Worry time

Why worry spreads

Worrying is trying to solve, in your head, a problem that has not happened yet. Sometimes that helps you plan. Often, though, worry goes round in circles: it comes back on the bus, in the middle of a conversation, at bedtime, and gets nowhere.

In the 1980s the psychologist Thomas Borkovec and colleagues offered an explanation: because worry can happen anywhere and at any time, it stops being tied to any particular situation and becomes easy to trigger. Their idea was the reverse: set aside a time and a place for worrying, and postpone worries that turn up outside it.

What studies show

In the original study, people who described themselves as heavy worriers followed these instructions for four weeks and reported less daily worry than people who were given no instructions. A 2013 study compared two weeks of a daily 30-minute worry period with a different instruction and found greater improvement in worry, anxiety and insomnia, though not in depressive symptoms.

In 2024, a trial with people with generalised anxiety disorder found a marked drop in worry after six days of postponing worries, still present four weeks later. Not every result is positive: a fully online version without support showed no difference, and many participants found postponing hard.

In short, the technique is supported by small studies, works best as one strategy among several and may take practice. The UK health service lists a daily worry time among its suggestions for managing anxiety.

How to try it

Pick a fixed time of 15 to 30 minutes, ideally in the late afternoon and well before bedtime. Pick a place too, and make it somewhere other than your bed.

During the day, when a worry comes up, jot it down in a few words and tell yourself you will think about it at the set time. Then bring your attention back to what you were doing. You do not need to push the thought away; you only need to postpone it.

At the set time, read your list. Some worries will already have lost their grip. For those that remain, separate what you can influence from what you cannot. For the first group, write down one concrete next step. For the second, acknowledge that it is out of your hands and leave it for the next session if it still matters.

When the time is up, stop, even if you have not reached the end of the list. Do something that changes the pace: a walk, a shower, a conversation.

If it does not work at first

Postponing is a skill, and at first it can feel impossible. Start by postponing only some worries, or only for a short while. If the day’s list gets long, that is fine: the aim is not to get rid of worries, but to notice that they can wait.

MyBook is a good place to keep the list. Over time you can see which worries keep returning and which never came true.

When to seek help

If worry has filled most of your days for months, disrupts your sleep, work or relationships, or comes with panic attacks, it is worth seeing a professional. Worry time is a self-care tool and does not replace treatment.