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Areas › Worry and anxiety › Breaking the worry loop
Families have a settled way of responding to distress, usually built out of love, and it will win against anything learned in an hour once a week. So say the steps out loud to everyone: what to do when it starts, what not to say, how long to give it. Parents and partners are usually relieved to be told, because doing nothing while someone suffers is its own kind of hard.
seek help through steadfastness and prayer, for God is with the steadfast (Quran 2:153). It is addressed to a group rather than to one person on their own.
البقرة
يَٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُواْ ٱسۡتَعِينُواْ بِٱلصَّبۡرِ وَٱلصَّلَوٰةِۚ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ مَعَ ٱلصَّٰبِرِينَ
You who believe, seek help through steadfastness and prayer, for God is with the steadfast
Qur’an 2:153read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
In a randomised controlled trial with 251 adolescents and young adults who were already worrying and ruminating a lot, a six week cognitive behavioural group training reduced how many went on to develop anxiety disorders and depression. Teaching the skills in a group, before things are severe, has real support behind it. The trial was in young people at raised risk, so it speaks to prevention more than to households in crisis.
Topper M, Emmelkamp PM, Watkins E, Ehring T. (2017). Prevention of anxiety disorders and depression by targeting excessive worry and rumination in adolescents and young adults: A randomized controlled trial.. Behaviour research and therapy doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
New responses only hold if the people around you are using the same ones.
A hammering heart during anxiety is the body doing what it does when it is braced, not a sign that it is being damaged. For a lot of people that single piece of information is the thing that finally lets the panic drop.
Three moves, in this order: notice what is happening, settle the body, then put your attention somewhere useful. Short enough to remember when you are already going.
Do not tell a child their thinking is wrong, and do not hand them the better thought. Ask the questions and let them arrive at it themselves.