Worry Less, Live More Mindfully This New Year

What if the thought that keeps looping in your head didn’t run your day or your night? We open up about the hidden cost of worry, from the quiet minutes it steals each evening to the long stretches of joy it erodes over years. With clear, simple language and real-life stories, we show how to notice the useful signal inside anxiety, act on what you can, and then set the rest aside so you can live well right now.

We dig into practical tools you can use tonight. Think of your mind like a playlist: when a bad track comes on, you skip it. We share how to do that with thoughts interrupt rumination, redirect attention, and create calming rituals that tell your nervous system it’s safe to rest. From symbolic “worry containers” like a folded handkerchief or a small doll under the pillow, to journaling that ends with a closed notebook and a plan for tomorrow, these small acts build a powerful habit of mental boundaries.

The conversation goes deeper with a vulnerable health story: how to stay present through a loved one’s diagnosis without letting fear swallow the good moments in between. We talk about day-by-day thinking, matching your effort to what you can control, and protecting spaces—especially your bedroom—as sanctuaries. You’ll also hear why helping others, even in small ways, can shrink your own anxiety, and how to reclaim mental storage the way you’d free space on your phone.

If you’re ready to stop rehearsing worst-case scenarios and start choosing what gets your attention, this episode offers compassionate guidance and actionable steps. Listen, try one tool tonight, and tell us what shifts for you. If this resonated, follow the show, leave a review, and share it with someone who could use a gentler mind today.

Chapters

• 0:00 Worry’s Hidden Cost
• 2:00 From Anxiety To Action
• 3:15 The Mind As A Playlist
• 6:00 When Small Fears Spiral
• 8:45 Nighttime Worry Rituals
• 11:30 Journaling, Memories, And Control
• 15:00 Reclaiming Space In Your Mind
• 17:30 Helping Others To Ease Anxiety
• 19:20 Sanctuary Sleep And Boundaries
• 21:10 Day‑By‑Day Thinking
• 22:30 Health Scares And Staying Present
• 25:00 Enjoying The Moment Without Fear

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Worrying. I think worrying takes up so much of our time every day, and we don't really realise how much it's actually robbing us of our lives. Yeah, and it takes up so much mental space as well. It's like our mind can be so full of worry that we don't have time for other things, and we literally can't have it. Most of us can think of one thing that we worry about every day. Yes. The same thing. And if you add that up over in the next five years or ten years, you know how many it might it might have taken a whole year away for your life. I know, just worrying about it. Yeah, something that you you really I mean, worrying in per se is okay if you if you think, oh, okay, I've had like a warning, it's like a little timer that goes off. But then how long do we have to worry about it? How long? So that's what we're going to be chatting about in this week's episode on Get Real with the English sisters. Join us and thank you so much for always subscribing and following the show. Showing us, yeah. And do come and say hi on Instagram too, where you can have all the latest updates. And come watch us on YouTube where you can see the video. Stella's got our shiny browsies on, haven't we? We do, yes, indeed. We do have our shiny browsers for the new year. Yes, the new year. Still keeping joy. I'm not going to worry as much. No, that's a good, good New Year's resolution, definitely. Because I found in my personal life. Yeah, me too. The more I worry, I mean, most things I worry about, they don't even they don't come true. Most of the stuff. Yeah, then afterwards when you you actually think why did I worry so much about it? When the time comes, you think, oh gosh, that wasn't even worth it. Yeah. Most of the time it wasn't worth the worry. I mean, is it ever worth worrying about something? I don't think complete worrying. I think when the thought comes in your mind that you're worried about something, then you say it's time to take action action about it. Yeah, yeah. That's when you have to take action. And if there is something you can do about it, well then you do it. You do it, yeah. But then the worst thing is when you don't do it and you just continue worrying about it. Yeah, and sometimes there's nothing you can do about it because it's a health issue, or it's something that you cannot address that in that day, or it's a fight you've had with someone and you can't solve it, so there's no point worrying about it. You think I'll do it tomorrow, and you just go and do it, and you say sorry, or you it's easier said than done, though, isn't it? We do know it's so easy, but it's all about being in the present moment again. It is we have to take charge of our own minds, we have to be able to direct our minds into a more uh helpful state of mind for ourselves that's what we're doing. I'm thinking of one of the um the the short stories we wrote in stress-free in three minutes in our book, and it's a your favourite playlist. Would you put worry into