Why worrying about most things is a useless waste of energy.

Humans are prone to worrying. Farmers can spend hours discussing the weather and worry if there will be enough or too much rain. Mothers and fathers worry about their children. Students worry about their grades and their future career prospects. In business, the Human Resources department worries about getting payroll done on time, and the Production department worries about getting the projects finished. 

Worrying about most of these things is a useless waste of energy. Generally, psychologists believe people often worry about things that don’t exist and might never happen, like not finishing payroll or a project, or someone you love having a horrible accident or disease. 

People also worry about things they can’t control, like the weather or a weak job market. Worrying can keep you from living your life to the fullest. It robs you of the time and energy you could otherwise use to learn, improve, and grow to overcome obstacles.When you worry, you feel like you are doing something and being productive, but the only action you’re taking is focusing your attention on a problem you can’t solve. When you shift your focus from what you can control to worrying about what you can’t, you waste time and energy. Added to that, worrying can create physical, emotional, and mental problems that require even more of your attention.

Worrying Wastes Physical Energy
Scientists have studied how the body reacts to the stress created by worrying. Stress increases the amount of cortisol in the body. Cortisol is a hormone that helps your body prepare for a fight, but too much cortisol over a long period can drain your energy and health. Because of the elevated levels of cortisol, constant worrying increases your risk of heart disease, digestive problems, and anxiety and depression. Developing these conditions then requires even more energy for your body to fight the effects of the disease. 

Worry can also cause muscle tension and headaches, disrupting your life, and making you feel tired and physically weak. Worry may also affect your sleep by keeping you awake at night. Without proper rest, your body becomes tired, and you become less productive during the day. All the physical energy that worrying wastes can lead to significant disruptions and serious medical conditions. In turn, dealing with these new issues wastes even more of your time and energy. 


Worry Wastes Emotional Energy
When you worry, you often get caught up in your thoughts and emotions. Worrying can make you afraid, irritable, useless, and sad. Instead of working through these emotions, constant worry amplifies them. These negative emotional responses can also complicate your life even further by upsetting and hurting the people around you. Displaying negative emotions can damage your relationships with others, adding to your stress.


Worry Wastes Mental Energy
Worry is misplaced attention. With your attention focused on things you can’t control; you may find it hard to concentrate on the things you could and should be doing to improve your life. The human brain is not designed for multi-tasking. 
Although people think they are multi-tasking, their minds can only process so much information at once. Details often get lost when you have too much happening around you because you can’t focus on everything at once. 
Focusing all your attention on worry doesn’t allow for the mental energy and focus needed to solve problems instead of worrying about them.

When you’re facing a difficult challenge, the best course of action is to research your options, weigh the risks, and plan for contingencies. If you’re worried about a problem instead of being focused on the possible solutions, you may find it difficult to decide what to do. You will waste your time and energy and may miss opportunities if you can’t decide how to proceed. 

Worrying about most things wastes physical, emotional, and mental energy. Worrying can also lead to additional problems with your health and relationships and cause you to miss opportunities to succeed. 

Worry really is a useless waste of energy. `