Sometimes you don't have to focus on. The fastest way to change. Pay attention to that. how negative thoughts get stuck in your mind

It is a pity that controlling your own thoughts is not as easy as controlling your body. The mind is either pure and fresh, like January air, or tenacious, like a taiga swamp. If you often think about the same thing, you can’t fall asleep and you dream of stopping your brain at least for a while - this is called overthinking. That's why we obsess over our thoughts and how to deal with it.

What is "overthinking"

According to neuropsychologist Dr. Kathy Davis, introspective people are unable to regulate and divert their attention away from a particular thought or concern. They are easily distracted during the day, often unable to focus on work.

One little thing can unsettle such a person, he is not able to do something until he solves his problem or stops thinking about it.

How to stop the flow of thoughts

In order to understand how to manage overthinking, you must be aware of . Remember that you and your brain are not the same. Don't mistake fleeting emotions for your real decisions. Here are some scientific ways to deal with obsession.

Switch to sensory observations

The goal is to slow down this stream of consciousness and allow the brain to really process the thoughts that come up in it, rather than scrolling through them endlessly.

One strategy that is fairly easy to practice and incorporate into your daily life is to take five minutes and mentally record all of your sensory observations, Dr. Davis suggests. Try to block out extraneous thoughts and focus on the sounds around you.

This is especially helpful when you can't sleep. Instead of thinking about all the things you have to do or have done, focus on the sound of a fan or cars passing by. This is how white noise works. Download a special application with the sound of sea waves or forests and fall asleep to it. This will help to disconnect from thoughts and extraneous noise.

Sensory observations can also come in handy during the day, the neuropsychologist notes. This is specific and effective method switch your thinking during times of stress. You can focus on something else to calm down.

Admit you can't control everything

Another important aspect looping, according to psychologist and author Paul Coleman, is what underlies this process. He believes that overthinking hides the desire to control everything. Constantly replaying the same thoughts in your head is a destructive way to reduce uncertainty and try to prevent potential threats. Constantly thinking about the “what if” does not help to foresee all the consequences, but only adds stress and causes indecision.
According to Coleman, looping leads to what is called "decision fatigue":

An overthinker can think about a problem all day, overthink it, and then be unable to make a decision about what to order at the diner.

You need to let go of the need for control and accept the fact that you cannot control all the factors and outcomes in life. In practice, you should say to yourself: "I accept uncertainty, even if I don't like it."

Take a step towards solving the problem

Another way to switch is to do something. Let this not solve the problem you are worried about, the main thing is to move away from thinking about it.

If it's two in the morning and you can't stop thinking about some exciting event or how much you have to do tomorrow, get up and write down the thoughts that you have. Make a to-do list or just write down something that came to your mind and you are afraid to forget it. Even just making a plan of action will help you stop thinking about your problem.

Schedule your anxiety

It sounds strange, but Dr. Coleman advises planning for your anxiety. You can say to yourself, "I'll think about it tomorrow afternoon," put off thinking about this topic and get on with other things. Decide the next day that you will set aside 15 minutes for overthinking and continue working.

Practice these ways of switching regularly and you will realize that you can influence your thoughts much more than you think.

Do you often get hung up on your thoughts, and what helps you switch?

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When we fixate on something, we can't think of anything else. This is how many people are arranged - even if a series of wonderful events occurs, it is worth the slightest trouble to happen, then all attention will be paid to it. It doesn't matter what's on the other side - a million favorable things. Our actions, decisions, regrets, concern for the future - we begin to get hung up on one thing, scrolling through our heads to the point of complete exhaustion. Of course, this deprives the mood, strength, energy, will ...

How to get out of this "thinking maze" and move on? These 5 tips will help you.

1. Focus not on the problem, but on its solution.

Realize the problem, analyze it and then - instead of endless worries that something went wrong and what to do now.

You yourself have probably noticed more than once that after a problem is solved, you remember the wasted nerves and think: “But you shouldn’t have been so worried, it’s absolutely not worth it.”

Here, a wise Japanese proverb will be in place: “If a problem can be solved, then you should not worry about it. If it cannot be solved, then it is useless to worry about it.” Therefore, if there is a solution and you found it -.

space

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We all often get stuck, whether it's decisions, regrets, evaluation of our actions or just worries about the future, we often get stuck in our thoughts and it seems that there is no way out. But today we’ll talk about how to stop doing it and move on.

