How to Stop Worrying About Things You Can’t Control

Sort each worry by whether there’s an action you can take today. If yes, plan it, since that’s problem-solving, not worry. If no, practice tolerating the uncertainty instead of solving it: research shows tolerance, not the outcome, is what actually drives most uncontrollable worry. Scheduled “worry time” and bilateral stimulation, the technique behind EMDR, both help build it.

You’ve told yourself to stop worrying about things you can’t control, and it hasn’t worked. That’s not a willpower failure. Most advice skips the actual mechanism and jumps straight to “just let it go.”

Why can’t you just decide to stop worrying?

Chronic worry about things outside your control is one of the more common shapes anxious feelings take, and it has a specific driver that isn’t the situation itself. Researchers call it intolerance of uncertainty: reading “I don’t know how this turns out” as a threat, no matter what the actual odds are.

A 2023 systematic review and meta-analysis in the Journal of Anxiety Disorders looked at treatment outcomes across nearly 1,200 people with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). When treatment lowered intolerance of uncertainty, GAD symptoms dropped along with it, a large effect on uncertainty itself (g = 0.89). The target isn’t the worry’s content, the flight, the diagnosis, the layoff. It’s your relationship with not knowing.

This is also why worry over the uncontrollable so often tips into worst-case thinking: the less certainty you can sit with, the more your mind fills the gap with the worst version. If that’s the pattern you recognize, how to stop catastrophizing every situation covers that spiral directly.

What actually helps with worry about things you can’t control?

Two techniques have real evidence behind them, and both are more modest than most advice implies.

The first is sorting each worry by whether it has a next action: is there something you can do about this today? If yes, do it or schedule it, and that turns worry into a plan. If no, name it as something you’re practicing tolerating, not failing to solve.

The second is scheduling worry, not banning it. Set a daily 15-minute “worry time,” and when a worry shows up outside that window, note it and postpone it to that slot.

A 2023 meta-analysis in the International Journal of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy pooled seven randomized trials and nearly 1,000 people. It found this modestly reduced worry duration (d = 0.313) and worry frequency (d = 0.189), compared with just logging worries as they came up. Small effects, not a cure, but real ones.

If this looks less like discrete worries and more like a nonstop loop that won’t land on any one thing, does EMDR help with overthinking? covers that version specifically.

Where does bilateral stimulation fit in?

Sorting and postponing worry works on the thinking side. Bilateral stimulation, the alternating left-right input used throughout EMDR, works on the body side: the restlessness that lingers even after you’ve decided, on paper, to let something go.

A simple version to try, sometimes called the butterfly hug:

• Cross your arms over your chest, one hand on each shoulder.
• Name the worry once, in a single sentence.
• Tap left-right, slowly, for 60 to 90 seconds.
• Let the thought pass without arguing with it, then repeat for two or three rounds.

The clinical evidence here is specific to generalized anxiety disorder, not everyday worry, but it’s some of the strongest EMDR research available. A 2025 randomized controlled trial in Cognitive Therapy and Research randomized 65 adults with GAD to ten sessions of EMDR, delivered in person or by video, or to a waiting list, and found large drops in GAD symptoms on the GAD-7 scale for both EMDR groups versus the waiting list, with effect sizes of 1.90 for in-person sessions and 1.59 for web-based ones.

EmEase, a self-guided EMDR app, offers the guided version of this technique for everyday worry, not a diagnosed condition. It doesn’t diagnose or treat generalized anxiety disorder, and it isn’t a substitute for the therapist-led sessions the research above describes. Try it at app.emease.com.

When does this need more than self-help?

If your worry shows up occasionally, tied to one event like a health scare or a flight, the tools above are enough to practice with.

If it’s daily, keeps you from sleeping or getting through work, or comes with constant physical tension, that pattern is worth naming to a doctor or therapist. The research behind these techniques mostly studied people with a diagnosed anxiety condition getting structured treatment. That’s exactly where the strongest results showed up.

Our guide to racing thoughts and overthinking goes deeper on the daytime-spiral version of this pattern. Is self-guided EMDR safe? covers where the line sits between practicing on your own and working with a professional.

The honest bottom line

Worry about things you can’t control is driven less by the situation itself and more by how much uncertainty you can tolerate. Sorting worries by what’s actually actionable and scheduling a worry time instead of worrying all day are two modest, real tools. Bilateral stimulation adds a third: settling the restlessness worry leaves in your body. None of it is a switch that turns worry off, but used together, they’re a genuine place to start.