# Worry beads.
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worry-beads/348263
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [March 14, 2006, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worry-beads/348263 "2006-03-14T01:59:14Z")
**Posts on this page:** 10
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2006, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worry-beads/348263/1 "2006-03-14T01:59:14Z")
Anybody ever have 'em / use 'em?
Not much of a worrier much less a prayer, but I sort of like the idea and feel of them in my hand but have resisted the urge to get a set because I thought it would seem too much of an affectation.
What would you think if you saw a guy, absent mindedly handling a strand in public while at a coffee shop or something?
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### Author:  [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2006, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worry-beads/348263/2 "2006-03-14T02:31:05Z")
I still have several sets I picked up in Greece during my travels. If I saw someone with a set in public, I would assume that he was Greek, or from the Eastern Med at any rate.
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### Author:  [@Queen\_Bruin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Queen_Bruin)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2006, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worry-beads/348263/3 "2006-03-14T02:51:02Z")
Dude, if you’re worried about how you’ll look in public with a set of worry beads, you should move on to the Xanax. 😉
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### Author:  [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2006, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worry-beads/348263/4 "2006-03-14T03:09:00Z")
LOL!
You may be on to something… 😃
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### Author:  [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2006, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worry-beads/348263/5 "2006-03-14T03:14:05Z")
I assume he would keep them in his pocket, in which case I would assume he was fussing with loose change. Or himself.
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### Author:  [@Antigen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antigen)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2006, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worry-beads/348263/6 "2006-03-14T03:15:33Z")
Yeah, you can’t worry about worry beads. It throws the universe off-balance.
But really, I’d think nothing of seeing a man playing with worry beads. Unless he’s making a racket with the damn things, in which case I may have to strangle him with them.
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### Author:  [@Anastasaeon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anastasaeon)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2006, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worry-beads/348263/7 "2006-03-14T03:17:03Z")
I have a “worry stone”. Just a flat piece of stone, polished, and you rub it with your thumb. The advertisement claimed whichever stone you picked would “cleanse” your worries somehow. :rolleyes: I just got it because it was 50 cents and I like rocks. I like stroking this rock. I keep it in my purse, and no one has ever said anything negative about it - I’ve had a couple of people ask me what it was, and I just hold it up and say “It’s a pretty rock.”
[Here](http://www.4facets.com/TranquilStones.html) are some that look kind of like mine, but mine is green. Ignore the mumbo-jumbo about how the stone transmits waves of calmness or whatever the heck it said. Sure, I use one, but only because it beats the heck out of chewing my hood strings.
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### Author:  [@devilsknew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/devilsknew)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2006, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worry-beads/348263/8 "2006-03-14T03:34:22Z")
You might want to try some [_Baoding_](http://www.ishka.com.au/meditation_balls.htm) ([Worry Balls, Stress Balls, Lotus Balls, Melody Balls, Therapy Balls, Therapeutic Balls, Exercise Balls, Chiming Balls, Baoding Balls, Qigong Balls, Meditation Balls, Cloisonne Balls, Iron Balls, Miracle Balls, Reflex Balls, Baichi (valuable balls), Baodjan Chu](http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=chinese+meditation+balls)). They’re cool looking, cooler in action, meditative, and double as a sexual device for the ladies.
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### Author:  [@aurelian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aurelian)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2006, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worry-beads/348263/9 "2006-03-14T03:38:38Z")
> [@silenus](#):
>
> I still have several sets I picked up in Greece during my travels. If I saw someone with a set in public, I would assume that he was Greek, or from the Eastern Med at any rate.
I would react similarly - either he is Greek or picked up on the tradition (I would assume by travel). Many members of the Greek side of my family had them.
If I saw you handling them, I would be intrigued to ask how you know about the tradition, but I wouldn’t think it was an affectation unless you were deliberately being showy about it (someone oh-so-subtly showing off their new cell phone or iPod to the world, for example).
I used to have worry stones, but I now have the best fidget toy known to man: the key to my Volkswagon. Damn, that thing just never gets old.
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### Author:  [@myskepticsight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/myskepticsight)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2006, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worry-beads/348263/10 "2006-03-14T04:53:50Z")
I bought two sets in Greece. They are packed away somewhere though ☹
I would think the person is Greek or has been to Greece if I saw them with them. But none of us that traveled to Greece (about 12 teenagers on a school trip) had ever seen them or heard of them before, so a lot of people might just figure you’re just swinging around some beads.
I used them for awhile. I quite like the noise my silver set makes, kind of soothing actually, not rackety (least not to my ears). But they were more of a trip novelty I suppose.