Summary: The Worry Trick by David A. Carbonell PhD

The Anx­i­ety Decep­tion (2016) serves as a prac­ti­cal man­u­al for man­ag­ing anx­i­ety and stress. By draw­ing from accep­tance and com­mit­ment ther­a­py and cog­ni­tive behav­ioral ther­a­py, it dis­sects the ori­gins of anx­i­ety and pro­vides action­able strate­gies for con­fronting and ulti­mate­ly con­quer­ing it.

Commencement: Unveil the cunning ruse perpetrated by your mind and transform your connection with anxiety

You’re famil­iar with that sen­sa­tion. Your day is pro­ceed­ing as usu­al — per­haps you’re on the bus, hav­ing din­ner with your fam­i­ly, or try­ing to fall asleep in bed. Sud­den­ly, an unin­vit­ed and unwel­come thought creeps in.

I must deliv­er that report to my super­vi­sor tomor­row. This thought is quick­ly fol­lowed by a series of per­sis­tent doubts. What if it’s not up to her stan­dards? Is it too ver­bose? What if she deems it over­ly long?

This chain of thoughts con­tin­ues. What if I lose my job? With that upcom­ing den­tal appoint­ment, I can’t afford to lose my job right now.

While the specifics may vary, the under­ly­ing feel­ing remains con­stant: Anxiety.

Anx­i­ety isn’t nec­es­sar­i­ly detri­men­tal — it can alert us to poten­tial risks or issues that we can then address. How­ev­er, if you’re like many indi­vid­u­als, anx­i­ety becomes a bur­den. You strug­gle to con­tain it, and man­age it, and despite being repeat­ed­ly instruct­ed to “sim­ply stop wor­ry­ing,” it per­sists. It feels like an unwinnable battle.

How­ev­er, anx­i­ety isn’t play­ing fair. With­in this sum­ma­ry, you’ll uncov­er the deceit­ful tac­tic that anx­i­ety employs on your mind, and how this aware­ness can prompt a shift in your per­spec­tive and response.

Let’s delve into the core ques­tion: What exact­ly is this anx­i­ety deception?

How anxiety deceives you into increased worry

Pose this query to your­self: What might occur tomor­row? If it’s a work­day, you’ll like­ly awak­en at your usu­al time, head to work, and pos­si­bly encounter some traf­fic delays — a sce­nario you’ve faced before. There’s a slim chance of a seri­ous car acci­dent. While improb­a­ble, it’s not impossible.

We tend to nav­i­gate life under the assump­tion of pre­dictabil­i­ty. Tomor­row is like­ly to unfold like the count­less oth­er for­get­table days you’ve expe­ri­enced. A mind devoid of anx­i­ety com­pre­hends this. Hence, a fleet­ing doubt dis­si­pates effortlessly.

Con­verse­ly, exces­sive anx­i­ety skews your per­spec­tive. Any inkling of uncer­tain­ty is viewed as an immi­nent peril.

Anx­i­ety thrives in this envi­ron­ment. When doubt is mis­con­strued as per­il, your instinc­tu­al response exac­er­bates the sit­u­a­tion, fuel­ing the anxiety.

Con­sid­er this: How do you react when anx­i­ety creeps in? Since your brain inter­prets it as a threat, your imme­di­ate impulse is to halt it. This inter­nal con­flict sets you up for fail­ure — you can­not defeat yourself.

Remem­ber, anx­i­ety fix­ates on the future — on poten­tial sce­nar­ios, how­ev­er remote. Yet, you can­not fore­see the future. And dis­prov­ing the like­li­hood of an event is ardu­ous, regard­less of your efforts. To an anx­ious mind, each failed attempt serves as rein­force­ment that the per­ceived threat could materialize!

Hence, rea­son­ing and con­tention only wors­en the sit­u­a­tion. But what about diversion?

Erad­i­cat­ing such thoughts is akin to being told not to rem­i­nisce about your child­hood pet. Even if thoughts of Fluffy the rab­bit have long evad­ed you, they now dom­i­nate your mind. The dis­trac­tion proves futile.

