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It is not always easy to cope with the cycle of obsessive thoughts on your own. Nevertheless, there is a way out. Our experts suggest several exercises. You can choose for yourself those of them that suit you.
Stop the flow of thoughts
Express emotions
When thoughts try to take over you again, list them, advises the Gestalt therapist Nifont Dolgopolov: “I always think that I don’t have time to complete the work by the deadline …”, “I start to worry about …”.
Then try to remember the situation when you had thoughts and feelings that now do not let go. For example, “When I took on this project, I had a fear that I would not meet the deadlines …”
Name the strongest emotion (“I’m mad at myself for getting into this story in the first place!”). Express it as vividly as possible, reinforcing it with your voice, gesture, body movement.
It is better to do this exercise in a secluded place where no one will disturb you.
“The idea of this exercise is simple: our unmanifested feelings and unfulfilled actions cause an endless movement of thoughts,” explains Nifont Dolgopolov. “Once we can express them, the cycle will stop.”
Breathe deeply
Breathing also effectively helps to distract from annoying thoughts. Sit comfortably, relax. Close your eyes, breathe calmly and measuredly. Listen to yourself, to your breathing, watch your body, how your chest moves, your stomach rises and falls …
“At this moment, attention is focused on our bodily sensations, so breathing exercises allow you to switch, and also relieve muscle tension that accompanies mental anxiety,” explains wellness expert Lelya Savosina.
Write down what you think
Grab a piece of paper and start writing down whatever comes to mind. Not choosing words, not paying attention to spelling, not editing myself. Pay attention to how your handwriting changes – at first sharp and choppy, it smoothes out as the lost balance returns to you.
“This exercise gives vent to our worries and doubts and allows us to look at them from the outside,” explains psychotherapist Alexander Orlov. – The method of free association in psychoanalysis, the method of directed imagination in Jungian analysis is built on a similar principle.
Any psychotherapy presupposes confidential and free communication, that is, the utterance of everything that really excites and disturbs.
“It’s very nice to make with your own hands”
“When it’s hard for me to switch, I start doing something with my hands. I have in store for this case an electric planer, a jigsaw, a circular saw, a screwdriver, a grinder and even an electric chisel. Most of the time, I put together shelving, a must-have in our Tolstoy homes, where books are constantly piling up and stacked on the floor. I also like to make all sorts of lockers, drawers. Recently, an old chest was pasted over with fabrics that had been gathering dust at home for 50 years, since they arrived with their grandfather from emigration.
At times like these, I like to wrap the crappy boxes over and give them to my mom to keep her science cards in. It seems that you think about how to properly fit a piece of wood or screw a screw, and obsessive thoughts go away, and sometimes at such moments an unexpected decision suddenly comes, just because you are not storming this height head-on. Manual labor improves mood, besides, when something comes out of your hands, you value yourself higher in this world.
Look from a different angle
Be careful
“The deeper we plunge into thoughts, the less clearly we perceive, see, hear what is happening around us – this is how our consciousness works. And vice versa: the more we are open to the world, the more we perceive colors, shapes, sounds, smells, the less intense our thinking is,” explains existential psychotherapist Maria Soloveychik.
Therefore, noticing that once again you have fallen into the trap of persistent thoughts, try to shift your attention to what you see around you: “Here is a leaf, it has turned yellow around the edges, but in the middle it is still green, it is trembling in the wind.”
If you are distracted – “Yes, there is nothing special about it, it is the same as other leaves!” – know that you have again moved into the sphere of thinking – assessments, criticism. Note this reaction and return to observation again.
Expand your field of perception. Now you see the entire crown of the tree, noticing the smooth transitions of color, the measured swaying of the branches. Switch to the details: “One branch is still quite green for some reason – not a single yellow leaf …”
And again change the focus – now take a look at the whole picture as a whole: trees, houses, clouds … “By allowing yourself to see and feel this landscape, opening your mind to the perception of images, you can force annoying thoughts out of it,” Maria Soloveichik concludes.
Understand who’s talking
Alone with ourselves, in communication with other people, we are in one of the three states of our “I”: Adult, Parent or Child. We evaluate the situation and make decisions (like an Adult), demand or care (like a Parent), act up or obey (like a Child).
