How a “Worry Window” Can Stop Your Nagging Anxiety

Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional

When I was six years old, I got a vaccination shot during my annual check-up. It was terrifying and it hurt like hell.

During my visit, the doctor mentioned that I would get another booster shot when I turned 11. Given the pain and stress I had just gone through, I circled my 11th birthday in my mental calendar and began to dread its inevitable arrival.

Over the next five years, I worried about that booster shot a lot.

Sometimes, as I fell asleep at night, the thought of the needle would pop into my head and I’d jolt awake. And every time I visited a doctor, I feared they were going to surprise me with the vaccine.

When the dreaded day finally arrived, I was deeply unsettled. I worried all week leading up to the appointment, fidgeted nervously in the waiting room, and trembled as the nurse wiped alcohol on my shoulder and uncapped the shiny needle. When she finally injected me, it burned like a hornet sting from skin to bone. It was every bit as bad as I had imagined.

Fast forward 25+ years and I’ve outgrown my fear of shots. However, now I’m afraid of the dentist. Last month I was dreading an upcoming dentist appointment and it reminded me of that childhood booster shot.

Suddenly, a thought dawned on me:

I wonder how much pain and stress I suffered from worrying about the shot vs. actually getting the shot?

If you could add up all the physical and emotional pain from dreading the shot vs. getting the shot, what would that look like?

• Dreading the shot: Many hours of worry and stress. Many restless nights. Anxiety at every doctor’s visit. Internal panic before the injection.

• Getting the shot: A few seconds of sharp pain. Some lingering soreness for a day or two afterwards.

As I reflected, I realized something profound: The total cumulative pain from dreading the shot was probably 100x greater than the actual pain of getting the shot.

If you were to compare the two in a graph, it might look like this:

As I thought back, it became clear that I had created most of my pain and suffering, not the shot.

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Beware of the Second Dart

As my realization sunk in, I thought back to a Buddhist concept I’d read about called “the second dart.” Here’s an explanation from Patrik Edblad:

In Buddhism, these unavoidable pains in life are known as ‘first darts.’ These are the darts life throws at us that we can’t do anything about.

But what we can do, is avoid throwing ‘second darts‘ at ourselves. These second darts are our judgments and reactions to the first darts.

For example, let’s say you get a sudden headache. This is the first dart. The second darts come in the form of your thoughts about the situation: ‘Why does this always happen to me?!’, ‘This headache is driving me crazy!!’, ‘I hate this pain!’ and so on.

Each time you buy into these thoughts you make the experience of the headache even worse. You’re putting logs on the fire. Now, it’s not just the pain from the first dart you’re experiencing; you’re also hitting yourself with a bunch of second darts that are causing you to suffer.

Put simply, getting the shot was my first dart, an unavoidable pain of life. But dreading the shot was my second dart, my own self-inflicted stress and worry about the event.

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Give Yourself a “Worry Window”

As I thought back on my years of dreading the shot, I decided I didn’t want to repeat the same mistake with my upcoming dentist appointment. The pain of the event was going to be whatever it was going to be, and any additional worry wasn’t going to change that.

So I made myself a promise:

You can worry about the dentist as much as you want once you arrive at your appointment, step out of the car, and walk towards her office. But until then, you can’t think about it.

Put simply, I gave myself a very tight “worry window,” outside of which I wasn’t allowed to stress about my appointment.

This made a world of difference. Rather than losing sleep leading up to my dental visit, I just kept dismissing my fear by telling myself I was outside my “worry window.” I still worried once I arrived at the dentist’s office, but my stress was a tiny fraction of what it normally would’ve been.

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Life comes with unavoidable physical and emotional pain. That seems to be a non-negotiable part of the deal.

If there’s a painful experience you’re worried about, ask yourself how much pain and stress you’re suffering as a result of your worry vs. the experience itself.

It’s probably OK to worry a little about a big pain. But try not to worry a lot about a small pain. Either way, give yourself a “worry window,” outside of which you’re not allowed to think about the pain.

Put simply: “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.”

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Photo by Christian Erfurt on Unsplash