your favourite playlist? Would you put a song into your favourite playlist that you hated or that made you worry? That made you feel ill every time physically, mentally. If you think of your thoughts like a playlist, why on earth would you torture yourself with something you did not enjoy listening to? I think the answer is people say, I don't want to torture myself, but that thought just keeps on coming up, and there is nothing I can do about it. That's what people would say. That's where you're wrong, because there is something you can do about it, you can make it stop, just like you would stop at a red light and you wouldn't go through it. Yes, that's right. You can make it stop, or you can stop the if you if the when I'm listening to a playlist, if I'm listening to some music and then suddenly something else comes on I don't like, I stop it. Yes, and I put a I change it to the music that I like, which at the moment is Taylor Swift. Right, it could be anybody, it could be anybody I go back to who I want to listen to, so you can do the same with your own mind. You can't just let your mind go nuts on you, run loose and just go wild, because then if you're if you start worrying about one thing, what happens is other things will pop up. Your your brain will start focusing on everything that's like concerning to you at the moment. So you've got uh economical issues, and then maybe some health issues, and then maybe family issues, and it can all add up, and all this worrying ultimately in the end, it it's well like that like the other day. Remember the other day some insect beat your husband, yeah, and he started staring at and really worrying about it. Yeah, he was worries, it was a worry, but so then I got bitten. I got bitten a few days after recently, and I was looking at it and it was getting me worried, just like what happened to Georgia. Yeah, and I was thinking, here I am worrying about this. This silly thing stop it, put the cream on it, take an antihistamine, and you're going to be fine. Yeah, it's nothing. It's nothing, you were worried because you got stung by the bees. Yeah, and I had an allergic reaction. I know, but I just think it's our minds just go to these places. Yes, and if you do not know how to control them and put them in check of your own mind, you will be in trouble. You will be in trouble, and a lot of the times these things happen just when you want to rest the most. Oh my god your brain will start when you want to go to sleep, and you want to have a good night's sleep. So, how can you like if you you know what would you say? How can you the other day I was watching the uh the Empress and they came up with these and they came up with these worry dolls, and apparently they originated in um Guatemala and little children, they're given to little children, and they they're cute, cute as anything, little dolls, they're nothing to do with anything, you know, bad. And that you have this little doll and you you tell your worry to the doll, and then you put it under your pillow. Oh, that's so strange. And then that's it. So so so what you're free of your worry. So, what you can do with your mind, as we as we've learned, right, as a hypnotherapist, is you can say to your worry, I've heard you, I'm listening to you. It's okay, you're gonna be okay. We're gonna deal with it. We'll deal with it if we can, like tomorrow, if it's a health issue, if it's possible, I'll make an appointment. Or I'll I'll I'll do something I have to do if I have to do it, if I don't, and it's just waiting, because a lot of the time with health if issues, you know, it is just a or you put them off, so then if you find yourself putting stuff off, you can you can ask for help. So you can ask a friend or a family member, you can say, Look, I'm I'm I'm procrastinating, I'm worried about this thing, but I'm not finding it really difficult and I'm procrastinating with it. Can you have procrastinating it? Can you help me? Like, can you you know check on me, check up on me, and either help me do make the phone call or make the appointment or you know, ask me if I've done it so that I'll do it. And because sometimes we just we're like these people, we're not computers. No, we're not. We're not well, we are in a way, yeah, because you can program your mind only if you know how to. Only if you know how to have the tools, absolutely, yes. It's all a question of knowing so I mean it we're adults, so we don't have these little dolls, or maybe we still do if you if you belong to that culture and you uh you can buy them online, really, yes. The little tiny little uh traditional little dolls, or you can make them if you like making stuff, and you place all your worries into that little doll and you yeah, you have one for each worry, but I would just have one for all of them. Yeah, seems easier, but the the actual symbolism of it is that you are putting them away, aren't you? Yeah, yeah, or sometimes if you're like you like crystals or you like you've got a little favourite thing that you like, a little soft toy or anything. I would just say, you know, use the the um or a power of prayer, you know. If you're religious, wonderful, you know, you you send off that prayer and you can you