By Ari Sotiriou MA, PGDip, UKCP Registered Psychodynamic Psychotherapist
Are you trying to solve tomorrow’s problems today? Anxiety often pulls us into a future that hasn’t happened yet. Learning to return to the present can be the first step towards feeling calmer.
“I think the cure for it for me at the moment… is giving myself more to do.”
Those words, spoken by comedian Jimmy Carr during an interview, have resonated with many people. His observation is surprisingly insightful. He suggests that anxiety often arises because we are trying to solve a problem that exists only in the future. Since that future has not yet arrived, there is nothing concrete to solve in the present, leaving the mind trapped in an endless cycle of worry.
Many of us recognise this experience. We rehearse conversations that have not happened, anticipate failures that may never occur, and mentally prepare for situations we cannot yet influence. The mind becomes busy, but not necessarily productive.
In the accompanying interactive worksheet, the first exercise invites you to notice when your thoughts leave the present moment. Simply becoming aware of where your mind spends its time is often the first step towards understanding your anxiety.
Anxiety as Future-Oriented Problem Solving
From a Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) perspective, anxiety frequently involves anticipatory thinking. Our brain is designed to detect danger and prepare us for potential threats. This ability has obvious survival value. However, when it becomes overactive, it starts treating imagined future events as though they are happening now.
The result is that the mind continuously searches for solutions to problems that do not yet exist.
Ironically, this often increases anxiety rather than reducing it. Because the future cannot be controlled, every imagined solution produces another possible uncertainty.
The worksheet contains a section where you can identify one recurring worry and examine three questions:
- Is this problem happening now?
- Is there anything practical I can do today?
- Am I trying to obtain certainty about something that cannot yet be known?
Many people discover that much of their worrying belongs to the third category.
Why Keeping Busy Sometimes Helps
Jimmy Carr suggests giving yourself something to do in the present.
There is good psychological evidence for this. When we become fully engaged in an activity that requires our attention—whether cooking, gardening, writing, exercising or completing meaningful work—our mental resources are redirected away from repetitive worrying.
This is not simply distraction.
It is a shift from abstract thinking into direct experience. Instead of mentally living in tomorrow, we reconnect with today.
One exercise in the worksheet asks you to list activities that naturally absorb your attention. These are not necessarily hobbies or achievements. They are activities that leave you feeling mentally present rather than mentally exhausted.
Learning which activities genuinely ground you can become an important part of managing anxiety.
When Staying Busy Becomes the Only Solution
From a psychodynamic perspective, however, the picture becomes more complex.
Remaining constantly busy can certainly reduce anxiety in the short term. But sometimes busyness itself becomes part of the problem.
British psychoanalysts such as Donald Winnicott observed that some people find it difficult simply to be. Silence, rest or unstructured time may quickly become uncomfortable because they allow unwanted thoughts and feelings to emerge.
Instead of resting, the person moves immediately into another task.
Instead of reflecting, they become productive.
Instead of experiencing vulnerability, they remain active.
This does not mean that activity is unhealthy. Quite the opposite. Meaningful activity is often essential for emotional wellbeing.
The question is whether we are choosing activity, or whether activity is choosing us.
The worksheet includes a reflective exercise asking you to distinguish between activities that leave you feeling nourished and those that feel compulsory. This simple distinction often reveals whether busyness is serving your wellbeing or merely keeping uncomfortable emotions at a distance.
Learning to Tolerate the Present
One of the most overlooked psychological skills is learning to remain with the present moment without immediately trying to escape it.
This does not mean forcing yourself to meditate or eliminating anxious thoughts altogether.
Rather, it means gradually increasing your ability to notice anxiety without immediately responding to it.
The worksheet introduces a simple exercise called Pause, Notice and Choose.
Before reacting to a worrying thought, you are invited to pause briefly and ask yourself:
- What am I feeling right now?
- What am I imagining will happen?
- What actually needs my attention today?
These questions encourage psychological flexibility rather than automatic reactions.
Over time, this can weaken the habit of endless future-oriented thinking.
Anxiety Is Not the Enemy
People often come to therapy wanting to get rid of anxiety.
In reality, anxiety itself is not the problem.
Anxiety is information.
Sometimes it alerts us to genuine danger.
Sometimes it signals unresolved emotional conflicts.
Sometimes it reflects uncertainty that simply cannot yet be resolved.
The important task is learning to distinguish between these different forms of anxiety rather than responding to all of them in the same way.
The worksheet concludes with a personal reflection inviting you to consider what your anxiety may be trying to communicate. Is it asking for action? Is it asking for patience? Or is it pointing towards deeper emotional experiences that deserve curiosity rather than avoidance?
There is rarely a single answer.
Therapy Helps Us Understand, Not Simply Control
Self-help strategies can be remarkably effective. They help us recognise patterns, interrupt cycles of worry and build healthier habits.
Yet for some people, anxiety persists despite every attempt to stay busy.
This is often because the anxiety is connected to deeper emotional experiences, early relationships or longstanding ways of relating to themselves and others. Simply becoming more productive cannot resolve these underlying patterns.
Psychodynamic psychotherapy offers a space to explore what anxiety means in the context of your unique life history. CBT provides practical tools for changing unhelpful thinking and behavioural patterns. Together, these approaches can help you develop not only greater control over anxiety but also a deeper understanding of yourself.
Often, lasting change comes not from eliminating anxiety altogether, but from changing your relationship with it.
Request the Interactive Worksheet
If this article has prompted you to reflect on your own experience of anxiety, you are welcome to request the accompanying interactive worksheet Pause, Notice, Choose — Anxiety and the Need to Stay Busy by completing the feedback form below with your name and email address.
The worksheet expands on the ideas discussed here through a series of structured exercises designed to help you identify patterns of future-oriented thinking, distinguish helpful activity from defensive busyness, and practise returning your attention to the present moment. It can be used independently if you are considering therapy, or between sessions if you are already working with a therapist.
If you wish, you may also include a brief comment describing what particularly interested you about this topic or the challenges you experience with anxiety. Once I receive your request, I will email you a link to the interactive worksheet so you can complete it at your own pace.
Photo credit: Ali Gabr / Pexels
Audio narration produced using ElevenLabs voice technology.