For me there's a difference between (semi-)productive worry, where I am making plans and where my concerns are motivating me to concrete actions, and anxiety, where I have trouble thinking, or taking any sort of productive action, because I'm too busy going around and around and around on the Carousel of Angst and Fear at the Doom Carnival.
I use prayer as a coping technique -- specifically, when I'm riding on the worry-go-round, repetitive prayer gives my brain something else to do for a while, and that in particular can help it to jump out of the track it's in. It works first and foremost because of the distraction technique; I think reciting poetry would probably also do that. I use a prayer that I personally find comforting in a "all right, now someone else is on this, too, so I can relax a little bit" sort of way; if there are any prayers that make you feel that way, they would be good ones to choose.
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Date: 2008-11-26 05:23 am (UTC)I use prayer as a coping technique -- specifically, when I'm riding on the worry-go-round, repetitive prayer gives my brain something else to do for a while, and that in particular can help it to jump out of the track it's in. It works first and foremost because of the distraction technique; I think reciting poetry would probably also do that. I use a prayer that I personally find comforting in a "all right, now someone else is on this, too, so I can relax a little bit" sort of way; if there are any prayers that make you feel that way, they would be good ones to choose.