can sort of like help yourself relieve yourself of some of your worries. So let them be, so that you can let them be for the evening, for the night. Put them to one side. Yeah, I think that's where journaling helps, because you can write it in your journal and then you say, Okay, tomorrow I'll and you close the diary to sleep. We used to do that when we were little, didn't we? We would write a diary. Yeah, our mothers used our mum's. I would never I would always edit it there. Because you were scared somebody would read it. Yeah, yeah. Somebody was true. Who would ever read it? Nobody, but you just it was just me and you. I would certainly not go snooping into your diary. I was not interested and not would have read it, but I don't know, it's just these things. I I wouldn't actually really say what I've really felt. I do. If I look through my diaries though, I would worry a lot. You know, I would write down my worries. Oh, I'm so worried about my math test. I'm so I worried about it. I would write things like that. I'm worried. I would say things like that, but I mean, really, I suppose really personal things I wouldn't write just in case someone read them. Yes, obviously, yeah. If it was something really personal, what can be that person when you're a tiny, you know, when you're like nine? I wrote them till I was older. Yes, yes, so did I actually. Yeah, yeah, but so did I. Didn't know it is when I was nine. No, no, you're right. No, it's true. If you need to read now, if you have to go and have a look at them and see what I but I used to mostly write how how gr gre it was a bit like a gratitude journal. Really most of the time I would say how grateful I was, how much I loved my family, my husband. When you were older, when I was older, always. Like I said, teenager. Teenager, I can't remember, I'd have to go and have a look. But I do remember worrying about people reading them. Yes, that was so that's another worry that you don't want to add on to the worry list. Yeah. If I just told a little doll, it would have probably been better. Really? Yeah, yeah, because the doll's not gonna say anything, is it? We did actually used to sleep with our dolls, didn't we? All of them. Yeah, none of them would be left out. No, the bed would be covered in them, and they were hard, like that the they were like hard plastic. These lovely soft ones. No, no. Even the actual like teddy bears, you know, I remember quite tough. They were quite in our days, they weren't like lovely and soft and plush like they are. No, they were quite hard, they had like hard little arms and wirings, and they used to stick all over you, but you'd stuff them all in under the bed covers. I remember, you know, every single toy I ever put. But we would get cold. Yes, if we didn't. Yeah. It was probably a way of having comfort as well from them, from the dolls. Sometimes it's pretty uncomfortable. It was uncomfortable. I do remember the little I remember my doll that was big and hard. It was a doll I'm talking about. It was it was yeah, the wig. This gets worse. It was when we were little, when we were little we we used to play with. This is getting six, we had dollies at the end in those days, and that not so much now. There was barbies as well. But barbies are pretty tough, are they? They were tough little to use the same word. No, they were tough and uh it was it was difficult. It was difficult sleeping with them because I remember they would take two ages to warm up. It was cold for ages because the rooms were cold, so we didn't have central heating when we were really tiny. No, but later on we did, but they were still cold. Well, but I remember when we used to sleep, but then we didn't have central heating. Really? Central heating came when we were quite older. Oh goodness me. I can't remember the days before central heating. Oh I can, it's bloody freezing. Was it? I just can't remember that. Was it that room with the wallpaper? We had that green flower. We have central heating in there. How on earth would the rooms wear? Freezing cold. Did we have like an electric little heater or something? Nothing. Gosh, it must have been freezing. No wonder people used to have to wear hats in bed. Like the woolly hats and things. Did we have hats? We didn't have hats, but I don't know what we had, but I think we I don't think we had a central. I think we might have had a radiator in the room. Yeah, I think so. We had electric radiators and things. There must have been something in there to warm up that house because the house was big. It must have got really cold. I do remember the the big, you know, big deal about this central heating. Central heating was a big deal. That mum and dad made a big deal about it, and there was this boiler room upstairs. Yeah, then the man came and put all the radiators. Oh, yeah, I remember that. Kind of a bit younger. Obviously, I was a year younger, and I just probably didn't didn't remember it. Yeah. I do remember the house feeling nice and cozy afterwards, though. Oh gosh. What a different thing. We were just used to cooler temperatures. Yeah. I mean the babies used to see like uh like my husband, his his sister, who was who's uh like 15 years older than he is or 20, 20 years