A lot of people in our WorryTree community have been asking about the distractions technique recently and how to use it, so we thought this would be a great subject for a blog post.
The distraction technique mainly relates to worries that are hypothetical. Hypothetical worries tend to be in the ‘what if’ style of worry. Where practical worries can usually be resolved because they’re about something in real life, hypothetical worries are often much bigger in size and tend to be around something you have no control over. They often involve fortune-telling (assuming we know what’s going to happen in the future) and catastrophizing (seeing the absolute worst in a situation and blowing it all out of proportion). You can read more about hypothetical worries in this blog post.
Where practical worries can often be dealt with using an action plan, hypothetical worries are much harder to problem solve because they’re out of our sphere of influence, and so this is where the distraction technique comes in.
How to mindfully refocus your attention
‘Distraction’ is really referring to the practice of mindfully refocusing your attention. This is where we break the chain of worried thinking and rumination by doing something else, preferably physical. I’m sure you’ve been there. A worried thought has popped into your mind and before you know it that thought has snowballed into a hundred other negative thoughts. That mild pain in your ankle has become something closer to bone cancer. Or that strange noise on the airplane is a failing engine. This is known as catastrophizing or catastrophic thinking. Rumination is where we get trapped inside these kinds of thoughts and suddenly find that hours have gone by and we’ve worked ourselves into feeling really anxious, all because of that first thought we had in the beginning.
Instead, try mindfully refocusing your attention by quickly changing your activity so that your brain has to stop and take notice of what you’re doing. It can be anything but physical activities work best as your brain has to literally stop for a moment and recalibrate. Even five minutes of focusing on something else can break the pattern and free up your mind.
Here are my five personal favorite ways of mindfully refocusing:
Stepping outside for a few minutes to walk the dog or even just look up at the sky
Counting ten blue things in my environment
Turning on a favourite, mood-boosting song
Lighting a candle and watching the flame
Recording three things I am grateful for in a gratitude journal.
How to use ‘distractions’ in the WorryTree app
We use this technique in WorryTree, although here due to the constraints of space in the app we’ve called it ‘distractions’. After you have recorded your worry and categorised it (about love, work, business, home etc) WorryTree will ask you if you can do something about your worry (that is, whether it’s a hypothetical or practical worry). If it’s a worry that you really can’t do anything about, you’ll be asked if you want to schedule some worry time for later and then you’ll be invited to let go of your worry by mindfully refocusing your attention. We’ve put some suggestions in there to get you started, but you can actually create your own list of favourite distractions from within the main menu of the app under ‘Distractions. This is where I have added mindfulness to mine, as well as walking our dogs. You can delete the distractions that you never use and over time you will have created your own bespoke plan of ways to distract yourself from your worried thoughts.
While it’s always best to take positive action against your worries, this isn’t always going to be possible, so it’s important we have a backup plan so that we don’t lose our day (or night’s sleep) in worried, ruminating thoughts. So try to mindfully refocus your attention and teach your brain that worrying doesn’t achieve anything. Remember that quote?
Worrying is like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do but never gets you anywhere. (Erma Bombeck)