Dark thoughts in my head. Effective techniques for getting rid of negative thoughts. Find the reason for the negativity and live it

Unwanted thoughts can make you feel anxious or depressed. They will take away your opportunity to enjoy life.

A technique known as thought stopping can help you avoid unwanted thoughts.

Key points

The way you think can affect how you feel. Changing your mindset will help you feel better.

Changing your thinking is a time-consuming process. You must work on yourself every day. After a certain period of time, you will be able to drive away unwanted thoughts as soon as they appear.

Some people need help from a therapist to learn techniques for stopping unwanted thoughts. Talk to your doctor or therapist if you need more help.

What is the thought stopping technique?

This is a way to get rid of unwanted thoughts. You may live with or be obsessed with thoughts that make you worry, sad, or feel bad about yourself. Research has shown that the thought-stopping technique is truly effective. It helps a person change their way of thinking. During this technique, the focus is on unwanted thoughts and their further eradication.

If you constantly work on yourself, then over time there will be much fewer unwanted thoughts in life. Over time, you will find it easier to ignore the negative thought, or it may not appear at all. In some cases, this thought may be excessive anxiety, for example, worry about your health or the health of loved ones. Or, you constantly remember and think about a bad grade at school or a negative comment from your boss. The Thought Stopping Technique will help you stop those thoughts.

You can practice this technique on your own or with a doctor or therapist.

Why is it necessary to learn the thought stopping technique?

Research has proven that changing the way you think changes your mood. The technique for stopping unwanted thoughts is very easy to learn and can really help improve your mood. Negative thoughts lead to anxiety and depression. They affect your sleep. And they affect the ability to work and enjoy life.

The thought stopping technique is also effective in treating pre-existing anxiety or depression. This is one way to actively participate in your treatment. In this way, you will learn to stop those thoughts that cause you to feel anxious and depressed.

You can learn this technique from any psychologist and it will help you in the future both in life and at work. It is easy to learn, but requires some time to fully master.

In some cases, the patient needs more professional help to learn to stop unwanted thoughts. If you are unable to deal with your thoughts alone using this technique, seek professional help.

How to stop unwanted thoughts?

To stop an unwanted thought, you need to focus on the negative thought and learn to tell yourself “Stop” to stop thinking about it. In the first days you will have to shout “Stop” to yourself, over time you will be able to pronounce this word in your mind, which will give you the opportunity to use this technique anywhere and anytime.

Advice: where to start:

Write down your most negative thoughts. These are the thoughts that distract you from your daily activities and provoke feelings of anxiety. You would like to get rid of such thoughts, but they keep coming up again and again. Write down these thoughts in order of their negativity, from most negative to least negative. Start practicing the thought stopping technique from the end of this list. Below is an example of such a list, starting with the most negative thought:

I'm always afraid that something terrible will happen to my child, even if he just has a cold.

I know that my husband or I will soon be fired from our jobs.

I'm really stressed about presenting at work, it's all I can think about.

Imagine this thought. Sit or lie down in a secluded place (so you can shout “Stop” without worrying about anyone hearing you). Close your eyes. Imagine a situation in which such a thought might arise. Then allow yourself to focus on this thought.

Stop this thought. Sudden fear is a good way to interrupt an unwanted thought. Try one of the following methods in practice:

Set an alarm or timer for 3 minutes. Then focus on the negative thought. When the alarm rings, shout out loud “Stop!” If you wish, you can get up at this time. Some people snap their fingers or clap their hands when doing this. Actions like these and the word “Stop” are key to stopping unwanted thoughts. Clear your brain and try not to think for 30 seconds. If a negative thought appears again during this time, shout “Stop” again.

Instead of an alarm clock, you can use a recording of your voice in which you shout “Stop” at intervals of 3 minutes, 2 minutes and one minute. Start the exercise. Focus on the negative thought, and as soon as you hear your voice shouting the word “Stop,” stop thinking about it. Hearing your voice tell you to stop will strengthen your commitment to yourself.

