How Not to Worry

When was the last time you lay awake at night, replaying an endless loop of worries — about money, relationships, work, or even something as small as what someone thought of you? In How Not to Worry: The Remarkable Truth of How a Small Change Can Help You Stress Less and Enjoy Life More, Paul McGee explores the very human tendency to let worry, stress, and anxiety take the driver’s seat in our lives. He argues that while worry is a natural part of being human — even useful in small doses — we’ve let it spiral into a destructive habit that steals our peace, health, and happiness.

McGee’s central claim is disarmingly simple yet profound: the goal isn’t to eliminate worry altogether, but to understand it, manage it, and redirect it toward action and purpose. We’re not robots designed for perfect calm — we’re emotional, fallible beings wired for survival. Worry, as McGee shows, is an evolutionary gift that sometimes goes rogue. By learning how it works — in our brains, habits, and cultural conditioning — we can regain control, swap fear for perspective, and enjoy life more fully.

From Cavemen to CEOs: Why We’re Wired to Worry

McGee begins by taking us 50,000 years back to the African savannah. There we meet two archetypes: optimistic, laid-back Bob and cautious, fretful Frank. When danger comes — a sabre-toothed tiger — Bob shrugs it off, while Frank’s fear drives him to act and survive. Guess whose genes live on? McGee’s point is clear: anxiety once kept us alive, but in the modern world, our “inner caveman” still overreacts to false threats like traffic jams or workplace stress. Our biology hasn’t caught up with our technology.

That primitive part of the brain — the one responsible for our fight-or-flight response — is still triggered by every perceived threat. McGee likens it to a smoke alarm that blares not only for fires but also for burnt toast. The result? A life spent lurching between false alarms. Yet he reassures us: if we understand that our brains are doing their ancient job a bit too well, we can work with them rather than fight them.

Nine Reasons We Worry (and What They Reveal About Us)

In one of the book’s most practical sections, McGee outlines eight (plus one) reasons why we worry. Some are surprising: we may actually enjoy worrying because it gives life a sense of drama, or we may be subconsciously addicted to the adrenaline rush stress provides. Other times, our worries stem from a lack of control, knowledge, or confidence, from values that make us care deeply, or from upbringing and past experiences that taught us how to react.

He argues that identifying your personal “top three” worry triggers can be life-changing. Just as you can choose to walk downstairs with the other foot, you can choose new mental habits once you’ve brought the old ones to light. Awareness, as he’ll later show, is the first “A” in his Triple A strategy for reclaiming calm.

Loopy Logic: How We Think Ourselves Into Stress

A major section of the book is devoted to what McGee calls “loopy logic” — the strange, irrational loops of thought that perpetuate anxiety. Examples include feeding your fears with endless bad news, pretending problems don’t exist, adopting a victim mentality, or using worry like a superstition — as if fretting could magically prevent bad outcomes. These patterns are vividly illustrated with humor and anecdotes, like the man who threw paper from a train to “keep elephants off the tracks.” McGee’s playful wit makes these irrational habits easier to recognize — and abandon.

How to Reclaim Control: Small Shifts, Big Peace

The second half of the book — aptly titled “Move On” — offers practical tools to manage worry. These range from cognitive approaches, like using your rational brain to analyze and act, to more imaginative exercises like visualizing better outcomes or “talking” with historical figures for advice (his example: channeling explorer Ernest Shackleton’s resilience). McGee also emphasizes the importance of physical and environmental wellbeing: decluttering, exercising, laughing more, and spending time with supportive people instead of “Escalators” — those who double your troubles instead of halving them.

Why This Matters Now

Despite unprecedented safety, wealth, and longevity, modern humans are drowning in fear. As McGee and social psychologist Dan Gardner both point out, we are “the safest, healthiest, richest humans who ever lived” — yet our brains relentlessly scan for danger. McGee’s message is not to deny anxiety but to demystify it. When fear serves a purpose — alerting us, motivating us, prompting preparation — it’s constructive. But when it spirals into paralysis or obsession, it’s time to stop, understand, and move on.

“Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.”

