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As we all know, worrying creates stress, and stress is a health risk. Worrying can raise your blood pressure, cause you to suffer sleepless nights and affect your digestion, your immunity - even your sex life. But worrying isn’t all bad - the ability to worry about possible dangers and prepare for them has been a crucial factor in the development and survival of Mankind. Here’s how to tap into your evolutionary birthright and make stress work for you!

Turn stress into your friend - understand when to worry

Thousands of years ago worrying ensured our survival. Humans were the feeblest, slowest, most poorly protected food around. ‘Man the hunter’ is a hopelessly inaccurate idea, as for most of our evolution we survived by spotting dangerous situations and staying well away!

And how did we do that? By worrying! Or put another way; using our thinking ability to explore every possibility before putting ourselves at risk. Possibilities like “There could be a tiger in there”, had to be checked out first! These days few situations threaten our physical survival, but we still behave as if there are many. Most of us face many potentially worry-provoking situations every day and if we avoided them all, we’d get nowhere fast.

Make worrying constructive - learn how to ‘worry well’.

Take time to think over all your worries, dilemmas and problems. Set aside half an hour for worrying during the day. When you find yourself worrying at any other time, note the worry down and keep it for later. Once you write down your worries, you can be more objective, and ‘leave them alone’ for a while.

Try using the following template:

• “I am worried about….”
• “The worst that could happen is….”
• “The best that could happen is….”
• “Things I can do now are”….
• “Other factors to remember”.

Also realise that tiredness, hunger, anxiety and other ‘low’ mood states can lead to your thoughts becoming more doom-laden. So worry after you’ve eaten, in the morning after a good sleep, or best of all, after 20 minutes exercise