Practice steps one through three until the thought disappears when you say the command. After this, do the whole exercise all over again, but saying the word “Stop” in a normal voice.

Once you learn to stop a thought in a normal voice, try switching to a whisper. Over time, you will learn to simply imagine that you are shouting “Stop” to yourself and then you will be able to drive away unwanted thoughts from yourself anywhere and at any time.

Now you are ready to move on to the next thought that is bothering you and start your workout all over again.

Having caught yourself on some risky or dangerous idea, mentally disown it, convince yourself that this will never happen to you. If it helps clear away bad thoughts, then that's great. This means that you have the ability to refuse, thereby not forming a matrix of horror and not letting it into your life. You are able to abandon an attached thought or not attract the thought of extraneous horror to your own field. Otherwise, they, having felt a similar vibration, will instantly move to your skin and will torment you.

If this usual method did not help you get rid of bad ideas, and you are still afraid that something bad might happen to you or your relatives, do the following.

How to remove bad thoughts from your head

Move into your thoughts and be exactly where they take you. Mentally become aware of yourself and what is around you. Look around, feel your own body, to do this, move slightly. Thus, get rid of unnecessary bad ideas and come back.

Ways to get bad thoughts out of your head:

Don't be left alone with your thoughts. If you really feel bad, go outside, call your friends or acquaintances. Finally, come to work. You need a distraction, and this can be done by talking to someone. Your loved ones always have something to say to you when they meet, just like you.

Don't think about the future. Stop living in the future, you live today. Live today so that you remember it.

Try to drive your bad thoughts out of your head with an effort of will. Just don't let them show up there. It's quite difficult, but only the first time. But unless you learn to control your thoughts, you will never be able to control yourself.

Try to imagine the opposite situation to the one that is spinning in your head now. She will quickly calm you down. And your head will be occupied with other positive thoughts. You won't even notice how you start smiling.

Never store emotions inside yourself. From time to time they need to be thrown out. Especially negative ones. All bad thoughts depend on your emotions. You have no idea, but just try to find the connection between bad thoughts and negative recent emotions - it will be very close.

Remember, bad thoughts always visit people, exclusively everyone. After all, you can’t be sure of everything. To remove bad thoughts, it is enough to refocus your attention on this problem or use one of the above methods.

How to calm your nerves and relieve stress without drugs

There are many ways to calm your nerves. With medications everything is clear. But how to calm yourself without medications is a rather interesting question.

Take ten grams of ginseng per one hundred milliliters of seventy percent alcohol and leave to infuse for two to three weeks. Then squeeze and filter, store the solution in a dark jar in a dark place. Take fifteen to twenty drops two to three times a day thirty minutes before meals. It is best not to take before bed or very late in the evening.

Take Eleutherococcus senticosus extract. To remove bad thoughts from your head, you can take it in the evening. Take a total of three times a day, thirty to forty drops before meals. After a month's use, your sleep will be normalized and your blood pressure will stabilize. In case of acute infectious diseases, do not take under any circumstances.

To calm yourself without medication, take thirty to forty drops of Schisandra chinensis twice a day, half an hour before meals.

Take thirty to forty drops of high zamanika twice a day, also half an hour before meals.

You can take thirty to forty drops of Aralia Manchurian tincture twice a day, thirty minutes before meals.

There are many more recipes for folk remedies for calming.

It is necessary to change the type of your activity, at least for a short period of time. If you are currently working at a job that forces you to spend most of your time sitting, stand up and walk around.

Walk along the entire corridor from the 1st end to the second. Do it monotonously and slowly, as if you were meditating. Think about something calming, something good. Don’t think about how to run away home, or how to say goodbye to your boyfriend, this will only upset you. If it is possible to go outside the hallway or office building, do so to calm your nerves.