This is the anx­i­ety decep­tion: Doubt mas­querad­ing as dan­ger, prompt­ing instinc­tu­al resis­tance. The more you resist, the more effec­tive the decep­tion becomes, inten­si­fy­ing your anxiety.

If your efforts to quell anx­i­ety only exac­er­bate it, your approach neces­si­tates scruti­ny. Cease attempt­ing to alter anx­i­ety itself. Instead, focus on trans­form­ing your asso­ci­a­tion with anxiety.

Let’s explore this con­cept further.

Suppress your instincts and concentrate on reshaping your rapport with anxiety

Sim­i­lar to oth­er aspects of your life, you main­tain a rela­tion­ship with your anx­i­ety. Whether with work, alco­hol, or a part­ner, this rela­tion­ship can be either con­struc­tive or detrimental.

Many indi­vid­u­als main­tain a func­tion­al rap­port with their anx­i­ety — it sur­faces inter­mit­tent­ly, offer­ing insights into life’s chal­lenges or reflect­ing a broad­er sense of unease. It’s akin to an acquain­tance or col­league; encoun­tered spo­rad­i­cal­ly but not overpowering.

Chron­ic anx­i­ety pos­es the real issue. It per­sists inces­sant­ly, prov­ing inescapable and debil­i­tat­ing. This neces­si­tates eval­u­a­tion and even­tu­al trans­for­ma­tion. If this res­onates with you, you like­ly embody one of two asso­ci­a­tions with your anxiety.

The first sce­nario entails inter­pret­ing anx­i­ety as a cred­i­ble, cru­cial fore­warn­ing. Respond­ing earnest­ly, you seek meth­ods to pre­vent the per­ceived threat, reas­sure your­self of its improb­a­bil­i­ty, or shield your­self from its poten­tial impact.

These respons­es are nat­ur­al but ulti­mate­ly coun­ter­pro­duc­tive — anx­i­ety is ensnar­ing you in a cycle of esca­lat­ing dis­tress. Engag­ing in debates, avoid­ance, research, or devel­op­ing rit­u­als to assuage anx­i­ety mere­ly rein­forces its author­i­ty, per­pet­u­at­ing your distress.

The sec­ond poten­tial rela­tion­ship with anx­i­ety involves fix­at­ing on the act of wor­ry­ing itself. Rec­og­niz­ing the irra­tional­i­ty and debil­i­ta­tion of exces­sive anx­i­ety, you attempt to address it from this angle. This often results in diver­sion tac­tics or futile attempts to sup­press these thoughts, poten­tial­ly lead­ing to detri­men­tal cop­ing mechanisms.

Pre­dictably, such strate­gies fail to improve your dynam­ic with anx­i­ety. You’re essen­tial­ly stok­ing the flames with gaso­line — pre­cise­ly what anx­i­ety desires.

The strate­gies you believe are effec­tive are unlike­ly to yield results in this instance. It requires acknowl­edg­ing that your instincts are mis­lead­ing; to over­come the anx­i­ety decep­tion, you must coun­ter­in­tu­itive­ly approach the issue.

The aim isn’t to erad­i­cate anx­i­ety entire­ly. Rather, cul­ti­vate a more sus­tain­able and func­tion­al rela­tion­ship with anx­i­ety, thwart­ing its attempts to con­sume your exis­tence through deception.

By now, you should be able to dis­cern your rela­tion­ship with anx­i­ety and com­pre­hend that an uncon­ven­tion­al issue neces­si­tates an uncon­ven­tion­al approach.

Let’s exam­ine these strate­gies further.

Understand how your anxieties manifest upon inception

What are anx­i­ety’s pre­ferred words? Pro­vide some thought to a few wor­ri­some sce­nar­ios: What if I lose my job? What if I fall ill?