Why do we obsess.

When we talk about this feature of the thought process, we have several aspects in mind. On the one hand, it happens when you attach special importance to something and think about the same thing over and over again. Here you re-analyze the events that have taken place, regret the actions you have taken, worry about the future. On the other hand, we are talking about decisions. When you often analyze all the points, it may turn out that you simply cannot come to a decision, as you doubt everything.

Regardless of the situation, looping occurs when you can't abstract and think about something else, and this negatively affects your life. The ultimate goal is to get out of this vicious cycle and move on.

Act now.

If you're stuck on one idea, you need to do something, and the best thing you can do is just act now. This does not mean that you need to suddenly break loose and do thoughtless stupid things. Just take a step towards the goal.

For example, let's say you're considering moving to another city. You can't just move in and settle there overnight, but if you sit and think over and over again about the process, you'll put yourself in a cycle of thoughts. Therefore, it is important not to sit idly by. Start planning on paper: make a list of possible destinations, search the Internet for housing prices, vacancies, if necessary, think over financial plan and some temporary milestones. With all this, you bring the final goal closer, and plans and comparisons help you finally decide on the city of your dreams.

The moving example is pretty simplistic, but at the heart of any such process is planning and taking the first steps, and this works both for deciding to leave a job and for asking someone out on a date. Huffington Post writer Bob Miglani described it this way:

“Actions, efforts and work save me from the flow of excitement and obsession with anything. It works wonders. Every time I start thinking a lot about the future, I get up from my chair, go to the computer and start writing an article or continue working on a book, sometimes in the garden. If I've been in the office all day, I write down ideas that can help improve my performance."

Indeed, the main thing is to start. This step helps the brain jump out of the loop. Usually, negativity is spinning in our heads because we are afraid of failure, but if you start working, the fear quickly dissipates.

Redirect your attention.

Sometimes it is impossible to take steps due to circumstances beyond your control, and then you can get rid of the loop through distraction. Find an activity, a hobby that will help with this: when you do this, the brain will focus on actions, and the thoughts that bother you will gradually disappear.

Many people prefer to play sports at such moments. Physical exercise can occupy the brain for a while and give you a break from your worries and obsession. Haruki Murakami describes this feeling as emptiness in his book What I Talk About When I Talk About Running:

“I just run. I run into the void. Or maybe I should put it another way: I'm running to find emptiness. But as one would expect, sometimes thoughts flicker in this emptiness. The human mind cannot be completely empty. Human emotions are not strong enough and consistent enough to sustain a vacuum. What I mean is that all kinds of thoughts and ideas that invade my emotions while I am running remain addicted to emptiness. They are just random thoughts without content, gathered around the emptiness in the center.

Of course, exercise is not the only way get distracted. For some, a great way to calm an overloaded brain is meditation. Quite ordinary things, such as music or any other activity that can distract the mind from disturbing thoughts, can also help to cope with anxiety.

Stop talking about it.

Most of us, when faced with a difficult decision and fixated on it, seek advice from others, which is completely natural. But in practice, this often means that we talk about our problem with so many people that in the end we simply cannot avoid the loop. Too much information only worsens the decision-making process. Psychology Today explains what happens in our brains:

“The human mind hates uncertainty, it suggests variability, chance and danger. When we notice a lack of information, the brain raises a metaphorical red flag and says, “Pay attention! It might be important…” When data is missing, we tend to overestimate its value. Our mind assumes that if we spend resources looking for this information, we will solve the problem.”

We all want to get useful information from others, but at some point it just stops being useful. When we have a limited amount of information, we can look at it more productively. Psychologists call this the "take the best" strategy:

“The 'take the best' strategy means that you only talk as much as you need to. Then you stop. For example, if there are ten pieces of information needed to make an informed decision, but one of these pieces is obviously more important than the others, then that piece will be enough to make a choice. The rest is unnecessary: an excess of details complicates everything and leads to a waste of time.

If you're obsessed with an event, a relationship problem with a loved one, or some work mistake, shield those around you from your feelings by sharing with someone closest to you, and this should help you calm down.