Let's move on from work to home conditions. In the family, too, there are always irritants that are simply impossible to withstand for a long time. The children are having some difficulties at school, the spouse is constantly wanting something, and at the same time a lot of things have accumulated that cannot be put off. To avoid going crazy, find a moment when no one is home and indulge in meditation.

Using folk remedies or meditation, you can remove bad thoughts in different ways and calm yourself without drugs. If none of the above has helped you, try drinking soothing herbs.

Often negative thoughts and feelings prevent us from enjoying the good things in life. Gradually, we begin to think about bad things more and more often, and immersing ourselves in negative thoughts becomes a habit that is difficult to eradicate. In order to overcome this habit (as well as any other), you need to change your way of thinking.

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

Steps

Change your way of thinking

Think about today. When you are tormented by anxious thoughts, what do you think about most often at that moment? You are probably reliving past events (even if it happened a week ago) or thinking about what will happen in the future. In order to stop worrying, you need to remember about the present moment, about today. If you shift your attention from what has already happened or will be, to what is happening now, it will become easier for you to stop perceiving everything too negatively. But, as often happens, 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 peaceful image (photo, painting). This will allow your head to rest and let go of all the bad thoughts, and this only happens naturally - that is, when you are not deliberately trying to get rid of thoughts and are not waiting for you to finally succeed. This is a very simple but effective way to calm down and relax.
If that doesn't work, try distracting your mind by counting from 100 to 7, or pick a color and find all the objects in the room that color. This way you can get rid of the chaos in your head, and then you can focus on the present moment again.

Don't isolate yourself. One of the consequences of focusing on bad thoughts is often an ever-increasing distance between you and the world around you. If you decide to come out of your shell and reconnect with the world, you will have less time and energy for bad thoughts. Don't scold yourself for negative thoughts or emotions - this will only make things worse. You may have often thought about how much you disliked someone, and then felt guilty about such thoughts or angry with yourself because of it. Because of this perception, cause-and-effect relationships and incorrect attitudes are strengthened in the head, which over time become extremely difficult to get rid of. Below are some simple ways to switch from your inner world to your outer world.

Develop self-confidence. Self-doubt in all its diversity of manifestations often becomes the main cause of difficult thoughts and strong experiences. This feeling constantly haunts you: no matter what you do, it is with you everywhere. For example, when talking with a friend, you are constantly worried 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 do something exciting regularly - this will make you feel confident in your abilities. For example, if you are good at baking pies, enjoy the entire baking process: enjoy kneading the dough, enjoy the aroma that fills your home.
- When you manage to develop the ability to live joyfully in the present moment, remember this feeling and reproduce it as often as possible. Remember that the only thing keeping you from feeling present is your perception, so stop tormenting yourself with self-criticism.
Understand how the mind works
1. Examine your attitude towards negative thoughts or feelings. Because bad thoughts often arise simply out of habit, they can come as soon as you stop taking care of yourself. Promise yourself not to dwell on these thoughts, because you need to learn not only to let them go, but also to prevent new ones from appearing.
  
