.png)
.png)
How to Stop Worrying About Things You Can't Control
Did you know 85 percent of feared events never happen, yet thousands of people still Google “how to stop worrying about things you can't control” every single day?
It's such a seductive and slippery mental trap that I see clients of mine fall into all the time.
So if your mind keeps rerunning bleak headlines, steals your sleep at 3 AM, or distracts you at work, you're in the right place.
As a Los Angeles therapist, I’ve helped countless clients swap powerless rumination for deliberate action and helped people break the rules that anxiety is forcing you to follow.
I’ll hand you a sharp roadmap out of worry and anxiety:
Preview—coming up next:
-
Why You Are Feeling Trapped in Thought Loops
-
Overthinking and Chronic worry: The Physical Impact
-
Therapy For Worry and Overthinking That Works.
Why Worry Has Us Feeling Trapped:
One of the reasons chronic worry is so sticky, is that it feels busy—your mind races through “what‑if” scenarios and in a way it might seem that you're prepareing for challenging situations.
In reality, worry is a repetitive, it's a non-stop verbal loop that revs the engine but never puts the brain into gear.
Real problem‑solving is a multi-step process - the FIRST part, does involve a little bit of worry - but the majority happens in the imagery‑and‑planning parts of the brain, and it ends with a concrete next steps of action
Worry, by contrast, is only part of problem solving - and it keeps us stuck just restartsing internal debate and leaving you stewing on endless loops of 'what-if's'.
Powerlessness Spiral: When Worry Masquerades as Problem-Solving
Excessive worry often wears a clever disguise. It sounds like planning—yet most “what-ifs” simply rehearse worst-case scenarios on repeat.
Worry is one of the more common symptoms of anxiety- and in particular generalized anxiety disorder.
This endless cycle of worry and negative thinking, hijacks your mental health first, then seeps into daily life: missed moments with loved ones, lost sleep, and a rising sense that these uncontrollable worries will never let go.
1-800-WORRY.com - The Worry Worksheet App
For people struggling with chronic worry, it can seem like every fear based thought that pops into your head is worthy of worrying about - and the truth is only some of them are.
One of the habits I help my clients build is to decide whether a thought is a Priority Ping, or Trash Talk.
This little website app things talks you through the three questions you need to ask yourself to determine which category it belongs in.
_edited.png)
The 10 Rules Of Anxiety:
Worry is just one of the many rules that anxiety has us trapped in - there's 9 others, and to find out your anxiety archetype, the rules of anxiety you follow and what fuels your anxiety, check out the anxiety quiz I created.
Your answers will be delivered instantly and give you three ways to look at your anxiety:
-
THE TYPE: An online quiz can't give you a diagnosis but this might point you closer to understanding what fuels your anxiety.
-
THE RULES: It will help you pinpoint the primary source of your anxiety—whether it’s social situations, the pressure to be perfect, or a state of chronic, generalized worry.
-
THE ARCHETYPE: Understanding your archetype is another way of understanding how anxiety impacts you - it's like a blueprint that gives you more details.
Mind–Body Toll: Why Chronic Worry Keeps Your Stress Dial Stuck
Constant worry isn’t loud—it’s a quiet hum that never switches off. As you shared in your video, it “feels like persistent, low-level tension… your stress dial never drops back to zero”
That dial governs far more than mood. A jammed stress response keeps cortisol dripping into your bloodstream, nudging heart rate and breathing just high enough to drain energy without ever giving you the adrenaline “spike-and-reset” that follows a single panic surge.
Over time, that cycle of worry triggers real physical symptoms: tight shoulders, restless sleep, headaches, and even a sluggish immune system—“tight muscles… and even your immune system can be compromised” .
Left unchecked, chronic worrying becomes a full-body bad habit that shadows every part of daily life. It raises overall stress level, erodes physical health as much as mental health, and tricks you into believing this background buzz is just how life feels.
Over time the worry habit hard-wires itself, creating constant worrying that saps focus and even your physical health—tight muscles, elevated heart rate, and chronic fatigue.
The antidote isn’t to bully yourself into silence; it’s to give your body the “off” signal it’s been missing. Sometimes simple relaxation techniques—from timed deep-breathing exercises to short practice-mindfulness check-ins can help. But that can just be a bandaid until you start creating a targeted plan of action that loosens the worry habit at its source.
Any chances of success at gaining peace of mind comes from breaking the worry habit.
The Final Layer Of Chronic Worrying: The Feedback Loop
Constant worrying even rewards itself: when the dreaded outcome doesn’t happen, your brain credits the worry for the lucky escape,- - the nerve of it! It just helped you reinforce the pattern and idea that worry was helpful.
That's a little bit of magical thinking - a cognitive disortion that is quite common.
Here’s the turning point: *“We don’t control every anxious thought, *but we do control whether we give it our attention.” By learning to sort thoughts into Circles of Control—what you can act on versus what you must let be—you shift from powerless rumination to positive action.
Understanding Worry: Controllable vs. Uncontrollable
Excessive worry often hijacks your day by spinning endless worst-case scenarios about events you can’t steer—job cuts, global news, someone else’s mood.
These Uncontrollable Worries pull you into a heavy cycle of worry that drains focus, raises stress hormones, and quietly chips away at both mental health and the joy of daily life.
As I remind clients, *“We don’t control every anxious thought, *but we do control whether we give it our attention.”
The fastest way to break that spell is to map your Circles of Control. In the center sit issues you can influence right now—your breathing pace, a quick text to clarify plans, whether you stretch or stay hunched over.
The outer ring is everything else: weather, other people’s choices, tomorrow’s headlines.
1-800-WORRY.com
So you can use www.1-800-WORRY.com to determine whether or not your current actions thought is a priority ping, or just trash-talk! If it's trash talk, you can stop overthinking.
Practicing this filter turns passive rumination into positive action. You’ll notice fewer intrusive thoughts, lower physical symptoms like jaw tension, and—most importantly—a growing confidence that your energy is spent where it counts.
