Illustration: Matija Medved

One Day at a Time

‘Worry About Tomorrow, Tomorrow’

Daily insights on life in the face of uncertainty, by psychiatrist and habit change specialist Dr. Jud Brewer

Welcome to One Day At A Time — a daily column offering science-backed help for living through uncertainty.

I’ve been getting a lot of requests over the past few days for tips on how to balance planning for the future with the uncertainty we all face.

Here’s the science.

Our brains are set up to plan for the future. This helps us survive. When we don’t have enough information to plan, however, we start spinning out in what is called perseveration — a fancy term for our brains getting caught in repetitive thought loops. This is similar to what happens to computers that get overloaded. When your computer doesn’t have enough free space on its hard drive, every little command you give it slows it down, and you get that little spinning wheel that signals processing difficulties.

I’m seeing this “what if” worry loop everywhere these days and I bet you are too.

Our brains do the same thing. When we don’t have enough information, our brains start that “what if” spin-out: what if this happens, what if that happens. Just like that spinning wheel that signals our computer is about to crash, we start to spin out in worry, and when it gets out of control, this worry spins out into panic. And then just like a computer, our brain freezes.

I’m seeing this “what if” worry loop everywhere these days and I bet you are too. My students at Brown University, especially the seniors, are wondering what graduation will look like (it is still up in the air when or if they will return to campus). I was at my local camera store a few weeks ago, and the owner was really afraid that he would go out of business because nobody is coming into his shop.

So how can we keep our brains from spinning out in endless worry loops? I’ll talk more about how worry can become a habit in a later column, but for now let’s jump right to some simple solutions.