minds very rational and tend to generate possible outcomes that very likely So while worrying about bad outcomes may feel soothing in the short term actually making you more and more anxious over time This happens because when we tolerate uncertainty we take on more responsibility than is reasonable for a given situation A kind of superstitious thinking creeps in telling us that the of worry is somehow keeping us safe from the hypothetical bad things happening Whether we think about the blood work results every hour of every day or not the results will be what they are Curiously when the results come back indicating all is normal there is a and irrational tendency to believe that all the worrying made the difference And then the next time uncertainty creeps in we will be encouraged to worry again to bridge our knowledge gap as if we are saying I worry about this then my fault when the bad stuff happens Despite the weight of this pressure we persevere in our worrying thinking it will get us somewhere when in reality only increasing our anxious state of mind So we check our email againand again to ensure we missed anything