Vikings Shouldn't Worry

“Foolish is he who frets at night and lies awake to worry.

A weary man when morning comes, he finds everything the same as before.”

- Hávamál, Stanza 23

This quote comes from the Hávamál, which translated from Old Norse to English means “Song of the High One”. It is generally believed that the “High One” was Odin, the leader of the Norse pantheon of deities. In the Hávamál, Odin gives advice and tells stories as he wandered around the world. The Hávamál is truly a long collection of poems that is roughly broken into five different sections. Much of the Hávamál is a long list of directives and bits of wisdom with which one should live his or her life. (Hollander, 1962) In this way, the Hávamál reminds me of the Book of Proverbs in the Bible or the Analects of Confucius in that the wisdom seems to have been written down as the author thought of them. One stanza does not always have anything to do with the stanzas surrounding it. The guidance in the Hávamál appears to be literal rather than metaphysical, meaning that the information was written for the common man and not a select, initiated priesthood or noble leaders, though they could find much to learn from in this text.

The great thing about this quote is that it’s pretty self-explanatory.  Who of us hasn’t lain awake at night worrying about some possible future or ruminating about something from the past?  Did anything change from that lack of sleep?  Probably not.  Find things even more difficult the next morning thanks to a sleepless night?  Probably so.

What I really like about this quote is that this is one example of how humans have been struggling with the issue of anxiety and worry for millennia.  An ancient culture living in northern Europe felt it necessary to write down advice against worrying.  In Matthew (6:26), Jesus comforted the crowd when he said, “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?” This means that anxiety and worry aren’t just the products of our modern American life, but must be hardwired into humanity as a species.

As far as we know, humans are the only species that understands the concept of the future.  Most animals are concerned if their current needs are being met.  If they have food and water and aren’t currently being chased by something that wants to eat them, then they are doing fine.  They don’t have a concept of the future so they can’t conceive of running out of food or water.  However, humans do know about a future so we can conceive of things going wrong at some point in the future.  We also have a powerful capacity to remember the past so we can remember things going wrong before and make the assumption that they will go wrong again.  This leads humans to worry about what might happen in the future without any capacity of knowing what will really happen.

So, if we are so predisposed for worry that even ancient texts tell us to avoid it, then is there anything we can do to stop worrying?  Well, one way to start is to be more like other animals and live in the moment.  Consider what is going on around you at the moment.  Are you safe?  Have you eaten and are you healthy? 

In therapy, I teach my clients techniques to keep them grounded in the moment as a means of avoiding unnecessary worries.  A technique for staying grounded in the present moment is mindfulness meditation, a practice I use with almost all of my clients.  Mindfulness meditation can be considered a form of mental training that disciplines the mind so that you can become aware of when you are thinking and what you are thinking about. (Siegel, 2010) Then, you can choose to remain with that thought, file it away for future consideration, or disregard it entirely. Mindfulness meditation is the practice of focusing on only your breathing.  As you do this, your mind will start to wander.  When you notice this, simply (and gently) point out to yourself that you are thinking and then go back to focusing on your breathing.  This is a simple technique that can take a long time to master.  But, meditating as little as 10 minutes a day can start to improve your mood and reduce the time and energy you waste worrying.  Plus, you get better sleep!

Hollander, L. M. (1962). The Poetic Edda. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.

Siegel, D. J. (2010). The Mindful Therapist. New York: W. W. Norton & Company