  Watch yourself . Identify how thoughts or feelings manage to control you. Thoughts have two components - topic (what you think about) and 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 a defense mechanism is triggered, often the mind is simply trying to latch onto something to give you something to think about.
  - Thoughts that have a specific topic 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 is that the mind cannot be constantly absorbed in a topic or process. In order to correct the situation, it is worth remembering that thoughts alone will not help the matter. Often we don't 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 turns out to be stronger than the desire to let go of thoughts, which significantly complicates the whole situation. The desire to think only 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 initially caused the thoughts. It is necessary to overcome the desire to constantly think about something and learn to let go of thoughts, and after some time the desire to let go of thoughts in all cases will be stronger than the desire to scroll something in your head without stopping.
  - Another problem is that we tend to think of thoughts as part of our personality. A person is not ready to admit that he can cause himself pain and suffering. There is a generally accepted opinion according to which it is believed that all feelings concerning oneself are valuable. Some feelings lead to negative experiences, others do not. Therefore, it is always necessary to take a closer look at thoughts and feelings in order to understand which ones should be left and which ones should be released.
2. Try some experiments.
  - Try your best not to think about a polar bear or something incredible - for example, a crimson flamingo with a cup of coffee. This is a fairly old experiment, but it reveals the essence of human thinking very well. When we try to refrain from thinking about the bear, we suppress both the thought of it and the idea that we need to suppress something. If you deliberately try not to think about the bear, the thought of it will not go away.
  - Imagine that you are holding a pencil in your hands. Think about the fact that you want to leave him. In order to throw a pencil, you need to hold it. While you are thinking about giving it up, you are holding on to it. Logically speaking, the pencil cannot be thrown as long as you hold it. The harder you want to throw, the more forcefully you hold it.
3. Stop fighting your thoughts with force. When we try to overcome some thoughts or feelings, we try to gather more strength to strike, but because of this we cling to these thoughts even more tightly. The more effort, the greater the load on the consciousness, which responds to all these attempts with stress.
  - Instead of trying to force your thoughts away, you need to loosen your grip. The pencil can fall out of your hands on its own, just as thoughts can go away on their own. 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 understand them or try to get rid of them, we do not move because the thoughts simply have nowhere to go. Once we stop obsessing over the situation, we let them go.
Learn something new
1. Learn to cope with your thoughts. If a thought or feeling keeps coming back to you over and over again, there are many ways to stop it from consuming you.
  - There's probably a movie you've watched many times, or a book you've re-read. You always know what will happen next, so you are not so interested in watching the movie or reading that book again. Or maybe you've done something so many times that you don't want to do it again because you know how bored you'll be. Try to transfer this experience to a situation with thoughts: as soon as you lose interest in thinking about the same thing, the thought will go away on its own.
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 does not exist, instead of accepting it. If you deal with negative thoughts or emotions this way, they can stay with you forever. Allow yourself to feel what you need to feel, and then let go of unnecessary emotions. If your mind imposes thoughts and emotions on you, it can cause you to judge yourself. There are many manipulative mechanisms hidden in our minds, and many of them we are not even aware of. Consciousness manipulates us because it strives 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 worries about the past or future and obsessive desires to control you, you will never be able to live a fulfilling life.
  - Control your thoughts yourself. Turn them inside out, change them - in the end, you will understand that you have power over your thoughts, and not they have power over you. Replacing negative thoughts with positive ones is a temporary measure, but it can also be extremely useful at the right time. It will be easier for you to let go of thoughts if you feel that you are in control.
  - If your thoughts revolve around a problem that you have yet to resolve, try your best to come up with ways out of the problematic 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 a breakup), allow yourself to feel the sadness. Look at photos of the person you miss, think about the good things you experienced together, and cry if it makes you feel better - all this is human. It can also be helpful to write about your feelings in a journal.
Remember the good
1. Know how to remind yourself of the good. If you're stressed, tired from work, or just feeling down, bad thoughts may return. In order to prevent them from completely consuming 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 felt good, or a fictitious place.
2. Think about your achievements. The world gives us many opportunities to enjoy life: you can help others, get things done, achieve certain goals, or simply get out into nature with your family or have dinner with friends. Thinking about pleasant things develops self-confidence and makes us more receptive to good things.
  - Be grateful for what you have. For example, write down three things for which you are grateful to the universe. This way you can quickly “put things in order” in your head and get rid of the flow of thoughts.
3. Take care of yourself. Feeling unwell will prevent you from fully enjoying life and remaining optimistic. When a person takes care of his body and takes care of his mental state, negative thoughts and emotions simply have nothing to cling to.
  - Get enough sleep. Lack of sleep reduces vitality and does not contribute to a good mood, so try to sleep at least 7-8 hours a day.
  - Eat well. A balanced diet will ensure your brain gets all the elements it needs. Include enough fruits and vegetables in your diet.
  - Play sports. Regular physical activity will help you not only stay fit, but also fight stress. Both will contribute to better well-being and allow you to free yourself from difficult thoughts.
  - Limit your alcohol intake and don't take drugs. Alcohol is a depressant, and even small amounts can throw you off your emotional balance. This also applies to most drugs. Limit your intake and your mental state will improve.
  - Seek help if you feel the need. Taking care of your mental health is just as important as paying attention to your physical health. If you find it difficult to cope with the thoughts that torment you on your own, seek help from a specialist: a psychologist, a social worker, a priest - and they will help you return to your normal life.