This quotation, which McGee uses to close the book, sums up his empowering philosophy: Focus less on what’s gone wrong and more on what you can influence. Worry less, live more, and start today — with small but deliberate changes that accumulate into calm, confidence, and meaning.

McGee insists that most of us rarely pause to ask why we worry — we just do it automatically, like walking downstairs without noticing which foot leads. In Chapter 2, he presents eight reasons that explain where worry comes from, revealing that our anxious habits often serve hidden psychological needs or result from learned behaviors rather than conscious decisions.

1. We Can Enjoy Worrying

This one’s unexpected: some people actually enjoy worrying because it makes life more dramatic. Worry fills the void left by dull, predictable routines — it’s self-created theater that gives us purpose and a dose of adrenaline. McGee likens these people to soap opera stars in their own mental dramas. They claim to hate worrying but subconsciously feed off the stimulation it provides. Recognizing this addiction to emotional “rushes” is the first step toward freedom.

2. The Challenge of Change and Uncertainty

Humans crave stability, but modern life is full of rapid change. We face daily uncertainty about jobs, finances, and the future. Quoting Charles Darwin — “It’s not the strongest who survive but the ones most responsive to change” — McGee reminds us that adaptability, not rigidity, ensures survival. Accepting that uncertainty is the “main course of life’s menu” can help you stop resisting reality and start responding creatively.

3. Lack of Knowledge and Experience

When we face the unknown, anxiety flourishes. McGee describes his early days as a bank clerk — nervous, unskilled, and miserable. His insight: it’s not confidence you need to crush anxiety but competence. Once you learn, practice, and gain experience, confidence follows naturally. Facing fear with skill — or choosing to leave an ill-fitting situation entirely — can restore calm.

4. Lack of Control

Humans are, at heart, control freaks. We worry most when outcomes lie beyond our influence — flight delays, house sales, or health results. McGee illustrates this with the story of a man who throws paper from a train “to keep elephants off the tracks.” Worry, for many of us, is the paper we toss to create the illusion of control. Understanding what you can control — your actions, choices, and responses — is liberating.

5–8. Values, Upbringing, Experience, and Bad News

If you care deeply, you’ll sometimes worry deeply. McGee notes our values can both enrich and enslave us. Over-caring — the overprotective parent still telling their 49-year-old child to “wrap up warm” — erodes boundaries between care and control. Likewise, upbringing matters: anxious parents often raise anxious kids. Past traumas, even minor ones (like McGee missing his cue as “Buttons” in a school play), can cement lifelong worry triggers.

Finally, overexposure to media — what he calls “Constant Negative News” — poisons our perception of reality. Fear sells, and our primitive brain laps it up. But when we limit our intake and seek balanced, uplifting input instead, we recalibrate our sense of threat with actual probability.

McGee’s takeaway: “It’s not the facts — it’s your perception of the facts that counts.”

Understanding why you worry isn’t about self-blame. It’s about realizing you have more influence than you think. When you uncover the roots of your anxiety — biological, cultural, or habitual — you can begin to make conscious choices: to analyze, adjust, and act differently. That’s the beginning of genuine peace of mind.

In Chapter 3, McGee delves into the biology of worry, demystifying the “hardware” inside your head that makes it hard to relax. His metaphor of the brain as a three-member family — primitive, emotional, and rational — helps you understand why your mind sometimes feels hijacked by panic.

Primitive Brain: The Vigilant Survivor

This ancient system, inherited from our cave-dwelling ancestors, is constantly on guard. Its motto: survive at all costs. It activates the fight-or-flight response, flooding your body with adrenaline and cortisol to prepare for battle or escape. McGee humorously recounts his wife’s “slug invasion” panic — a harmless case of slimy leaves mistaken for a home invasion — showing how the primitive brain often sounds false alarms. Like a smoke detector triggered by toast, it can’t tell the difference between a crisis and a nuisance.

Emotional Brain: The Amplifier

Working closely with the primitive brain, your emotional brain (the limbic system) governs feelings like excitement, fear, and love. It’s powerful, persuasive, and sometimes overly dramatic — the emotional cousin who drowns out your quieter, wiser side. Emotion dictates intensity; when you’re emotionally entangled, you lose perspective. That’s why your friend’s crisis may seem trivial to you, but your own molehill feels like Everest.