Well done, for you’ve iden­ti­fied anx­i­ety’s ini­tial vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty. Exploit these key­words — “what if” — to dis­rupt anx­i­ety’s strat­a­gem because.

con­cerns man­i­fest in such a man­ner upon enter­ing your mind, they can be appre­hend­ed and exam­ined further.

If sum­mon­ing your con­cerns forth instills you with appre­hen­sion, keep in mind that we’ve pre­vi­ous­ly estab­lished that neglect­ing them is ineffective.

To trans­form your con­nec­tion with con­cern, you must be proac­tive. Let’s com­mence by dis­sect­ing these wor­ri­some sen­tences. There is a “what if” clause, suc­ceed­ed by whichev­er dread­ful pos­si­bil­i­ty seeks to occu­py your thoughts present­ly — let’s deem this a calami­ty clause.

What does the “what if” clause tru­ly indi­cate? Sup­pose you con­tem­plate: “What if I encounter a car acci­dent?” That is not a thought you have at the instant an acci­dent occurs. There is no “what if” about it — it is occurring.

Imag­ine you are dri­ving and real­ize you mis­tak­en­ly ran a red light? A car acci­dent could indeed occur at this point, but you are still not think­ing “What if I have a car acci­dent?” Your instincts take over, and you strive to pre­vent that acci­dent from happening.

You sole­ly pon­der “what if” when every­thing is fine. The “what if” clause is not about self-preser­va­tion. It does not shield you, or halt any­thing. It sig­ni­fies “let’s imag­ine”. Let’s imag­ine I am in a car accident.

The cat­a­stro­phe clause could rep­re­sent any hypo­thet­i­cal sit­u­a­tion, thus turn­ing into a game resem­bling Mad Libs. By dis­re­gard­ing the “what if” clause and focus­ing on whichev­er improb­a­ble dra­ma fills the cat­a­stro­phe clause, you fos­ter a con­tin­u­al flow of what seem like valid concerns.

You must train your­self to detect this “what if” clause. Pur­chase a pack of can­dies or mints that indi­cate the quan­ti­ty on the pack­ag­ing. A pack of 60 Tic Tacs should suffice.

Each time you rec­og­nize a “what if” notion, con­sume one of those Tic Tacs. This is how you will tal­ly your con­cerns. Fol­low­ing a week, you will be notably more adept at spot­ting these thoughts and begin observ­ing them passively.

The objec­tive? You will no longer be habit­u­al­ly inclined to auto­mat­i­cal­ly over­look or divert your focus from your con­cerns. When you are not dis­tract­ed, you can iden­ti­fy the “what ifs” and com­mence per­ceiv­ing them as the game of “let’s imag­ine” that they gen­uine­ly are.

Allocate time to amuse your worries

Visu­al­ize your­self at a gath­er­ing. Owing to an unfor­tu­nate seat­ing arrange­ment, you find your­self iso­lat­ed in the cor­ner next to the most argu­men­ta­tive attendee at the table. Regard­less of what you express, they sim­ply must oppose it. You praise the weath­er, they con­demn it. You enjoy bas­ket­ball, they pre­fer foot­ball. It is drain­ing, and you are unable to rel­ish your meal.

What are your alter­na­tives here? You could attempt to dis­pute, but that mere­ly pro­vides them with what they desire — and what you aim to avoid. Dis­re­gard­ing them only prompts them to per­sist. Strik­ing them is tempt­ing, but like­ly not the best solution.

This is how you han­dle wor­ry dis­guised in a metaphor: Seek to amuse it. Nod along, and affirm they are absolute­ly cor­rect. You need not gen­uine­ly believe the non­sense they con­vey, you are mere­ly striv­ing for a serene meal.

Wor­ry is a dis­sent­ing voice at your amuse­ment exhi­bi­tion. If you incor­po­rate it into your act, it shifts the con­trol back to you.

Clear­ly, exe­cut­ing this is eas­i­er said than done, par­tic­u­lar­ly if you have con­sis­tent­ly resort­ed to the instinc­tu­al yet unpro­duc­tive reac­tion of bat­tling with your concern.