Understand the reason for the loop.

Sometimes we fixate on something simply because we can. We fall into the trap of a cycle in which we recreate some events over and over again or try to analyze an idea from all possible points of view. After long hours of thinking and sleepless nights, we eventually reach a dead end. Psychology Today argues that although our brains are programmed to do this kind of “looping”, there is still something that can be done about it. Here is how the problem is defined:

“Anxiety about relationships, self-esteem, the future, family, or whatever, and the cycle it causes, is always debilitating and rarely leads to beneficial results. More often than not, we just spend time thinking hard about events, our own actions, the actions of other people, or their thoughts.
We repeatedly try to predict all potential future outcomes, even though most of these scenarios will never come true. The biggest problem here, which we constantly remind people about, is that you are not your brain. We often take the fleeting thoughts, impulses, emotional impulses, and desires generated by our brains at face value, and assume from the outset that they must necessarily be true.”

There is also a small plan for getting rid of the loop:

1. Decide on the cause of the loop (self-doubt, anxiety, etc.);
2. Review your experience and identify thinking errors;
3. Switch your attention to the part that matters the most;
4. Reevaluate brain messages with new information.

After going through these four steps, you can better understand how often your brain has no idea what it's doing. By pulling back a little, you'll figure out exactly what idea is causing the loop, get out of the loop, and be able to move on.

From time to time we all get fixated on analyzing the same thing for the hundredth time and spend hours doing it. The trick is to minimize such thoughts and turn them into a productive channel.

Often, negative thoughts and feelings prevent us from enjoying the good things in life. Gradually, we begin to think about the bad more and more often, and immersion in negative thoughts becomes a habit that is difficult to eradicate. In order to overcome this habit (however, like any other), it is necessary to change the way of thinking.

When we're stressed about something, the last thing we need is for negative thoughts to add to our stress, so it's important to learn how to deal with the endless stream of thoughts. In this article we will talk about how to save yourself from unnecessary experiences.

Steps

Change your way of thinking

Think about today. When you are tormented by anxious thoughts, what do you most often think about at that moment? You are probably reliving the events of the past (even if everything happened a week ago) or thinking about what will happen in the future. In order to stop worrying, you need to remember the present moment, about today. If you shift your attention from what has already been or will be to what is happening now, it will become easier for you to stop perceiving everything too negatively. But, as is often the case, this is not so easy to do. In order to learn to live in the present, you must first learn to concentrate on what is happening to you literally at this very moment.

There is one simple technique: look at a calming image (photo, painting). This will allow your head to rest and let go of everything. bad thoughts, and this happens only naturally - that is, when you do not intentionally try to get rid of thoughts and do not wait until you finally succeed. It's very simple but effective way calm down and relax.
If that doesn't work, try distracting your mind by counting from 100 to 7, or choose a color and search the room for all the objects of that color. So you can get rid of the chaos in your head, and then you can again focus on the present moment.

Don't lock yourself in. One of the consequences of focusing on bad thoughts is often an increasing distance between you and the world around you. If you decide to get out of your shell and reconnect with the world, you will have less time and energy for bad thoughts. Do not scold yourself for negative thoughts or emotions - this will only make things worse. You may have often thought about the fact that you really dislike someone, and then felt guilty about such thoughts or angry at yourself because of it. Because of this perception, causal relationships and incorrect attitudes are strengthened in the head, which become extremely difficult to get rid of over time. Below we present a few simple ways switch from your inner world to the outer.

Develop self-confidence. Self-doubt in all its variety of manifestations often becomes the main cause of difficult thoughts and strong feelings. This feeling constantly haunts you: whatever you do, it is everywhere with you. For example, when talking with a friend, you constantly worry about how you look, what impression you make, instead of just talking. It is necessary to develop self-confidence, and then it will be easier for you to live a full life and not torment yourself with destructive thoughts.
- Try to regularly do something exciting - this will make you feel confident in your abilities. For example, if you are good at baking pies, enjoy the whole process of baking: enjoy kneading the dough, enjoy the aroma that fills your home.
- When you develop the ability to enjoy the present moment, remember this feeling and reproduce it as often as possible. Remember that the only thing keeping you from feeling in the present is your perception, so stop tormenting yourself with self-criticism.
Understand how consciousness works
1. Analyze your attitude towards negative thoughts or feelings. Since bad thoughts are often just habitual, they can come as soon as you stop looking after yourself. Promise yourself not to focus on these thoughts, because you need to learn not only to let them go, but also not to allow new ones to arise.
  
