Worry is a repetitive negative thinking process that is distressing, counterproductive, and—at the extreme—a risk factor for anxiety and depression. Past efforts to understand what triggers worry have focused on stressful events. However, worry often occurs in the absence of stressors. This project tested a different possibility: that worry can become a habit that is triggered by everyday cues. Studying worry in students’ daily lives, we tested hypothesized habit cues for worry, including unstructured and passive activities, social isolation, morning and evening times, and a wide range of negative internal states. This work represents a first step toward novel interventions for unwanted mental habits.

We found that as individuals feel anxious, irritated, sad, or fatigued, their mean levels of worry tend to be higher. On the contrary, when individuals feel positive mood states, their mean worry levels tend to be similar. Additionally, regardless of whether an individual is interacting with others or not, their mean worry levels tend to be similar. Likewise, individuals tend to experience similar levels of mean worry across the day. Lastly, although none of the correlations between activity characteristics and mean worry levels reached statistical significance in this small sample, it is noteworthy that all correlations were positive, indicating that students reported more worry when engaging in activities that were more demanding, either cognitively or physically. Based on our results, negative internal states and cognitively or physically demanding activities may be a potential context cue for worry. However, our sample size is modest, limiting statistical power and generalizability. The College Alumni Society grant is supporting our ongoing data collection efforts. We expect a sample size of over 70 people by the end of the semester.