To com­mence enter­tain­ing your wor­ry, endeav­or to mag­ni­fy it. Imag­ine you are con­tem­plat­ing, “What if I fal­ter in my pre­sen­ta­tion tomor­row?” Append an exag­ger­at­ed “yes, and” to the con­clu­sion. “Yes, and then my col­leagues will mock me out of the office.” Or “Yes, and it will be fea­tured on the cov­er of the com­pa­ny newslet­ter.” You are acknowl­edg­ing the wor­ry while alter­ing your response to it.

Test this out. Draft one of your con­cerns, in its most intri­cate, ter­ri­fy­ing form. Keep it with­in rough­ly 25 terms. Reserve 25 of those Tic Tacs you bought to tal­ly your concerns.

Posi­tion your­self before a mir­ror, and recite the con­cern aloud, 25 times. Con­sume one of the Tic Tacs each time, to ensure your count­ing is con­scious and intentional.

If you are grap­pling with per­sis­tent wor­ry, this might be quite a stress­ful prac­tice. Observe how dis­turb­ing the wor­ry is dur­ing the final recita­tion com­pared to the ini­tial one. You will notice that it becomes more manageable.

If you enter­tain and grant space for your wor­ry, even­tu­al­ly you will dis­cern its decep­tion. It is uncer­tain­ty, not peril.

Although this method can be ben­e­fi­cial, it may not always be effi­cient or fea­si­ble, par­tic­u­lar­ly when the wor­ry is deeply ingrained in your rou­tine. In the con­clud­ing sec­tion, you will uncov­er three spe­cif­ic drills you can per­form dai­ly to dimin­ish the author­i­ty that wor­ry holds over you.

Three uncomplicated drills to cultivate resistance to worry

Wor­ry — akin to numer­ous chron­ic con­di­tions — does not offer a swift rem­e­dy. You must devel­op your resilience grad­u­al­ly. There are three strate­gies you can inte­grate into your dai­ly life that will enhance your wor­ry resis­tance lev­els, so to speak. Con­sid­er them akin to a dai­ly sup­ple­ment, or a work­out regimen.

Ini­tial­ly, allo­cate a moment for your wor­ry. Sim­i­lar to a busy exec­u­tive who sets aside des­ig­nat­ed hours for employ­ees, estab­lish a time when you can con­cen­trate on your wor­ries. Phys­i­cal­ly des­ig­nate a con­ve­nient slot in your schedule.

You have real­ized that shun­ning them exac­er­bates the sit­u­a­tion, thus grant­i­ng them the oppor­tu­ni­ty to be vocal. Do not attempt to solve them, alter them, or dis­pute with them — sim­ply allow your­self to worry.

It is prefer­able if you can vocal­ize this while observ­ing your­self in front of a mir­ror. You might feel awk­ward, but wit­ness­ing and lis­ten­ing to your­self removes it from your thoughts and enables you to gain a more ratio­nal stand­point. It is also ben­e­fi­cial in learn­ing to post­pone your wor­ries to a less incon­ve­nient time.

The sec­ondary dai­ly wor­ry sup­ple­ment is a straight­for­ward breath­ing exer­cise. Although being advised to “take a deep breath” is some­what trite, it is effec­tive — when exe­cut­ed cor­rect­ly. The trick is to exhale ful­ly before inhal­ing deeply, to enable a com­plete breath. Inhale slow­ly through your nos­trils, retain it, then exhale through your mouth.

If you find your­self neglect­ing to breathe prop­er­ly, lever­age com­mon cues from your envi­ron­ment as reminders — such as a car horn or a phone noti­fi­ca­tion, for instance.

Last­ly, instill a dai­ly reg­i­men of mind­ful­ness med­i­ta­tion. This pas­sive obser­va­tion of thoughts is quite pop­u­lar, with a pletho­ra of resources for ini­ti­a­tion. If you have nev­er attempt­ed it before, here is your ini­tial lesson.