  Watch yourself . Determine how thoughts or feelings manage to control you. Thoughts have two components - the topic (what you think about) and the process (how you think).
  - Consciousness does not always need a topic - in cases of its absence, thoughts simply jump from one to another. Consciousness uses such thoughts in order to protect itself from something, or in order to calm and distract from something else - for example, from physical pain, from fear. In other words, when the defense mechanism kicks in, often the mind is just trying to cling to something to give you something to think about.
  - Thoughts that have a specific theme have a completely different character. Perhaps you are angry, worried about something, or thinking about some problem. Such thoughts are often repeated and always revolve around the same thing.
  - The difficulty lies in the fact that consciousness cannot be constantly absorbed by a topic or process. In order to correct the situation, it is worth remembering that thoughts alone cannot help the cause. Often we do not want to let go of thoughts and feelings because we want to better understand the situation: for example, if we are angry, we think about all the circumstances of the situation, all the participants, all the actions, and so on.
  - Often our desire to think about something is either simply think it turns out to be stronger than the desire to let go of thoughts, which greatly complicates the whole situation. The desire to think just for the sake of the process of "thinking" can lead to self-destruction, while this struggle with oneself is another way to escape from the situation that originally caused thoughts. It is necessary to overcome the desire to constantly comprehend something and learn to let go of thoughts, and after a while the desire to let go of thoughts in all cases will be stronger than the desire to scroll through something in the head without stopping.
  - Another problem is that we are used to considering thoughts as part of our personality. A person is not ready to admit that he himself can cause pain and suffering to himself. There is a generally accepted opinion, according to which it is believed that all feelings regarding one's "I" are valuable. Some feelings lead to negative experiences, others do not. Therefore, it is always necessary to look closely at thoughts and feelings in order to understand which ones are worth leaving and which ones should be let go.
2. Try some experiments.
  - Try your best not to think of a polar bear or anything out of the ordinary, like a crimson flamingo with a cup of coffee. This is a rather old experiment, but it reveals the essence of human thinking very well. By trying to refrain from thinking about the bear, we suppress both the very thought of it and the thought that we need to suppress something. If you specifically try not to think about the bear, the thought of it will not go anywhere.
  - Imagine that you are holding a pencil in your hands. Think about what you want to throw it. In order to throw a pencil, you need to hold it. While you are thinking about leaving him, you are holding him. Logically speaking, a pencil cannot be dropped as long as you are holding it. The more you want to throw, the more force you hold it.
3. Stop fighting with your thoughts. When we try to overcome any thoughts or feelings, we try to gather more strength to strike, but because of this, we cling to these thoughts even more strongly. The more effort, the greater the load on the mind, which responds to all these attempts with stress.
  - Instead of trying to forcefully get rid of thoughts, you need to loosen your grip. A pencil can fall out of your hands by itself - in the same way, thoughts can leave by themselves. It may take time: if you tried to forcefully eradicate some thoughts, the consciousness could remember your attempts, as well as its response.
  - When we go through our thoughts in an attempt to make sense of them or try to get rid of them, we do not budge, because there is simply nowhere for thoughts to go. Once we stop dwelling on this situation, we let them go.
Learn new things
1. Learn to manage your thoughts. If a thought or feeling comes back to you over and over again, there are plenty of ways to keep it from engulfing you.
  - Surely there is a movie that you have watched many times, or a book that you have re-read. You always know what will happen next, so you are not so interested in watching a movie or reading this book again. Or maybe you've done something so many times that you don't want to do it again because you know you'll be bored. Try to transfer this experience to the situation with thoughts: as soon as you lose interest in thinking about the same thing, the thought will go away by itself.
2. Don't try to run away from negative thoughts and emotions . Are you tired of the exhausting thoughts that are always with you, but have you really tried to deal with them? Sometimes a person tries to pretend that something is not there, instead of accepting it. If you do this with negative thoughts or emotions, they can stay with you forever. Allow yourself to feel what you need to feel, and then let go of the emotions you no longer need. If your mind forces thoughts and emotions on you, it can make you judge yourself. There are many manipulative mechanisms in our minds, and we are not even aware of many of them. Consciousness manipulates us, because it seeks to control us through addictions to a variety of things and strong desires. By and large, we are driven by our addictions.
  - Remember that your happiness is in your hands, that feelings and emotions should not determine how you manage your life. If you allow past or future worries and obsessive desires to control you, you will never be able to live a fulfilling life.
  - Manage your own thoughts. Turn them inside out, change them - in the end, you will understand that you have power over thoughts, and not they have over you. Replacing negative thoughts with positive ones is a temporary measure, but it can be extremely useful at the right time. It will be easier for you to let go of thoughts if you feel that you yourself are able to control everything.
  - If your thoughts revolve around a problem that you have yet to solve, try your best to come up with ways to get out of the problem situation. Do everything in your power, even if the situation seems completely hopeless.
  - If your thoughts and feelings are related to a sad event (such as the death of a relative or the breakup of a relationship), allow yourself to feel the sadness. Looking at pictures of the person you miss, thinking about the good things you have experienced together, and crying if it makes you feel better - all this is human. It is also helpful to write about your feelings in a journal.
Remember the good
1. Don't forget to remind yourself of the good things. If you're stressed, tired from work, or just feeling overwhelmed, bad thoughts can come back. In order to prevent them from completely absorbing you, use special methods of dealing with unwanted thoughts that will not allow them to take root.
  
