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Areas › Worry and anxiety › What worry does
Ask what an evening without it is like. Restlessness, dread, a pull to check with nothing pleasant in it: that is a different picture from someone who simply likes their phone a lot. Relief seeking behaves the same way wherever it turns up, and it answers to the same approach, which is to put the check off a little, notice that the feared thing does not happen, and let the urgency come down by itself.
No leaf falls without His knowledge (Quran 6:59). Put the phone down for an evening and nothing that matters falls out of the world unnoticed.
الأنعام
۞وَعِندَهُۥ مَفَاتِحُ ٱلۡغَيۡبِ لَا يَعۡلَمُهَآ إِلَّا هُوَۚ وَيَعۡلَمُ مَا فِي ٱلۡبَرِّ وَٱلۡبَحۡرِۚ وَمَا تَسۡقُطُ مِن وَرَقَةٍ إِلَّا يَعۡلَمُهَا وَلَا حَبَّةࣲ فِي ظُلُمَٰتِ ٱلۡأَرۡضِ وَلَا رَطۡبࣲ وَلَا يَابِسٍ إِلَّا فِي كِتَٰبࣲ مُّبِينࣲ
He has the keys to the unseen: no one knows them but Him. He knows all that is in the land and sea. No leaf falls without His knowledge, nor is there a single grain in the darkness of the earth, or anything, fresh or withered, that is not written in a clear Record
Qur’an 6:59read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
An analogue comparison study found that difficulty tolerating uncertainty was more closely tied to worry and generalised anxiety than to obsessive compulsive symptoms. Behaviour that looks compulsive from outside is not always the same thing underneath, so the distinction is worth making rather than assuming. The comparison was made in volunteers rather than patients, which limits how far it carries into a clinic.
Holaway RM, Heimberg RG, Coles ME. (2006). A comparison of intolerance of uncertainty in analogue obsessive-compulsive disorder and generalized anxiety disorder.. Journal of anxiety disorders doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Use driven by escaping discomfort behaves differently from use driven by enjoyment.
Backing out brings relief within seconds, and that relief is exactly what teaches the fear to come back bigger. The cost is paid later, which is why it is so easy to miss.
A car coming at you and a spider across the room set off the same alarm. Naming which one you are facing, before you act on it, is a skill worth practising.
There is a small gap between something happening and the story you tell yourself about it. That gap is the cheapest place to step in.