Why setting aside time to worry might be a good thing

Why do we need to sleep?

What makes us laugh?

Why do we have superstitions?
This week author Matthew Johnstone argues we should have a set time every day to worry about out problems.

“My idea to change the world and improve the world that we live in is to create a place and a time to worry. And this could be a dedicated time at 10 in the morning or 3 in the afternoon we could have it in our afternoons, have it in our parks, have it in our public places.

One of the ideas it could be instituted by is all the screens on our phones, on our computers on our TVs would go blank and a little sign could come up and say ‘It is time to worry’. And then for about five minutes we can just purge ourselves of all our worrying thoughts that are hanging over us like bad smells, and we can really well on that worry. And then at the end of that five minutes there’d be a little chime and we can go back to our day-to-day basis.

The thoughts about this really is to run towards our fears and embrace them rather than running away from them all the time.”

You can listen to Matthew discuss his idea with Indian psychiatrist Vikram Patel and psychotherapist Gwen Adshead more detail on the BBC World Service programme The Forum, where you can also download more 60-second ideas.

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