Rational Brain: The New Manager

The rational brain — or neocortex — is the youngest and most sophisticated part of your mind. It handles planning, reasoning, and critical thought. But here’s the problem: in moments of stress, the older “family members” overpower it. No board meetings, just coups. Emotional and primitive brain seize the wheel before logic can intervene. As McGee puts it, “Stress makes you stupid.”

The challenge, then, is not to eliminate these older systems but to create awareness. Recognize when they’re driving, and consciously invite rational brain back into the conversation. McGee promises practical tools for this — which he delivers later through his Triple A strategy and “scale of influence.”

Think of it as your brain’s chain of command: primitive detects, emotional reacts, rational reflects. The goal isn’t mutiny — it’s cooperation.

By understanding that your anxiety is often a biochemical echo of ancient survival instincts, McGee helps you stop personalizing it. Fear isn’t weakness; it’s old wiring in a modern world. Your job is to upgrade the software — not smash the device.

Humans, McGee says, are masters at loopy logic — strange, circular reasoning that feels comforting in the moment but only feeds anxiety. In Chapter 4, he exposes nine “classic loops” that keep us mentally stuck, from “If I worry enough, bad things won’t happen” to “If I act optimistic, nothing will go wrong.” Each example is equal parts playful and piercing.

The Nine Loops

• Feeding your fears: Consuming constant bad news to confirm the world’s dangers (“confirmation bias”).
• Avoiding your issues: Ignoring problems in the hope they’ll vanish, a favorite male coping style.
• Playing the victim: Believing life is out to get you, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy of helplessness.
• Using worry as witchcraft: Assuming that worrying itself somehow prevents misfortune.
• Wearing worry as identity: Saying “I’m a worrier” as if it’s a genetic fact, not a habit.
• Just thinking happy thoughts: Pretending positivity can replace action — McGee calls this “false optimism.”
• Giving power to ‘things’ and dates: Superstitions that outsource control to Friday the 13th or lucky charms.
• Worrying about the past: Reliving regrets you can’t change, “crying over spilt milk.”
• Paralysis by analysis: Overthinking decisions until anxiety kills momentum.

Beyond Loopy Thinking

What’s striking about McGee’s tone is its compassion. He doesn’t mock irrationality; he laughs with it. From humorous stories about dream superstitions to his mock “happy thought” candle experiment — where positive vibes can’t extinguish a flame — he nudges readers to laugh their way to insight. He also considers the role of spirituality: prayer, when used reflectively and actionably, can bring clarity and calm. But praying passively, expecting divine rescue while abdicating responsibility, is just another loop.

Breaking the circle means replacing loops with lines — moving forward through awareness, analysis, and action. “Happy thinking isn’t enough,” McGee warns. Neither is worry. Only rational strategy and mindful responsibility can shift you from reaction to resolution.

After dissecting why we worry, McGee shifts to how we can stop wasting time and energy on it. In Chapter 5, he outlines his Triple A Strategy — Awareness, Analysis, and Action — a practical system that brings rational thought back into the driver’s seat.

Awareness: Name the Type of Stress

McGee distinguishes three kinds of stress: situational (the email from your boss), anticipatory (the fear of next week’s presentation), and residual (emotional leftovers from the past). Simply identifying your category is half the battle. It shifts vague unease into manageable terms. If you can name it, you can tame it.

Analysis: Historical, Hysterical, or Helpful?

Next, you interrogate the causes: is this worry rooted in past trauma (historical), irrational exaggeration (hysterical), or healthy caution (helpful)? McGee’s wit shines here. Do the math on your fears, he suggests — what are the actual odds? Most of what we dread, from lightning strikes to serial killers, exists more in headlines than reality. Use evidence, not emotion.

Action: Influence What You Can

Insight is useless without follow-through. McGee borrows from Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People to emphasize a “circle of influence” — the zone of life you can actually control. He adds nuance with his scale of influence: not everything is black-and-white, but the more you believe you can influence a situation, the more proactive you’ll become.

