Worry refers to the thoughts, images, emotions, and actions of a negative nature in a repetitive, uncontrollable manner that results from a proactive cognitive risk analysis made to avoid or solve anticipated potential threats and their potential consequences. Introduction
Psychologically, worry is part of
Perseverative Cognition (a collective term for continuous thinking about negative events in the past or in the future). As an emotion "worry" is experienced from anxiety or concern about a real or imagined issue, often personal issues such as health or finances, or external broader issues such as environmental pollution, social structure or technological change. It is a natural response to anticipated future problems. Excessive worry is a primary diagnostic feature of generalized anxiety disorder, but also is pervasive in other psychological disorders, like schizophrenia. Most people experience short-lived periods of worry in their lives without incident; indeed, a mild amount of worrying have positive effects, if it prompts people to take precautions (e.g., fastening their seat belt or buying insurance) or avoid risky behaviors (e.g., angering dangerous animals, or binge drinking), but with excessive worrisome people they overestimate future dangers in their assessments and in its extremities tend to magnify the situation as a dead end which results stress. Overestimation happens because analytic resources are a combination of external locus of control, personal experience and belief fallacies.
At a pre-conscious level, these processes influence the competition among mental representations in which some correspond to the assertive power of worry with impaired cognitive process and others to the preventive power of worry with attentional control or exhaustive vigilance. The biases determine threatening degree and nature of worry content the worrier attempts to resolve the perceived threat and the redirection of anticipations, responses and coping in such situations.There are some who respond to mental representations in an uncertain or ambiguous state in regard to the stressful or upsetting event. In this state the worrier is held in a perpetual state of worry. This is because availability of an overwhelming number(maybe 2 or 3, depending upon the worry-prone individual) of possibilities of outcomes which can be generated, it puts the worrier in a threatening crisis and they focus their attentional control voluntarily on the potential negative outcomes, whereas others engage in a constructive problem solving manner and in a benign approach rather than to engage with heightened anticipation on the possible negative outcome. Philosophical perspectives
Greek thinkers such as stoic philosopher Epictetus and Seneca advised against worry. Albert Ellis, the creator of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy, was inspired by the Stoics’ therapeutic ideas. Religious perspectives
The biblical word used in Hebrew for worry (Hebrew: דָּאַג, daag) regards worry as a combined form of fear and sorrow which affects nephesh, the totality of our being. The bible takes a fortitude-strengthening approach regarding worrying e.g.