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Practice · when worry won't stop
Worries like to turn up anytime: in a meeting, on the bus, just before sleep. You'll set a daily 15-minute worry time, write down today's worries one by one, practise saying "Noted, I'll think about it later", and try one round together.
Stuck at any step? Tap the top-right corner and ask ForestSage.Worry time is a common method in cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), first described by the American psychologist Thomas Borkovec and colleagues in 1983. You set a fixed time and place each day, about 15 minutes, just for worrying; when a worry turns up at other times, you write it down in one line, tell yourself "I'll think about it later", and go back to what you were doing.
It isn't about pushing worries down or banning yourself from thinking. You can still worry; it just moves from "anytime, anywhere" to "a set time, a set place". Borkovec called this stimulus control: once worry is no longer tied to every place and every hour, your mind slowly learns it can put it down the rest of the time. At the slot, you go through the list: cross out what has faded, write a small step for what you can do, and leave what you can't control on the paper.
A recent review pulling together several trials, and newer clinical trials, found that with daily practice over one to four weeks, people spent a little less time worrying and worried a little less often, on average. The effect isn't large, and there isn't yet enough data on how long it lasts, so it takes doing it every day to notice a difference.
This exercise isn't therapy and doesn't replace professional support. If what you're worried about is danger right now, for example someone hurting you, don't save it for later: get help now. If worry has gone on for months, makes everyday life hard to manage, or comes with panic or a mood that keeps sinking, working on it with a counsellor or psychologist will take you further.
The original method has you jot worries down through the whole day, go through them at the slot, and keep it up for one to two weeks. This exercise can only do day one with you; the days after are yours, with your worry time card.
Worry time comes from Borkovec and colleagues' 1983 research on confining worry to a set time and place (they called it "stimulus control"). More recently, a review of several trials by Dippel and colleagues (2023) and a trial by Krzikalla and colleagues (2024) support it for reducing everyday worry.