His story of redundant factory workers proves the point. Those who believed they could shape their future started job hunting months early. Those who saw themselves as powerless didn’t. The result? The same event, wildly different outcomes, determined by perception. Sometimes, a dose of self-delusion — believing you have control even when limited — can be psychologically protective. Optimistic effort, as research shows, improves results more than fatalism ever will.

“Accept what you can’t change. Change what you can. And be wise enough to know the difference.” — Reinhold Niebuhr, as quoted by McGee

The Triple A strategy is McGee’s antidote to “fuzzy worry.” It moves worry from feeling to fact, and from paralysis to motion. When you categorize, challenge, and act, you transform anxiety into agency — and that, he says, is the real magic spell.

In Chapter 6, McGee flips the script on imagination, reframing it as both the root of anxiety and a tool for freedom. “Most people’s lives,” he quotes Napoleon Bonaparte, “are the result of mismanaged imagination.” His exercises show you how to harness that creative faculty rather than be haunted by it.

How Imagination Creates Emotion

Through the playful “PEAR” model — Pictures, Emotions, Actions, Results — McGee shows that whatever picture you form first drives your feelings and choices. If you visualize failure before a presentation, you’ll act and likely perform nervously. But you can change the reel. Saying “Cut!” to replace catastrophic films with calmer ones interrupts the spiral. It’s cognitive behavioral therapy made cinematic and fun.

Imaginary Mentors and Conversations

McGee even encourages “imaginary friends for grown-ups.” He talks about consulting the explorer Ernest Shackleton in tough business moments — imagining what the famed Antarctic survivor would do builds resilience. Another client channels Madonna’s stage confidence before public speaking. It might sound odd, but it’s a practical visualization tool endorsed by psychologists and athletes alike (similar to mental rehearsal in sports psychology).

Fear as False Evidence Appearing Real

McGee redefines fear as “Future Events Appearing Real.” The imagination that helped humans invent rocket ships also invents mental monsters. Instead of letting it enslave you, use it strategically: visualize problem-solving, not panic. He even suggests holding imaginary board meetings with advisors — real or fictional — from Walt Disney to personal friends, asking what they’d recommend for your dilemma. The wisdom that surfaces can be surprisingly grounded, precisely because it frees you to think from new perspectives.

Imagination isn’t childish; it’s powerful. The question isn’t whether you’ll use it — only whether you’ll use it well.

By managing your mental movies, you become the director of your inner world instead of the actor trapped in an endless horror sequel. When anxiety rises, yell “Cut!” — then rewrite the ending.

By Chapter 7, McGee turns inward, addressing self-respect as the cornerstone of emotional health. “If you wouldn’t treat a thoroughbred horse carelessly,” he quips, “why treat yourself that way?” He identifies five practices for showing yourself the respect you’d give something precious — because you are.

Change Your Scripts

We are all scriptwriters, McGee reminds us, constantly narrating our lives with lines like “I’m hopeless” or “I can’t cope.” But our internal monologues shape our moods. Rewriting those scripts — replacing self-condemnation with compassion — immediately lowers anxiety. “Stuff happens,” he writes. “Life doesn’t have a vendetta against you.” Self-talk isn’t fluff; it’s neurological programming.

Avoid Going It Alone

Pride masks vulnerability, especially in men. McGee jokes about his DIY ineptitude but makes a serious point: refusing help out of pride deprives you of emotional oxygen. Getting assistance — from friends, counselors, or even debt agencies — is an act of strength, not shame.

Let Go of Grudges

Resentment, says McGee, “eats away at you more than the person you resent.” He recalls a friend betrayed by his wife and best friend, whose bitterness became the real prison. “You can become bitter or better. Choose the latter.” Letting go doesn’t excuse wrongs; it frees your nervous system from replaying pain.

Engage in Exercise and Connection

Exercise isn’t just for fitness — it resets brain chemistry. McGee explains how cortisol and adrenaline levels drop through physical movement, while endorphins and oxytocin (“the love hormone”) rise. Even a daily walk, he argues, outperforms many expensive anti-stress interventions. Add laughter — the body’s inexpensive medicine — and calm follows naturally.