  Practice visualization. This method will be especially useful for those who are very busy and who do not have enough time to relax. It is necessary to imagine in detail some pleasant place: it can be a memory of a place where you had a good time, or a fictional place.
2. Think about your achievements. The world gives us many opportunities to enjoy life: we can help others, finish our chores, achieve certain goals, or simply get out into nature with family or have dinner with friends. Thinking about pleasant things develops self-confidence and makes us more receptive to good things.
  - Give thanks for what you have. For example, write down three things for which you are grateful to the universe. So in the head you can quickly “put things in order” and get rid of the flow of thoughts.
3. Take care of yourself. Poor health will prevent you from fully enjoying life and remaining optimistic. When a person takes care of his body and takes care of his state of mind, negative thoughts and emotions simply have nothing to cling to.
  - Get enough sleep. Lack of sleep lowers vitality and does not contribute to good mood so try to sleep at least 7-8 hours a day.
  - Eat well. A balanced diet will allow your brain to get all the elements it needs. Include enough fruits and vegetables in your diet.
  - Go in for sports. Regular physical activity will help you not only always be in shape, but also fight stress. Both will contribute to better well-being and allow you to free yourself from heavy thoughts.

Sometimes we just get stuck. On various aspects of life. Our decisions, regrets, self-esteem, worries about the future - we so often get stuck in our own head that sometimes we feel: there is no way out. We tell you how to stop being smart and start moving on.

Why are we obsessed?

When we talk about thinking too much about something, we are talking about several things. On the one hand, long thinking is when we get into a kind of loop, replaying the same event in our head over and over again.

You analyze what happened, regret what you did or didn’t do, worry about the consequences, etc.

On the other hand, you can similarly think about decisions rather than actions. You analyze your decisions to the point of complete exhaustion, and one day you can reach the point where you can’t make any decisions at all.

In any case, we are wiser when we fixate on something and cannot think about anything else. This deprives of strength, mood, energy, will to work. BUT final goal is to somehow get out of this "thought cycle" and move on.

1. Act Now

If you are obsessed with something - the best thing you can do is take action. This does not mean that you should suddenly jump up and run to do something, it only means that you need to take a step forward.

Suppose you are planning to move to another city. You can't do it right away, so you sit back and forth over and over in your mind about the details of the move.

And this is where it matters. For example, make a list of where you want to go after you move. Study the housing prices in this city, find out what kind of work there is, and so on. Create a financial plan and set goals. Make a schedule.

It doesn't matter what you are doing, you just have to move away from the thought you are fixated on. Creating all these plans and comparing them further can help you make your final decision.

