The Catastrophic Worrier: Why You Worry and How to Stop

by Graham Davey

Do you turn all your molehills into insurmountable mountains? This accessible and engaging book will guide you along the path to stop catastrophizing so that you can reclaim control, achieve your goals, and live a happier life. Is your worrying keeping you up all night, eroding your self-confidence, paralyzing your ability to make decisions, and harming your physical health? Excessive worrying is a problem that affects everyone at some point in their lives, but for some people it can become a lifelong affliction. Catastrophic worry can turn even imagined setbacks into a cascade of devastating events, impacting your sleep, self-confidence, decision making, problem solving, ability to cope, and overall health. So, how can you put an end to this worst-case habit? In this guide, leading worry expert Graham Davey explains the science of why we worry, and offers a clear path to stopping catastrophic worry so you can regain control and live a happier life. Focusing first on the psychological processes that contribute to catastrophizing, you’ll gain a solid, research-based understanding of where your worry comes from, with insight into how it can snowball. You’ll also learn how to assess your own level of catastrophic worrying, and find exercises that directly address those processes to help you establish healthy habits, manage your mood and anxiety, and make decisions with confidence. With these easy-to-follow tips and exercises for letting go of anxiety, lifting your mood, and managing your catastrophizing, you’ll learn how to live with uncertainty and embrace a life free of unnecessary worry.

Genres: Self Help, Nonfiction, Mental Health, Audiobook

224 pages, Paperback

Published January 2, 2023

Reviews

[Pauline Stout · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don’t read much self help usually but I suffer from generalized anxiety disorder so when I saw this title up for download on Netgalley I had to pick it up to see what it was all about. The basics of this book is explaining what worrying is, why people might worry and what might lead them to catastrophic worry, the difference between anxiety and worry, and different things that a person can do to mitigate their catastrophic worry habits. Each chapter has an introduction and conclusion section and they all have workbook sections so you can practice whatever technique is being taught in any given chapter.

I really liked the first part of this book. The explanations of worry, what might lead a person to worry were well written and interesting. I liked the summaries at the end of the chapter. And some of the workbook sections seem to be genuinely helpful. My interest ironically went rapidly downhill once it got to the mitigation part. A shocking amount of the ways to help with chronic worry involve toxic positivity and I’m just not here for it. Telling someone to remind them selves that other people have things worse, things will eventually get better, and whatever their worrying about will be fine in the end sound good at first but they aren’t going to actually help anyone. I really wish the book had talked more about worry mitigation in terms of GAD as people with that are going to need this advice way more than the average person.

Overall while I do think some of the exercises can be helpful I’m not sure if I recommend the book. Very slight recommendation if the later parts with toxic positivity don’t bother you too much but if it does I would avoid this.

[Sabrina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I worry about everything or so I thought until I read this book. I have anxiety and I worry about a lot of things and always thought those were the same thing. After reading this book I’ve learned that they are in fact not the same and are pretty different. My worry is a lot of “what if…” type scenarios that I definitely need to work on. I’m a planner! I plan everything, so when a problem arises and I’m unable to take care of it right away I begin to worry. If I know I have a Dr appt or I have to speak publicly at a big gathering my anxiety flares up instantly. I get red splotches all over my face and neck and my chest feels tight. When I worry the tightness in my chest is there but also in my stomach because I just feel like something is going to go wrong. It’s funny because worrying is something that can be avoided. Don’t worry about things you can’t change or things that haven’t even happened yet. We will worry and then whatever we were worrying about won’t happen and we just go about our day. If we worry and it actually happens we justify it by saying “see I knew I needed to worry about that and look it happened”. It just becomes a vicious cycle and it’s exhausting. I’ll be definitely putting in more effort to eliminate my worrying.

[Holly · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book more engaging than I expected. Initially a bit preachy, it gradually shifted my focus to my own tendencies towards worry, offering practical coping strategies. The format, with exercises and self-help tools, would likely be more helpful in print than as an audiobook. One enlightening takeaway was realizing the potential benefits of worry, tempered by the importance of avoiding catastrophizing. This perspective made me reassess how worry has positively influenced me in certain situations.

[James S. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty decent introduction to the concept of catastrophic worry. The author provides many practical tips and helpful ways of coping with stress. Some chapters are repetitive or uninteresting, but overall I learned some useful perspectives from this book. For instance, I found the author's differentiation between anxiety and worry useful. He advocates not worrying (ie, problem solving) when you're anxious, since the ongoing anxiety will be an ongoing signal to your body that you need to keep worrying, keeping the cycle going.

[Kimberly Barnes · Rating 4 out of 5]

The act of worrying affects so many people today. This book provides helpful tips and strategies on how to recognize excessive worrying and how to mitigate these thoughts. The first part of the book focuses on the explanation of worrying and where it comes from. The second part of the book targets why you worry and how to stop worrying. Some of the tips provided included: improving your mood, incorporating mindfulness exercises, accepting your anxiety, understanding that your anxiety cannot hurt you. There are handouts and worksheets provided in the book that are quite helpful in trying to improve your worrying habit. This book was easy to understand, and provided strategies in a way that they can be easily implemented. Thank you the publisher and NetGalley for the advance review copy of the book in exchange for my honest review.

[Morgan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I accessed a digital review copy of this book from the publisher.
This book covers the elements of extreme worrying. There are some good points and some bad ones. The beginning, which describes why a person worries, is good and helpful. This helps with recognizing symptoms and working against them. The second half, with some of its suggestions on how to stop, is not good. While reminding yourself that others have things worse can help bring you out of worry, everyone experiences things differently.
This is useful for the beginning, but it is best to read the second half with a more skeptical view.

[wonderfullyweird88 · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author offers numerous practical tips and effective strategies for managing stress. While some chapters feel repetitive or less engaging, I still gained valuable insights from the book overall..

The psycho education provided on worry and anxiety we're very helpful the workbook section itself had a healthy emphasis on positivity which is not often helpful in anxiety.

This is a helpful resource to learn more about anxiety it does offer very little in the way of practical helpful advice that people can use without the aid of a therapist.

I received an arc of this book in exchange for an honest review all thoughts and opinions on my own.

[Shelby]

RIYL Freedom from Health Anxiety: Understand and Overcome Obsessive Worry about Your Health or Someone Else’s and Find Peace of Mind

[Gary · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first half of this book is really good and helped me get a better understanding of catastrophic worrying. The second half just feels very repetitive and a bit preachy. There are some useful understandings to help you get a better idea of your level of catastrophic worrying but I didn’t care for the “solutions” the author offered. Reminding yourself that people have it worse or that tomorrow is another day with a sticky note on a bathroom mirror isn’t at all effective to me.

[Ala · Rating 5 out of 5]

A valuable read for any type of worrier. With practical tips and exercises to open our eyes to the deeper mechanics of our worrying mind, which makes the unentanglement process a bit more rational.
Being a life time worrier, for different self rectified reasons, isn't easy to give up. But after reading this book, I think my mind is momentarily is put to ease.

[Candy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Filled with practical strategies...

[Ella · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author suggests many interesting reflection points

[Daja · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quick read with some great tips and exercises

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

a look at worrying and the ways we use it and strategies to unlearn it.

[Elisabeth Valienne · Rating 4 out of 5]

A solid guide to worry and worrying! I learned a lot about the difference between worry and anxiety, and really found a lot of helpful information in this book.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Listened to on Libby.

I thought there was a lot of interesting information about worry and anxiety. Some was kinda boring, hence the 4 star instead of 5 but most was interesting new facts.

[Summer✨ · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think about this book often even after finishing it for a while. Super interesting and something I think many people should visit.