“The scrolling of the same thoughts in the head can be understood as an ongoing internal dialogue between these states of our “I,” explains Vadim Petrovsky, Doctor of Psychology, transactional analyst.
To stop it, you need to learn to recognize who is speaking at the moment – Adult, Parent or Child
“So, if our thoughts revolve around supposed failure, it’s most likely our Parent who severely criticizes the Child, predicting that he will again fail the task,” adds French transactional analyst Isabelle Crespel.
– The solution is to get the Parent-mentor to speak instead of the critical Parent, who tells what to do and supports, says: “Believe in yourself, you can”, and not “You will not succeed again.” This approach helps to stop the flow of negative thoughts and move on to a constructive solution.
Ask yourself questions
Often we worry not because of real difficulties, but because of far-fetched, supposed problems. “If we can’t change reality yet, we can try to change our thoughts about it,” says Kathy Byron, American psychologist, author of the “Work” methodology.
Ask yourself four questions: “Is this true?”, “Can I be absolutely sure that this is true?”, “What reaction do these thoughts evoke in me?”, “Who would I be without these thoughts?”.
For example, you do not know what to do because you assume that someone will be angry. By answering these questions, you will find that this person will not be angry, that you have convinced yourself of this. Or you will understand that it is important for you to believe in his discontent in order to justify your inaction. Or that you’re actually angry with him…
This simple technique helps to realize the relativity of our beliefs, change the angle of view and see other, completely unexpected solutions to the problem.
“I give thanks for all the trials”
“There are many ways to relieve the tension caused by a whirlwind of annoying thoughts, for example, take a walk before going to bed or swim in the pool. But it is better to try to answer the question: where did this state come from? What challenge did I face at this moment in my life’s journey? For me personally, the surest way to deal with emotional stress is thanksgiving for the test that is sent to me.
I reflect on whether I endure it with dignity, whether I answered evil with evil, whether I forgave those who brought me into a state of discomfort, whether I understood why I ended up in such a situation … For me, the main and only way is warmly, with all my heart, thanksgiving to God for the fact that he gave this day, for the fact that there were so many things in it – and good things! After such a prayer, the Lord gives me a calm, light sleep and clear thoughts with which I wake up the next morning.
Avoid repetition
Practice meditation
“We concentrate on our thoughts, both good and bad, while meditation allows us to focus only on what is good for us,” says yoga teacher Natalia Shuvalova. You can concentrate on your own breathing, on some symbol or sound. But first, it is important to learn how to simply observe your thoughts and feelings from the outside.
Assuming a comfortable position, simply observe everything that arises in your body and mind. Let thoughts, emotions, sensations flow past, do not judge them, do not try to push them away or, on the contrary, study them in detail.
“It is important to realize that we are not what we are experiencing at the moment, that it is we who control thoughts and emotions, and not they control us,” continues Natalia Shuvalova. “Just by watching, we seem to turn off thoughts from the outlet, stop energizing them.”
Dim the brightness
“We most vividly represent events or memories that are especially important to us,” explains Doctor of Psychology, business consultant Alexei Sitnikov. “Our haunting thoughts are like a color movie that we watch on TV with a huge screen and powerful sound: the impact is so strong that we are completely captured by what is happening.”
But if you watch the same “movie” on a TV with a low sound and a fuzzy picture, the level of impact will be different.
Therefore, if you are again taken over by thoughts, memories or experiences that haunt you, imagine them in the form of a TV movie, and then imagine that you turn down the brightness and sound levels in the settings. Thus, without changing the content of your thoughts, feelings, memories, you will reduce the level of their perception.
What if exercise doesn’t help?
Perhaps the haunting thoughts become so intense that the exercises do not bring calm. “Intrusive thoughts can be seen as a psychological defense mechanism that helps us deal with fearful, unpredictable feelings. And they often occur in those who do not know how, cannot, or are afraid to show their emotions, ”explains the psychoanalyst, president of the Society for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Ksenia Korbut.
In this case, we try to logically explain our experiences, reduce them to something unambiguous, rational. And since it is impossible to do this, we repeat our explanations like a spell, not being able to distract ourselves from them.
“If you feel that your thoughts are becoming too intense and you cannot cope with them, you should contact a specialist to get in touch with the world of your emotions and try to understand them,” concludes Ksenia Korbut.