Worry time: put your worries off until later

How worry time works

Worry time is a fixed 15 minutes each day that belongs to your worries. When a worry turns up at another moment, you write it down in a few words and leave it for later. When the time comes, you sit down with the list and think each one through properly. By then some will have shrunk, and you can act on a few of the others. The rest waits for tomorrow.

The idea goes back to a 1983 study with students who worried a lot. The ones who saved their worries for one set half hour a day said they spent less of their day worrying.¹

Does worry time actually work?

A little, in small studies. After two weeks of half an hour a day in the same place, 53 people who worried a lot were worrying less, feeling less tense and sleeping somewhat better than a group who were only told not to push their worries away.² Their low moods, though, lifted no more than the other group’s.

Why a set time can help

Worry spreads. If you worry on the bus, at your desk and in bed, each of those places starts to bring the worry back by itself. Giving it one time and one chair shrinks the number of places that can set it off.²

There’s a second reason. A lot of worries are about things that never happen. Lucas LaFreniere and Michelle Newman had 29 heavy worriers write their worries down for ten days and then check what came of them. About 9 in 10 of those worries didn’t come true.⁴ Waiting a few hours gives you a chance to notice that for yourself.

Choosing your 15 minutes

• Same time and, if you can, the same chair every day. Late afternoon or early evening is easy to keep.
• Keep it well away from bedtime, so you’re done thinking before you lie down.
• When a worry shows up during the day, write it down in a few words, then go back to what you were doing.
• When the 15 minutes are up, stop, even if a stone is left. It can come back tomorrow.

The slow minute at the end

The last minute of worry time is for slow breathing, mostly so the list has a clear end. Breathing slowly, under about 10 breaths a minute, tends to leave people calmer and more relaxed when it is tested in a lab.⁵ A month-long trial put it next to meditation: five minutes a day of breathing with long breaths out lifted people’s mood more than the same time spent on mindfulness meditation.⁶

The 4, 7, 8 count is a popular version with a long hold in the middle. The studies here tested slow breathing in general, not that exact count, so pick whichever feels easier. If holding your breath makes you light-headed, stay with the first one.

Published 23 October 2026.