Taming your Worries in Today's World

Your Better Mental Wellbeing

Do you spend time worrying about things, wishing that you weren't worrying or feeling anxious? Finding helpful ways to manage your worries will reduce your stress and give you time back to focus on things meaningful to you.

That's what we are talking about today on Episode 6:Taming your Worries in Today's World .

We're your hosts: Dr. Neera Dholakia and Soen Trueman, and we're joined by Ben Cronin who is an experienced high intensity cognitive behavioural therapist working in an NHS Talking Therapy service in Surrey and Kent for With You. We explore the science behind worry and anxiety. We provide insights into the benefits and drawbacks of worry and discuss common worries and concerns. We also discuss lots of practical tips to cope better and manage worries effectively.

Your Better Mental Wellbeing is a weekly podcast helping you to manage stress and build resilience with easy evidence-based tools.

Dr Neera Dholakia is a GP for Boots Online Doctor and the NHS. She is an expert in mental wellbeing and has extensive experience designing mental health services whilst working for NHS England, Healthy London Partnership and mental health trusts. As well as promoting self-care, she also works to improve mental wellbeing in the workplace.

Soen Trueman is a full stack developer with Boots Online Doctor, specialising in graphics design, user experience, and user behaviour. Soen’s interests in behavioural analysis extends to psychology and further to neuroscience, which he is currently studying at Harvard University.

Links to this week's discussion:

02:47 Common themes of worry

04:06 The purpose of worry including the impact of social media

06:51 Rumination and the role of worrying about past events

09:49 Differentiating between helpful and unhelpful worry

11:40 Coping with your worst case scenario

15:43 Practical techniques to deal with worry: cost-benefit analysis, worry postponement, 2 minute rule, spot-stop-switch

Key takeaways:

-Worrying can be a helpful process but it's important to identify when it is not.

-We often compare ourselves, judge ourselves and worry we are not good enough

-Some easy techniques to cope with worry or worry better include: saying 'so what if', postponing worrying or worrying for 2 minutes and spot-stop-switch 'choo-choo'.

Join us next week for an Impactful 10 guided session on Being Present and Becoming Mindful.

Find out more:

Ben Cronin is a Cognitive Behavioural Psychotherapist providing mental health support for individuals, couples and families. He works for WithYou treating people with mild to moderate depression and anxiety disorders.

WithYou provides free, confidential counselling and cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) in Surrey and Kent. They also have an online chat service. For more information, visit https://www.wearewithyou.org.uk

For transcripts visit our website: https://yourbettermentalwellbeing.show

For great health, lifestyle and wellbeing information visit: https://onlinedoctor.boots.com

The information in this podcast is not intended to replace your own GP or other doctor’s professional medical advice.