worrying to calming thoughts it stops the cycle of negativity. It needs practice but its useful.
Peace to all us worrriers.

That's my take on it as well! It's like I'm doing a sort of permanent penance which will [hopefully] stop anything bad happening [does that make sense?]. I did used to escape into studying the form for my horse racing but, since my computer became so slow [and I gave up betting anyway even though I only bet in pennies] I stopped doing it.

It makes perfect sense to me Tegan

I'm not a great worrier. I like to think about things; I think of a problem and envisage the worst case scenario - then I plan how I might deal with it - and then I think, well if the worst happens it will be awful, but at least I have a plan. It may sound a bit blasé (it's really not), but when my son in law was killed in Afghanistan I had already 'imagined' that happening (although if I'm honest there's a part of me that thought it couldn't really happen to us) and I decided that as a family we would pull together and get through. I won't say I wasn't anxious while he was out there, but I allayed my worries by thinking, well, if worst comes to worst we will deal with it. I must confess that I did worry about my daughter afterwards though.

I really try not to worry needlessly, for example: recently a few people shared that they are worried about a mutual friend as they think he might be having problems. My response was to say, okay I'll ask him, which was met with horror, but as far as I'm concerned it was the obvious thing to do. If he has a problem I'd like to help and if not there's no need to worry. [simples no?]

Grossi You asked what non-worriers think about first thing in the morning.
(I can become concerned about things, but on the whole I'm not a great worrier).

Most mornings the first thing I do is to try to guess the time! The village I live in has no street lighting and the velux window has a black-out curtain, but the little window is un-curtained. So as the light/weather changes ......... and so on. It's a small amusement, a little personal challenge.

I then make coffee, pad around and open the shutters for the day, and then turn on my old steam computer to warm up - which takes about 10 mins!

.....and the day has started.

Nelliemoser "whatifying" That is my life you are describing and your description is perfect! Now when I worry I will think that I am "whatifing".

When will we learn. I have two conditions that worry agrivates: Diverticulitis and psoriasis. You would think that I could work it out, wouldn't you?
A few people have mentioned two things that do help. Deep breathing and a good walk.

Like the Serenity Prayer - Desiderata is also something that brings some reason into worrying. Doesn't help, but makes sense in the end. I worry about everything and as I get older worry about things I did in the past which were probably really silly or unthinking, and then I think well, there's probably no one alive who remembers that, so stop worrying, and whatever is going to happen in the world today will happen, all I have to do is make sure we are safe and cause no harm. A bit selfish really.

I try (not very successfully sometimes mind you) to place my worries on a kind of scale. I have done this for my entire life. As a child I remember a visit to the dentist (I was terrified of the dentist) was definitely a 10 , homework late in 7 , falling out with friend 9 etc.

I still do this today and lie in bed feeding all my worries into the scale and shifting them around until I am happy.

Crazy? Me?

When I was going through a very worrying time in my life I would wake at 4 am when things always seem 100 times worse when everyone is sleeping. Worries just bounced around and got bigger and bigger the only way I could deal with it was take myself off to a place where I had been happy and carefree and would imagine myself there and 9/10 it would settle me.

I am much less of a worrier than I have been in the past. One strategy that works for me is to work out a plan for what I would do if ... So if I was awake at 3am worrying about how to cope if I lost my job I would direct all my thoughts into working out a detailed plan of what I would do. Then I could always move on to a planB, planC etc. etc.

I think a lot of worrying is about not feeling able to control things - devising a strategy for coping can help.

I am a terrible middle of the night worrier- 'catastrophing' my husband calls it & he has had several breakdown & a lot of therapy so he knows a bit about worrying! Although all he ever tells me is to stop doing it. No help at all.
However I have found that if I lie with my eyes shut & concentrate on nothing- like the back of the eyelids & try to see a small light or tiny dot then after a few minutes you do see it & if you concentrate on that & pull yourself back to it when you find your mind slipping back to a worry it DOES eventually help. It is something my husband was taught in therapy so it must have some credence. I can get back to sleep eventually by doing this but it does take a little practice. Sometimes the 'lights' you 'see' are lovely too but sometimes it is just a small dot. It does work if you keep at it.
Also lying on back in shavasana position helps to settle me so when I turn over to sleep I am calmer.