Not Thinking Too Hard Is Good

Thinking is something we all do all the time. There is no way to stop the incessant chatter that is the soundtrack to everything we do.

Should I eat this? Or should I eat that? I need to go to the bathroom but I’ll wait a few minutes until I go. After that I better check my voice mail and then my email oh and I have to… it never stops.

Thinking then is not an issue but thinking too hard is or at least can be an issue. Having anxiety is like thinking in that it is always there in one form or another. Anxiety though has the ability to hijack your thoughts and cause them to race, obsess or otherwise make you believe things that aren’t true.

It all starts with a memory or some passing idea that brings in a thought that escapes you and then becomes a problem. The escaped thought then grabs hold of other existing fears and creates new ones or at a minimum makes the old fears really scary.

To stop this type of runaway thought process takes practice but it  can be done. The first thing you have to do when this happens is to acknowledge it. You have to tell yourself that these strange, scary and weird thoughts are only thoughts.

You have to un-convince yourself that something is wrong. Undo the lie that you’ve gone crazy and actually question the basis of the thought itself. You have to ask yourself is this thought real or some imagined fear of mine?

What would you say to someone that admitted to having the same thought? Would you encourage them to discount it or believe it?

Once you acknowledge it you then must turn your attention outside yourself. If you’re at work get busy and stay busy. If you’re at home get up and do something that requires your hands to be occupied while you do it. You have to become a master at the art of self distraction.

If you don’t put the brakes on these types of thoughts who knows how deep down the rabbit hole you’ll go before you naturally forget all about it. You could go so deep in fact that you might whip up those thoughts into actual physical feelings.

What started as a dreaded thought can turn into a tingling head, goose bumps, and chills. You can scare yourself into a corner and keep yourself there if you’re not careful.

Another tool in my anti anxiety kit is self talk itself. The rapid, out loud sayings that can keep you grounded in reality. Tell yourself over and over – I am o.k., I am safe, nothing is wrong, it’s only a thought, etc.

This sounds like a cheap trick but it has worked for me many times in the past. Thinking is natural and mandatory for any functioning adult, however thinking hard, dwelling, and over scrutinizing everything won’t help you to manage anxiety and in fact can exacerbate it.

We sometimes tell ourselves “I can’t help it I just think these things without wanting to”. But did you ever wonder how or that you could intervene on your own behalf?

Wrangling thoughts is not easy and will take repeated attempts on your part before you get a handle on the practice. But don’t be so easily discouraged – it took a long time for you to get to this point and likewise it will take awhile to calm the storm that has developed over time.

The next time you find yourself in deep anxious thought stop. Stop the thought and don’t follow it any further. Even if it takes a few minutes, or even a few hours, don’t participate in the free for all fear party.

If you need to be in deep thought because of work, school or social situation then by all means handle it. But if you are on ‘break’ then be on break. Try to be the light version of yourself for awhile and help slow down the grand prix going on in your head.