Actually, moving is a simplistic example, but it works great in all situations related to your future. In any similar situation, you can start drawing up a plan of action - and feel better. Bob Miglani, a contributor to the Huffington Post, summed up the idea this way:

Bob Miglani / © www.indiaconferenceatharvard.com
“The only thing that helps to rid the mind of obsession is turning your anxious thoughts about the future into some kind of effort and work. Act, do something, and these actions can create a miracle.

Every time I start to worry about the future, I just get up, go to my computer and start writing something or working on my book. And if suddenly it happened during the day, in the office, then I start writing down ideas on how to make my work more productive, or how to start working on something really interesting.

No matter which task you choose, it must be challenging for focusing on solving the problem to give your brain enough of a boost to break the vicious cycle of obsession.”

From this it follows that doing business is the main cure for cycling. We tend to be smart because we are afraid of failure, but as soon as we get down to business, fears and doubts dissipate by themselves.

2. Switch your attention to something else

Sometimes, for some reason, you cannot begin to act, and then the only measure that gets rid of the "loop" is to distract the mind. Find yourself a hobby or some other activity that will completely occupy your mind. This will allow you to forget about your "thought cycle" for a while, and eventually it will disappear.

Some people just go for a walk at such moments. Writer Haruki Murakami describes this feeling as "emptiness" in one of his books, and he uses running as a cure for it:

“I just run. I run into the void. Or maybe I should put it another way: I'm running to find emptiness. But as one would expect, sometimes thoughts flicker in this emptiness. The human mind cannot be completely empty. Human emotions are not strong enough and consistent enough to sustain a vacuum. What I mean is that all kinds of thoughts and ideas that invade my emotions while I am running remain addicted to emptiness. They are just random thoughts without content, gathered around the emptiness in the center.

Of course, exercise is not the only way to get distracted. For some, a great way to calm an overloaded brain is meditation. Quite ordinary things, such as listening to music or any other activity that can distract the mind from disturbing thoughts, can also help to cope with anxiety.

3. Stop talking about it

Most of us, when faced with a difficult decision and obsessed with it, seek advice from others, which is completely natural. But in practice this often means that we talk about our problem with so many people that in the end we just can't help but get hung up. As mentioned earlier, too many "chefs in the kitchen" only worsen the decision-making process. Psychology today can explain what happens in our brain:

“The human mind hates uncertainty. Uncertainty implies volatility, randomness and danger. When we notice a lack of information, the brain raises a metaphorical red flag and says, “Pay attention! It can be important…” When data is missing, we tend to overestimate its value. Our mind assumes that if we spend resources looking for this information, we will solve the problem.”

We all want to receive useful information from others, but at a certain point this information ceases to be useful. When we have a limited amount of information, we can look at it more productively. Psychologists call it "strategy to take the best":

“The “take the best” strategy means that you only reason as much as you need to. Then you stop and do something else. For example, if there are ten pieces of information you need to make an informed decision, but one of those pieces is obviously more important than the others, then that piece will be enough for you to make a choice. Too much detail complicates things and wastes time.”

4. Find out why you're obsessed

Sometimes we fixate on something simply because we can. We fall into the trap of a cycle in which we recreate some events over and over again or try to analyze an idea from all possible points of view. After many hours of thinking and sleepless nights, we eventually reach a dead end.

Psychologists say that although our brain is programmed for such a “looping”, something can still be done about it.

Here is their definition of the problem:

"Is this anxiety about social interactions, whether because of our self-image, our future, our families, or whatever, the cycle it causes is always exhausting and rarely leads to beneficial results. More often than not, we just spend time thinking hard about events, our actions, other people's actions, or their thoughts. We repeatedly try to predict all potential future outcomes, even though most of these scenarios will never come true.

The biggest problem here, which we constantly remind people of, is that you are not your brain. We often take the fleeting thoughts, impulses, emotional impulses, and desires generated by our brains at face value, and assume from the outset that they must necessarily be true.”

To recap, here is a four-step plan for breaking out of obsession:

Decide with what exactly causes the “loop” (self-doubt, anxiety, etc.);
reconsider your experience and identify thinking errors;
Switch focus on the part that matters the most;
Spend re-evaluating your brain's messages with new information.

After going through these four steps, you can better understand how often our brain has no idea what it is doing. By pulling back a little, you can figure out which idea is causing the loop, close the loop, and move on.

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