4 minute read
Refocusing attention
Refocusing your attention
When you have written down a hypothetical worry, refocusing externally helps you to break the cycle of worry and reconnect with what is happening around you. Using your senses to focus on a task is a great way to do this.
Advertisement
A task that you really have to focus upon is best. For example, if you were watching TV when you were worrying, write down your hypothetical worry and then refocus your attention, listening to a conversation on screen. To really refocus, add a task that means you need to pay more attention that you would normally do. You could listen out for how often the people speaking use the neutral word ‘and’ or perhaps keep a tally of words spoken that start with the initial of your name. Then, after a few minutes change the neutral word or initial, then switch it back. If you are listening to music, focus your attention in on just one instrument such as the drums or baseline for a few minutes and try to zone out the other instruments, then switch and try to focus on the piano or guitar for example. This really helps you to learn to focus your attention. It is a skill that needs practice, so you can also do this at other times to strengthen your ability to do it. The same worry may keep popping back into your mind. That is OK and may happen for a while, due to the nature of hypothetical worries. When a hypothetical worry comes back, just write it down again and refocus, as often as you need to. Remember worry time takes practice, as does learning to refocus your attention on the present. Over time, your worries will become less frequent and bothersome. The last part of worry time is to take out your list of hypothetical worries that you have written down since after your last scheduled worry time. Then, for the full amount of time you set aside, you are going to do nothing but worry about the things you wrote down. Read through the worries on your list and purposefully worry about each one in turn. Keep your attention focused on the worry. Ask yourself how you felt at the time when you wrote down the worry and how you feel about it now. Did what you were worrying about happen? If it did, how did you manage it? If it is no longer a worry for you, why is that? What would have happened differently if you had worried about them at the time instead of using worry time? At the end of your planned worry time, throw your worry list away. Then spend a few minutes reflecting upon how your worry time went. Did you need all the time you set aside? Was it enough time? Have you noticed anything with how you are managing your worries or how you feel able to deal with them? What other things have you done in your day as result that you may not have otherwise been able to do? Then get a new worry list out and ready. Always start again with a blank worry list after your worry time. Any worries you have afterwards or that night belong in the next day’s worry time.
Use APPLE for thoughts about uncertainty, uncontrollability and unpredictability
Another helpful technique you can use for refocusing away from thoughts about uncertain, unpredictable or uncontrollable situations is to use APPLE. It helps you to refocus when you have a hypothetical worry about a situation that you cannot gain certainty or control over right now, or when you can’t fully predict what the outcome may be. It enables you to refocus your attention on the external world and not inside your own internal world of anxious thoughts and feelings.
Acknowledge and notice that what is in your mind right now is a hypothetical worry. A worry about an uncertain, unpredictable situation that is not within your control right now. There is no action that could or should be taken to resolve the worry and your focus is needed elsewhere. You are taking all the recommended actions to manage your worries. You can worry about it as much as you like in your planned worry time later. Pause for a few moments and don’t react to the thought or feeling in any way, just let it be.
Pull back from the thought or feeling you are having after writing it down. Tell yourself that these are just a result of your mind trying to gain control, certainty and predictability over a situation that you cannot control right now. Remember that thoughts are not facts. Be compassionate to yourself for how you feel. Let your mind and body do its thing. You can pull back from it.
Let the thought and emotion go, watch it fade into the distance. The thought or feeling is not harmful, although it may feel unpleasant right now. You can pause, allow the thoughts and feelings to just be and then choose to let them go by now refocusing your attention onto a task in the present.
Explore what is going on around you right now. Refocus your attention out of your own internal world, to what is happening outside of you at this moment. Notice things with your senses. What can you hear? What can you see? What can you touch and feel that is physically present? What can you smell? What task can you now do to take your full attention back into the present moment? Do a task that takes your full attention. The same worries or feelings may come back, that is OK. Just notice when you are going inside yourself to your worries and feelings of anxiety and repeat the process as many times as you need.