What is Worry Knot?

Worry Knot teaches you how to change negative feelings that come from worrying and helps to organize thoughts.

• Tangled thinking is when you spend so much time worrying that your thoughts become tied in knots.
• Untangling Knots: When your worries have become tangled thinking, open the app and press “New Knot”. There you will add information about the things that worry you and things that do not worry you. The app will help you compare these things. Then, you can start to change your feelings about your tangled thoughts.
• This is a skill that improves with daily practice. If it is hard for you to follow these steps in the moment, set a time each day to practice “untangling” 1 or 2 worrisome bits of tangled thinking.

• Reviewing your past knots: Press the “History” tab to see your past knots. Over time you will find that the tangled thoughts do not cause you as much trouble as they used to. Reviewing your past knots an also help keep you motivated and remind you how to manage a worry you have faced before.

How is Worry Knot used?

• The first page describes “tangled thinking” and identifies emotions that come along with worries. The rest of the instructions are below.

• The app will show examples if your mentee is having a hard time thinking of events that aren’t associated with strong feelings.
• The goal is to identify something that is truly (or close to) neutral. Try not to encourage positive or happy events. Even though it may seem like replacing negative feelings with positive feelings, that’s not the purpose. The goal is to bring down negative emotions in the moment, not replace all negative feelings with positive feelings. 

Now, it’s time to write down the worry. Worries might include: 

•           – All of my friends are laughing behind my back
•           – I’m going to get sick
•           – A tornado is going to rip our home apart
•          – My mom is going to get sick

During this stage, remind your mentee that what they’re worried about is scary and upsetting. It’s natural to feel bad when these thoughts come into mind. The goal with this app is to “turn down” the negative feelings when nothing can be done about the situation.

• Next, your mentee will rate how they’re feeling in the moment. 

• Then, they’ll think about themselves experiencing the neutral event. You can practice this step together! Feel free to guide your mentee:

          Imagine yourself in this situation. What are you seeing? What are you smelling? Hearing? Touching? Are you warm? Are you                cold? Are others around you? What feeling do you have?

• Next, they’ll imagine the worry. But, when they notice that their feelings become negative, they should focus on the neutral event, to turn down the negative feelings. You’re trying to help them pair the worry with feeling neutral. 
• Normally, when they have the thought, the worry leads to bad feelings. We want your mentee to be able to have the thought and feel neutral and not get upset when having the thought. This takes a lot of time and practice! That’s ok.

• Next, continuing to practice pairing the worry with the neutral feelings.

• Then switching focus back to the neutral event. The app is helping your mentee pair the worry with neutral feelings, and learning how to switch back and forth between thoughts without having negative feelings.

• Then rating how the mentee is feeling again. It’s ok if nothing changes! This skill takes practice and time.

• Your mentee can go through and see the progress they’ve made over time.