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Worry eats away at you. Its teeth gnaw, and chew and rip away at your health, your wellbeing, your emotions and your relationships... it makes you feel awful; you struggle to concentrate and it hurts your productivity most of which is unnecessary, because worry can be dealt to.

1. Stop the tape

A common behaviour that feeds worry is letting those tapes in your head run. You imagine all kinds of horrible scenarios, confrontations and consequences all of them are imagined. But they're hard to switch off, aren't they?

You can almost feel your blood beginning to boil or freeze over with anxiety as you imagine each scenario. But why waste your time getting worked up over something that hasn't actually happened? And may never happen?

Writing in Psychology Today, Dr Graham C.L. Davey PH.D, says those 'what if..?' scenarios are almost always unlikely to happen.

"All they do is use up good brain time."

Stop the tape by telling yourself "this is ridiculous or outlandish", and then break the tape by bringing your mind back to focus on the details of the task in front of you. If you're not doing anything, get busy with something.

For example, if you are driving, focus on the road, the sound of the car, the smell of the interior, what other drivers are doing, what they look like, where they may be going. Don't let your mind wander. Bring it back to the nitty gritty of the task sights, sounds, smells, touch...

2. Plan for the worst

In his book, 'How to Stop Worrying and Start Living', Dr Dale Carnegie provides this short formula for dealing with worry.

a. Ask yourself, "What is the worst that can possibly happen?"

b. Prepare to accept it if you have to.

c. Then calmly proceed to improve on the worst.

To "what is the worst that can possibly happen?" you might want to research the consequences so that you are in possession of the facts, rather than what you assume, believe or fear.

Understand what your options in a worst case scenario might be. What choices are available to you? What are your rights? Find other people who may have suffered the consequence themselves and find out how they coped, what they learned.

Then develop a clear plan for how you will improve on the worst.