Stop Permanently Pleasing People

People-pleasing, learned in childhood as a path to love, becomes toxic in adulthood. You can care deeply without subordinating your entire existence to others’ opinions. McGee cites actor Bill Cosby’s line: “The definition of failure is trying to please everybody all the time.” Self-respect demands boundaries, not bravado — the humility to say no, and the confidence to mean it.

Respecting yourself is not arrogance. It’s maintenance — the emotional equivalent of grooming the thoroughbred you ride through life.

McGee’s chapter is a manifesto of dignity. When you talk to yourself kindly, seek help wisely, forgive freely, move physically, and live authentically, you don’t just reduce worry — you build resilience. Anxiety shrinks in the presence of self-respect.

McGee’s final practical chapter (Chapter 8) shows that worry isn’t just in your head — it’s in your surroundings. Just as frogs can be slowly boiled alive in gradually heated water, humans can be dulled and damaged by toxic environments. He outlines five ways to make your world more “worry-resistant.”

1. Manage Your Mental Diet

You are what you mentally eat. Endless scrolling through bad news or gossip becomes emotional junk food. McGee urges readers to consume balanced information — limit “doom” media and feed your mind with uplifting stories, humor, and learning instead. News, he reminds us, isn’t normal — that’s precisely why it’s news. But too much of it distorts reality.

2. Escape from Escalators

Some people magnify your problems — McGee dubs them “Escalators.” One conversation and everything “doubles,” from your worry to their pessimism. He suggests sharing troubles only with listeners who empathize and seek solutions, not those who spiral with you. A “trouble shared,” he quips, “is only halved if shared with the right person.”

3. Cut the Clutter

Clutter equals confusion. Physical chaos mirrors mental chaos. Decluttering even small corners can create a sense of control that quiets internal noise. Start small — McGee’s “seven-minute tidy” trick often stretches into more. Momentum fuels motivation.

4. Find the Funny

Laughter lightens the load. From hospital recovery stories to jokes shared with friends (“toothache of the testicles,” quips one text), McGee illustrates how humor restores perspective even in hardship. Science backs him up: laughter strengthens immunity and lowers stress hormones. Life is easier to manage when you can grin through the absurd.

5. Muse to the Music

Sound shapes mood. McGee recounts how switching from rock to classical tunes while driving calmed his nerves — proof that even small sensory tweaks matter. Music, like environment, can either fuel irritation or foster peace. Choose your soundtrack consciously.

“Seek out stuff that feeds you, not bleeds you.”

By curating your environment, you reduce background noise that amplifies stress. Just as a plant thrives in healthy soil, you thrive in an environment that nourishes rather than drains. Peace of mind isn’t only mental hygiene — it’s environmental design.

In his concluding chapters, McGee distills his philosophy into one message: you don’t need a perfect life to enjoy a peaceful one. Worry will never vanish entirely, but it can be transformed from a tyrant into a teacher. When you align awareness, rational thinking, imagination, self-respect, and environment, you stop existing in survival mode and begin to live with intention.

Healthy Fear vs. Worthless Worry

McGee’s key distinction is between “worth it worry” — the kind that motivates preparation and action — and “worthless worry,” which paralyzes and poisons you. Humans need fear to survive; without caution, civilization wouldn’t exist. But we also need meaning — a reason to get out of bed beyond survival. Purpose, not passivity, transforms anxiety into vitality.

Start Small, Start Now

McGee ends with encouragement, not perfectionism: you don’t have to overhaul your life overnight. “Start small,” he says. “Start with the molehill.” Write worries down. Laugh more. Limit CNN — “Constant Negative News.” Move your body. Change one script. These microchanges compound. Implementation, not information, builds peace.

“Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.” — Maria Robinson, quoted by McGee

McGee’s “real truth” is both practical and philosophical: Worry less by respecting your biology, questioning your stories, laughing at your loops, and living your values. Don’t aim for a life without waves — just learn to surf better. That’s how you “Shut Up and Move On.”