A couple of weeks ago I was going over old pictures and saw a picture of when I was in my twenties wearing one of my favorite pairs of jeans at that time. I remember the hassle of buying them, and in particular, I remember all the questions and worry thoughts I had when talking to the salesperson:

• Would you rather them slim fit, easy fit, loose fit, or relaxed fit?
• Do you like button fly or zipper fly more?
• Do you want a boot cut, tapered cut, straight cut, or slim cut?
• Do you like them in natural, black, or white color?

I was so overwhelmed with all those choices that I couldn’t make a decision right away and was too lazy to try the 101 options of jeans this person was putting in front of me. My mom was patiently smiling; I was just overwhelmed!

My mind was overwhelmed too: what if that cut doesn’t look good on me? Would I fit in those jeans? What if I don’t find any jeans that work for me? It’s hard to find jeans that fit me because of my height, what if they don’t have the color I like? Would my classmates make fun of me with this pair of slim jeans? What if I look weird in these jeans?

Two hours later, I left the store with empty hands. As I reflect on this memory about buying jeans, I think that it’s not different from how our minds work, like a salesperson, when coming up with 101 worries.

We all worry about all types of things. Shell Silverstein, an American poet and illustrator, catches the essence of our worries in his poem Whatif:​

Last night, while I lay thinking here,
Some Whatifs crawled inside my ear
And pranced and partied all night long
And sang their same old Whatif song:
Whatif I’m dumb in school?
Whatif they’ve closed the swimming pol?
Whatif I get beat up?
Whatif there’s poison in my cup?
Whatif I start to cry?
Whatif I get sick and die?
Whatif I flunk that test?
Whatif green hair grows on my chest?
Whatif nobody likes me?
Whatif a bolt of lightning strikes me?

​Who doesn’t worry about all types of stuff? We all do.

Worry is defined as “a chain of thoughts and images, negatively affect-laden and relatively uncontrollable. Worrying is an attempt of our minds to solve an issue whose outcome is uncertain but it contains the possibility of one or more negative outcomes. That’s how worry relates closely to the fear processes and fear-based responses.” (Borkovec, Robinson, Pruzinsky, & DePree, 1983).

In our day-to-day life, worry shows up as what-if thoughts, a collection of them, with a strong pull to dwell on them, we feel exhausted, tired, and fatigued, and instead of taking action, we stay in our heads.

Going back to the memory of buying jeans, when having all those what-if thoughts, it may have looked as if I was solving a problem: deciding what type of jeans I should buy based on the many options I had in front of me. However, while my mind was coming up with all those thoughts about the future, I felt saturated and ended up not buying any of them.

It makes sense that our mind comes up with all those worry thoughts – focused on potential future unknown scenarios – because that’s how our brain helped our ancestors to survive.

When anticipating a risky situation, our ancestors handled their anxiety by running various what-if scenarios over and over in their minds in the hope that constant vigilance would somehow prevent anything bad from happening. They needed to be on the lookout to survive!

If you’re dealing with a laundry list of what-if thoughts, here is a key distinction to make:

Productive worry vs. unproductive productive worry

Let’s say that I start to worry about you -my reader – not liking this article useful. What if it’s not actionable? What if it’s missing academic references? What if readers don’t find it  

• First scenario: I set an internal deadline for myself, re-read it, made sure that I included specific actionable skills, shared it with a colleague/friend of mine to get their feedback, and then published it.
• Second scenario: I call my friend to share my worries, wonder about written mistakes I have made in the past, wonder about this article being shared with other people and my professional reputation being compromised, and remember all those times when I found typos on an article on my website. 4 hours have passed by and I didn’t finish writing the article and didn’t publish it. 

The first scenario is usually described as “productive worry,” and the second one reflects “unproductive worry.” (Leahy, 2006)

• Productive worry prompts you into action.
• Unproductive worry asks the same “what-if” questions and creates new problems for you or new unknown scenarios that need to be solved; it focuses on long-distance problems that you have little control over or ability to influence; makes it hard for you to accept any solution because none of them guarantee you 100% success or anxiety free.

Some psychologists would clarify that “there is nothing productive about worry and that worry by nature is an unproductive emotional state.” While this is true, given that most people struggle to break the cycles of worry, the differentiation between productive and unproductive worry is helpful to see how you can move from worry into productive or effective problem-solving.

I’ve found that once you understand the difference between productive and unproductive worry is key to managing anxiety effectively and building a joyful life.

Here are two questions for you:

• Are you staying in your head for hours?
• Are you defining the problem, setting an internal deadline, identifying actionable steps to take, and taking them?