Productive worry helps us regarding what we can actually do. It helps us focus on what our options are and what we can do to find solutions, and to move toward those solutions. So productive worry is good worry that moves us toward action.
Non-productive worry keeps us stuck in circular worry and fears about all the "what-ifs" that could happen. It never moves us towards any solution-oriented action. With non-productive worry we are worrying just for the sake of worry itself and not for any other useful reason. Many times non-productive worry doesn't move us toward any sort of action or solution. So we ruminate around in worry because we think the worry itself is somehow productive.
Productive worry leads to problem solving, but non-productive worry just leads to more worrying. Sometimes we may feel that our non-productive worry is so important that we feel irritable if anyone tries to interrupt our worry process. We might find it hard to fall asleep during non-productive worry because the brain thinks it must figure something out before it can allow the body to relax. But with non-productive worry there isn't anything to figure out.
So the goal is not to stop worrying, it's to recognize when your worry is productive and serving a real purpose for you, and when it is just a bad habit that isn't helping or even accomplishing anything other than robbing you of sleep or the joy of your present moment.
One way to lessen your anxiety it to ask yourself if your worry is productive (i.e., it is leading to something helpful and creating action towards a solutions), or if your worry is really happening just for the purpose of worrying.
When it comes to the mid-term elections, any worry you may spend your time on between now and next week may only rob you of sleep, time with others, your weekend, and endless other present moments of awareness. Seeing that the worry would be quite unproductive at this point is helpful in regaining your present-moment awareness and joy.
Some of us are natural-born worry warts, and worrying isn't always a bad thing. Sometimes our worry alerts us to something we need to plan for or solve. The trick is learning to notice when our worry is helping us do something useful, and when it is just worrying for the sake of worrying.
You can find more information about worry in my privious blog entry from June 2015 here
"Worry is like a rocking chair: it keeps you moving but it doesn't get you anywhere." ~Corrie ten Boom
Thanks to Picolla Faccia for the great photo, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en