Sit com­fort­ably in a qui­et area for a minute or two, becom­ing con­scious of your thoughts and sen­sa­tions. Gen­tly focus your atten­tion on some­thing con­sis­tent — many indi­vid­u­als typ­i­cal­ly uti­lize their breath­ing, but it can be any­thing. For instance, the hum of a fan.

As your focus is inter­rupt­ed by your thoughts — as is inevitable — refrain from com­bat­ting them. Mere­ly observe as they emerge, then grad­u­al­ly redi­rect your focus back to the ini­tial point of focus. Prac­tice this for ten min­utes per day, and you will dis­cov­er increased aware­ness of your thoughts and enhanced tran­quil­i­ty with your worries.

Strive to incor­po­rate these three rou­tines as part of your dai­ly reg­i­men. Before long, you will pos­sess the tech­niques and for­ti­tude to dis­cern the decep­tion and fos­ter a health­i­er rap­port with worry.

Conclusion

All your inher­ent respons­es to anx­i­ety just wind up exac­er­bat­ing it. It’s not an adver­sary that you must com­bat with or evade. The con­stant anx­i­ety that dis­rupts your sleep, or pre­vents you from savor­ing your time with fam­i­ly, is mere­ly anx­i­ety deceiv­ing you into inter­act­ing with it in a man­ner that ampli­fies its influence.
Just like a torero might incite a bull to charge with a vibrant cape, anx­i­ety chal­lenges you with provoca­tive yet essen­tial­ly hol­low “what if” state­ments. Being aware of this, you can dis­cern the decep­tion. Play along with the anx­i­ety so it los­es its dom­i­nance, or attempt straight­for­ward breath­ing or med­i­ta­tion tech­niques to stay in command.
Ban­ning your anx­i­ety will nev­er be effec­tive – you need to con­cen­trate on fos­ter­ing a healthy, man­age­able con­nec­tion with it. Of course, it’s sim­ple to feel over­whelmed or caught up in life’s tri­als. How­ev­er, despite wor­ries being a com­po­nent of it, they need not occu­py a siz­able portion.

Review

Book Overview: “The Wor­ry Trick” delves into the theme of anx­i­ety and its adverse effects on our lives. Authored by David A. Car­bonell, a cog­ni­tive-behav­ioral ther­a­pist, the book fur­nish­es an exten­sive man­u­al on rec­og­niz­ing and con­quer­ing our brain’s incli­na­tion to antic­i­pate the worst-case sce­nario. The book is metic­u­lous­ly researched, engag­ing­ly craft­ed, and offers prag­mat­ic approach­es for han­dling wor­ry and anxiety.

