Worry-free thinking in these worrying times

You can’t tell a worrier to stop worrying. You can’t say to them, “Be mindful of your thoughts. Let them in, and then gently let them go.” It’s not that simple. Worriers will tell you that they have no control over their worried minds. “It’s hereditary,” they say. “It’s an ingrained habit. It’s part of my make-up. I worry a lot. Worry,” they say with a sigh, “is just something I have to live with.”

But is this clinically correct? Are some of us born worriers? And if so, is there nothing to be done to remove the black shadow that worry casts over our lives? Psychology professor Graham Davey at the University of Sussex thinks that worriers do not suffer from a hereditary predisposition for worry. “No, worriers are not born, they are made,” he writes. “There is no evidence that worry is inherited.”

Rather, he argues that worriers can’t stop worrying because they hold delusional beliefs about the self and the world. And unless those delusional beliefs