No worries.

"I ain't got no worries, cause I ain't in no hurry at all."  Black Water, written by Patrick Simmons of The Doobie  Brothers, from their album, What Once Were Vices are Now Habits. 1974

When she said it, I thought it was the first time I had heard the response “no worries”.  As many times as I’ve heard it since then, I’m quite sure that it wasn’t the first time.  I had just never noticed that response before my friend said it.  Maybe it was because of the nature of my concern. Maybe it was because this person was so kind. Maybe it was because of the convincing smile on her face and in her eyes.  Maybe it was because of her crisp southern California accent.  But for whatever reason or combination of reasons, when she said, “No worries” to my concern, I was deeply grateful and extremely relieved. I did, in fact, walk away with no worries.

People say that worrying is just a natural response to life concerns and situations.  People say that worry can’t be helped. The truth is that we choose worry just like we choose any other emotion. And as Patrick Simmons suggests, it becomes a habit. Years ago I read that worry is like music on a record album.  When you drop the arm, the needle immediately finds the groove and starts playing the same old song. The article went on to say that if you don’t want to worry, if you want to listen to different music, then you’ll have to drop the needle on a different record.

The truth about worry is that it doesn’t change anything besides you.  “Worried sick” isn’t just a figure of speech.  Chronic worry can cause a multitude of physical and mental health issues. Worry pumps poisons into your nervous system that affect every part of your body.  The neurotransmitters involved with worry are God-given biochemicals that are in your brain for a good reason. But when you worry the pumps stay on and these chemicals, among other things, wreak havoc on the lining of your stomach and digestive system.  The worries may not be real, but the ulcers are. And I don’t need to tell you that all the worry in the world doesn’t bring any more money into the bank account and doesn’t get a single teenager to her destination. Furthermore, worry doesn’t change the outcome of a small thing any more than a big thing. Your worries about being late to the wedding do no more good than your worries about the possibility of nuclear warfare. You’ll get there when you get there and you have no access to the people with the launch codes.  Your worry is futile in both cases. It does nothing but rob your soul of its joy and destroy your peace of mind.

To deal with my own temptation to worry and other issues of mental health, I read a lot about my brain.  And about your brain. Researchers and biologists at Caltech are studying the brain to find out why we worry, where we worry and how we worry. If you read about their research, you will learn about the septohippocampal axis, parasentricular nuclei, double-inhibitory neurons, the lateral septum and several  other brain areas and functions.  They are trying to determine what parts of the brain are involved with worry so that they might find therapy and medication that can help. Then if you read Lisa Feldman Barrett’s How Emotions Are Made, you’ll find that she suggests that you need to forget all that.  That your brain creates emotions on the fly.  She says that each emotion uses its own unique brain chemistry in every new situation. “There is no ‘worry center’ in the brain”, Barrett says. 

Meanwhile, since worry doesn’t help anything, if worry is entirely useless, how do you stop worrying?  I don’t know. It’s not easy.  But try these steps.  1. Ask yourself if you want to feel the way you feel. 2. Ask yourself, “Is the worry accomplishing anything good?” 3. How had I rather be feeling right now?  4. Play a different record.    Put yourself in another state of mind.   Mentally, take yourself to another place.

I owe a lot to my California friend. Because of her personal warmth, it was like the angel of the Lord was saying to me “No worries”. In my inner self the angel said, “Do not worry about this. This is not a problem.  For that matter, don’t worry about anything.  It doesn’t help.”    An old Swedish proverb says, “Worry often gives a small thing a big shadow.”  If you stop worrying, you are immediately walking in more light. “And God said, ‘Light's a good thing."