Key Points

• The Wor­ry Trick: The book intro­duces the notion of the “wor­ry trick,” which is the brain’s pro­cliv­i­ty to fore­see neg­a­tive con­se­quences and for­mu­late worst-case sce­nar­ios. This trick is deeply root­ed in our evo­lu­tion­ary past and aims to ensure our safe­ty, but it can also harm our well-being.
• Types of Wor­ry: Car­bonell out­lines two kinds of wor­ry: “proph­esy­ing” and “tor­tur­ing.” Proph­esy­ing wor­ry involves pre­dict­ing neg­a­tive out­comes while tor­tur­ing wor­ry entails fix­at­ing on poten­tial neg­a­tive results. The book pro­vides prac­ti­cal meth­ods for deal­ing with both forms of worry.
• The Fear of Fail­ure: The book explores how the fear of fail­ure can trig­ger the brain’s anx­i­ety cen­ter, lead­ing to height­ened stress and anx­i­ety. Car­bonell offers tech­niques for reshap­ing our per­spec­tives on fail­ure and fos­ter­ing a growth mindset.
• The Pow­er of Mind­ful­ness: The book under­scores the sig­nif­i­cance of mind­ful­ness in man­ag­ing wor­ry and anx­i­ety. Car­bonell shares prac­ti­cal tips for nur­tur­ing mind­ful­ness, such as anchor­ing one­self in the present moment, observ­ing our thoughts impar­tial­ly, and engag­ing in activ­i­ties that pro­mote mindfulness.
• The Role of Thoughts: The book explains how our thoughts and beliefs can fuel our wor­ry and anx­i­ety. Car­bonell presents meth­ods for rec­og­niz­ing and chal­leng­ing neg­a­tive thoughts while sub­sti­tut­ing them with more pos­i­tive and real­is­tic ones.
• The Impor­tance of Self-Com­pas­sion: The book stress­es the val­ue of self-com­pas­sion in deal­ing with wor­ry and anx­i­ety. Car­bonell offers prac­ti­cal sug­ges­tions for cul­ti­vat­ing self-com­pas­sion, like prac­tic­ing self-kind­ness, acknowl­edg­ing our imper­fec­tions, and treat­ing our­selves with the same empa­thy we extend to a friend.
• The Role of Phys­i­cal Activ­i­ty: The book under­scores the ben­e­fits of reg­u­lar phys­i­cal activ­i­ty for both phys­i­cal and men­tal well-being, which can aid in alle­vi­at­ing wor­ry and anx­i­ety. Car­bonell shares prac­ti­cal advice for inte­grat­ing phys­i­cal activ­i­ty into our dai­ly routines.
• The Impor­tance of Sleep: The book high­lights the sig­nif­i­cance of ade­quate sleep in man­ag­ing wor­ry and anx­i­ety. Car­bonell pro­vides prac­ti­cal tips for enhanc­ing sleep qual­i­ty, such as estab­lish­ing a con­sis­tent sleep sched­ule, steer­ing clear of caf­feine and screens before bed­time, and cre­at­ing a calm­ing bed­time ritual.
• The Ben­e­fits of Seek­ing Sup­port: The book accen­tu­ates the advan­tages of seek­ing sup­port from loved ones, friends, and men­tal health pro­fes­sion­als in address­ing wor­ry and anx­i­ety. Car­bonell offers prac­ti­cal guid­ance on dis­cov­er­ing and uti­liz­ing sup­port systems.

Strengths

- The book offers an in-depth insight into the psy­cho­log­i­cal and neu­ro­log­i­cal mech­a­nisms behind wor­ry and anxiety.
— The author fur­nish­es prac­ti­cal strate­gies for cop­ing with wor­ry and anx­i­ety, root­ed in cog­ni­tive-behav­ioral therapy.
— The book is metic­u­lous­ly researched and incor­po­rates numer­ous exam­ples and case stud­ies to elu­ci­date the dis­cussed concepts.
— The author’s engag­ing and acces­si­ble writ­ing style ren­ders the book a plea­sur­able read.

Weaknesses

- Some read­ers may find the book’s focus on cog­ni­tive-behav­ioral ther­a­py to be over­ly restric­tive, giv­en that alter­na­tive ther­a­peu­tic meth­ods could also be effec­tive in man­ag­ing wor­ry and anxiety.
— The book’s spot­light on indi­vid­ual effort may over­look the sig­nif­i­cance of social sup­port and sys­temic changes in address­ing wor­ry and anxiety.

Conclusion

In essence, “The Wor­ry Trick: How Your Brain Deceives You Into Expect­ing the Worst and What You Can Do About It” comes high­ly rec­om­mend­ed for indi­vid­u­als grap­pling with over­whelm­ing wor­ry and anx­i­ety. David A. Car­bonel­l’s exper­tise and empa­thet­ic approach shine through, prof­fer­ing prac­ti­cal tools and per­spec­tives that can assist read­ers in regain­ing mas­tery over their lives. By com­pre­hend­ing the wor­ry trick and imple­ment­ing the strate­gies out­lined in the book, read­ers can lib­er­ate them­selves from the wor­ry cycle and embrace a calmer, more grat­i­fy­ing existence.

If you’re pre­pared to reclaim your life from anx­i­ety, then I strong­ly advo­cate delv­ing into “The Wor­ry Trick.” It’s an enlight­en­ing, use­ful, and moti­va­tion­al read that will teach you to con­quer your fears and lead a more enrich­ing life.