Does It Help? A Simple Question for Anxiety and Worry
Years ago, the movie Bridge of Spies introduced me to a wonderfully simple question: Does it help? I wrote about that question back in 2020, and it remains one of my favorite ways to interrupt an anxious pattern.
We imagine the medical procedure going badly. Perhaps we rehearse the difficult conversation. Sometimes we picture ourselves failing. Before long, we are preparing for disasters that have not happened.
There is an important difference between preparing for the future and rehearsing an unwanted future.
Does Anxiety and Worry Help You Prepare?
Preparation can lead to useful action. You can make the appointment, ask questions, practice the presentation, pack your suitcase, or make a plan.
Worry often does something very different. It repeatedly rehearses what you don’t want to happen.
Maybe the medical test will be terrible. Perhaps the conversation will go badly. Even the plane can become a source of imagined problems. I will embarrass myself. Something awful will happen.
Your body may even begin responding as though the imagined event is happening right now.
Yet it isn’t.
That is when I ask: Does it help?
Ask What Would Help Instead
I’m not suggesting that you criticize yourself for feeling anxious. Anxiety is part of being human. The National Institute of Mental Health explains that anxiety can occur in many situations. It becomes more concerning when it doesn’t go away and begins interfering with daily life.
Instead of fighting anxiety and worry, become curious about them.
Does worrying about tomorrow make tomorrow safer?
When you’re nervous about a medical procedure, does that nervousness make the procedure easier?
And when you imagine the worst possible outcome, does imagining it actually prevent it from happening?
If the answer is no, try another question:
What would help?
Perhaps taking one practical action would help. Maybe slowing your breathing, moving your body, talking with someone, or returning your attention to what is actually happening right now would help.
The question shifts your attention from rehearsing the problem to discovering a response.
Hypnosis for Anxiety and Worry
With hypnosis, you can teach your unconscious mind to respond differently to thoughts and situations that once triggered anxiety.
You don’t have to force anxious thoughts away. Instead, you can begin experiencing a thought as a thought rather than treating it as a prediction.
You can also rehearse something different.
Instead of mentally practicing fear before a medical procedure, conversation, flight, meeting, or other stressful event, imagine yourself responding calmly and confidently.
Your body can learn that response too.
As you repeatedly imagine yourself handling a situation well, you begin giving your unconscious mind a different pattern to follow.
What If Something Wonderful Happens?
Anxiety loves two little words:
What if?
What if the test shows something bad?
Maybe I will fail.
Perhaps something will go wrong.
An anxious mind can become remarkably creative when imagining an unwanted future.
But anxiety doesn’t own the words what if.
What if everything goes better than expected?
Maybe I handle this beautifully.
Perhaps I even surprise myself.
And one of my favorites:
What if something wonderful happens?
This isn’t pretending that everything in life will always turn out exactly as you want. It is recognizing that if you are going to use your imagination to visit the future, you don’t always have to choose the worst possible destination.
One Question Can Interrupt Anxiety and Worry
The next time you notice yourself becoming caught in anxiety and worry, ask:
Does it help?
If the answer is yes, identify the useful action your concern is encouraging you to take.
If the answer is no, ask:
What would help right now?
Sometimes that small question is enough to interrupt an old pattern.
And in that moment, you have another choice.
Preparation doesn’t require practicing fear.
Uncertainty doesn’t require rehearsing disaster.
Instead of asking only what could go wrong, you can leave room for another possibility:
What if something wonderful happens?
I am Roger Moore, a Medical Hypnotherapist with decades of experience helping people use hypnosis for anxiety, medical procedures, health concerns, and personal change. If you would like to explore how medical hypnosis may help you change your relationship with anxiety and worry, email me at Roger@HypnosisHealthInfo.com.
Your Hypnosis Health Info Hypnotic Suggestion for today:
I am calm, confident, and open to wonderful possibilities.
Since January 2, 1997
Check out all the tools and resources here at Hypnosis Health Info.
Call (760) 219-8079 or email for your free consultation.
Celebrating 29 years of Medical Hypnosis with Roger Moore
Subscribe to my daily blog posts now, right there in the sidebar.