old. Much older. When she had her children, she remembers that they used to sleep in woolly hats and coats. The babies. The babies would be all wrapped up like as if they were in the house. What about you would put the prams outside to let them sleep in the in the garden? Yeah. You would actually put babies and let them sleep, especially if it was a nice cool, you know, no, not cool. It wasn't like a nice winter's day, even in the winter though, you would put the baby outside. Yeah. I remember mum, she would sometimes leave, you know, we would she was a childminder and she would look after a lot like five babies at a time, and then one would always be parked like outside the front door. And and you know, you're just sleeping. That sounds terrible. Sounds terrible, but it was like the fresh air. She was like, Well, it's a lot of things. That's what they do in Sweden or something, or in Denmark, in these Nordic countries, they all leave them outside in the freezing cold. Yeah, because they're all wrapped up in their yeah, they they're all super wrapped up and everything, but yeah, so obviously it was different times anyway. We are going off topic here, but anyway. What's the point of worrying about worry? Yeah, exactly. You know, worry think about better things. Yeah, if you think you have, you know, your mind, your mind needs space, it needs to be freed up, it's like all cluttered with worry. It's like your iPhone space or your your whatever it is space, your computer space. You it needs to be freed up so that you can have space for things that you really want to think about and enjoy and listen to. I think and I think a lot of the worry is like past worries, it's it's it's things that aren't that they don't even concern you in the in the future. They're like regrets that turn into because it's uh you regret, and then you worry about the regret of not doing it. There is, you know, you are taking up valuable space in your mind, which you could be enjoying yourself or helping other people. I mean a lot of the times by helping others, you feel less worried about your own anxieties, yeah. And it's extraordinary how that works, and that's why volunteering is a really good idea as well to help relieve that. Well, doing something you feel as if you're helping people with you know, yeah, yeah, obviously, yeah, even if it's not volunteering, if it's helping your neighbour or you think you're being useful to to to whoever, yeah. Your family, your friends, uh whatever it is, it makes you feel less anxious as well. So, whatever it is, so even as you know, we may not have the little worry dolls, but we can sort of like pretend and get rid of that worry. Yeah, I mean you can even just hold a little handkerchief in your hand or something and say, Okay, I'm gonna put this under my pillow, a tissue. Heck, put your worry in there under the pillow, under the pillow, or you know, in another room. I would say keep it at bay, flush it down the top. That's why you have to have your like I think the your the room you sleep in has to be a bit of a sanctuary design. So you have to leave you the world to our kind outside of it, and so that you go. I mean, I love my bed, I absolutely love it. You know, it's like my sanctuary, it's just I love that's why everything around it, you know. I have to make it that that's why I'm obsessed with the bed linen and everything, it's it's always my happy place. The minute I enter it, I feel oh yeah, I love it. That's nice, yeah. I really do, and I you don't, you don't you don't love it as much. I like it. I like going to sleep in it and doing things in it, but the the the the actual bed. The I don't spend a lot of time in my bed like you do. No. I go to bed at twelve o'clock or when one o'clock in the morning, or if I've a set an earlier bedtime, which now I tend to go to bed a bit earlier, like at eleven. Yeah. Cause it's 'cause if you go to bed too late, then you want to get up late. Since we I work online and I've got I don't with people, I don't want to get it makes me get up earlier if I go to bed earlier. Well, of course it does, yeah. That that makes sense. So you mean you don't want to get up too early? I do want to get up earlier now in the winter. Oh, right, okay. You want to have a longer day. I want to be sunny outside. We're lucky it's mostly sunny. Yeah, me too. So I want to see. Even like on my Sunday, I want to like enjoy my Sunday. Yeah, I think, oh no, it's all I used to want to sleep in more, and I didn't care about the light so much, but now I'm older, I like to see the light more. You did care about the light, you were always moaning about how early it was and how dark it was. In the evenings, but I didn't care if I slept in till twelve or something. Well, really? Yeah, I used to sleep in low. I remember always caring about that. Maybe you would even I always used to sleep in till eleven or twelve, I didn't care. Yeah, I always used to get a headache too much and I'd be annoyed. Yeah. If I sleep in too much and if I got a headache, I don't get headaches. Oh no, yeah. Because you don't sleep in that much, probably. Yeah. And you No, but sometimes I do. I do recuperate. Like if I've been out on a night on a night out, if we've been out, I do sleep in. I do off you see ten, eleven. I suppose if you go to bed at two or three in the morning, you're eight, seven, eight hours. Yeah, absolutely. It is. So is that what you do to control your worry at night? What do you do? I try not to worry and at all about things now. Yeah. I've I've become very phys philosophical about things and I just think uh if there's something I can do about it, I'll do do do it, and I don't I don't go to the worst situation, like the worst scenario. I think I'm like worried out. I've done so much worry in the past. Goodness me, yeah. That uh now, especially with health and that, I just take it very just one day at a time kind of thing. I'm not gonna I mean I have any reasons to worry now with my son's you know health. Yeah, but even with them, like before, I would have been worry sick about your sons, and now I I don't worry like that. I just no, thank goodness you did use to worry. I used to be so empathetic about people, and I'd worry more than necessary about other people as well and about their health. Oh, and how I I don't do that anymore. No, thank goodness. Oh yes, absolutely. And in the end, most of it turns out it's always okay, and if it isn't, there's nothing you can do about it anyway. That's life, so I must say, yeah, that is true. Yeah, I even though, like you know, I've had my son's diagnosis, he's has he's been di recently been diagnosed with bladder cancer, and that was pretty scary, really, really scary as a mum. He's so young, he's 27, and I thought, gosh, how am I gonna ever overcome this worry now? And it's just constant because then it's another test, and then he has to do, you know, it's just but I've managed to somehow somehow take it day by day, you know, and and and sort of live from from my health experience as well. Just understand that you know these things are what they are. They're transitory as well, aren't they? I I hope they're transitory and I hope they go away, and I mean he's had an he's had an operation and everything, and but then you it is easy to go down that spiral, isn't it? With things like cancer, you know, you worry and worry and worry, you can go down. So, but I I've managed to put it like uh to one side and only think about it when it's necessary. When he comes and he talks to me about it, then I'll think about it, or when it's the next test or something. But I've managed to somehow separate things in my mind so I can still have a lovely hot chocolate and really enjoy that hot chocolate without it overtaking. I think it's something I have learned to do, it's something, it's a skill. It is a skill. You learn how to do this through things that happen to you in life, yeah, and through the tools that you have. Obviously, yes, yes, through the tools, yeah. Uh absolutely. Yeah, you have to go, you have to do it, don't you? You you think how else would you manage to do it? Well, yeah. You otherwise you don't you don't manage that. Well, you said it's not easy to do these things, you know with loved ones, with yourself, with with you know anybody else, you you end up just having a whole day of worry, and what's the point? There is absolutely nothing that you can do most of the time. You can follow the doctor's orders and everything, but that's it. Then you your your duty is to live your life, your life, and the thing with worry as well, it's if you if you're worried about they say if you're worried about your son, you're not able to enjoy your son as he is now. No, it's always thinking about it. It's always just worrying about something that might not even happen. Another test. When is the next test? So you're not you're like you're like stealing the moment away. It is difficult to do, I must admit. It's harder when it is one of your kids, you know, that is affected. It is is tough, however, it is possible to do, and I am living proof of this, it really is possible. So you can do it, you can put aside, you can enjoy yourself as well, and you know, keep things separate, I think, yeah, and not go down the spiral, yes, yes, and I think everyone has their own journey as well. So if we if if you're a person that's very empathetic and you're taking on everyone else's problems and journeys, it's gonna be far too much for you to handle and it's not a good thing. It's really it's just you just have to be like thinking, I'm just uh I'm just just free and like just now in the moment. Am I okay right now in the moment, sitting on this chair talking to you? Yeah, yeah, fine. Well, there's nothing. Uh otherwise you're like you're always in the future. But also you're like imprisoning yourself, you're like in like enslaving yourself in in this thing that's not even real. So like you're incarcerating yourself in a thought that's not even real. It's an imaginary thought that you're not, you know, who would you be without that thought? You would be you would be free. You would be free without that thought. So absolutely to free yourselves, free yourselves from worry. Free yourselves from worry and obviously take the necessary actions that you need to take and just be joyful. Absolutely. See you next week. Next week, next episode. Lots of love and smiles from there. English sisters. Bye bye bye.