Even the most optimistic person sometimes has bad thoughts in his head. But the whole point is that some people know how to manage their thoughts, and some people don’t know how.

Therefore, I propose to choose from the following techniques - those that suit you, and with their help learn to get rid of negative thoughts. It's not difficult at all. And if you give this process a playful character, you will soon notice that there will be no trace of bad thoughts left, and you will maintain a good mood for a long time.

The first thing you need to start with is to learn to distinguish good thoughts from bad, positive thinking from negative. Everyone knows that thought is material, our thoughts determine not only our lives, but also cause certain feelings and emotions. Negative thoughts give rise to anxiety, fear, apprehension, anger, and resentment in us. We cannot concentrate, we feel a loss of energy and a reluctance to do our business.

Try to make a list of those thoughts that often pop into your head and cause similar emotions. Here are a few examples that need to be crossed off the list one by one: “I can’t, I’m a loser, I can’t do it, I’m ugly, I’m unlucky again, bad weather, bad country, I don’t earn much...” You can add to This list is your harmful beliefs.

Positive thoughts, on the contrary, cause exactly the opposite emotions. These are thoughts about what you would like, not about what you would not want. Notice the difference? This is the ability to always find the positive side in everything. This is a voluntary and conscious refusal to use harmful, bad and negative words, beliefs and attitudes.

Words that positive-minded people constantly use: “Cheerful, victory, I can do it, great, super, hope, success, faith, beauty, maximum, opportunity, benefit...” These words can also become your friends if you want.

By the way, American scientists have found that positive thinking promotes longevity much more effectively than playing sports, quitting smoking or low cholesterol. It's the same as you choose: I want to live with bad neighbors, or I want to live with good neighbors. I doubt that we voluntarily chose bad friends, colleagues, neighbors... So why do we do the opposite with our own thoughts?

So, Technique One. Replace the negative with the positive.

We learn to observe our thoughts and distinguish them from each other. Try playing with yourself: “Here you are!” We replace “I can’t do it...” with a better one: “I will definitely succeed.” And I know how to do it." I assure you that things will go much faster and more fun.

Second technique. Rubber.

I talked about this method in the article. A universal technique that allows you to control yourself. It is enough to put a beautiful elastic band, bracelet, strap on your wrist, and when bad thoughts appear, snap the rubber band on your wrist, or change the bracelet or strap to your other hand.

Third technique. Rid yourself of what you don't need.

Our thoughts are shaped by our environment. Be aware of who and what is around you and try to get rid of negative thoughts. Do you like to watch programs on NTV and then discuss terrible news with colleagues? Don't watch NTV. Are people with whom you communicate closely constantly being rude, offending, or causing trouble? Change yourself and you will see that people's attitude towards you will also change.

Technique four. Accept your thoughts.

This technique may be related to what are called “Intrusive Thoughts.” Yes, they are also bad and negative. But, basically, they are caused by our fears for the life and health of people close to us. It is useless to run away from such thoughts; they will return to us again and again, becoming more powerful and inevitable.

Accept these thoughts for what they are and agree to live with them for a while. Tell yourself, “Yes, I really think so. And it’s completely normal to worry about your loved ones.” Agree with yourself that if you accept this thought, this does not mean that you will act according to its rules. Take it for a short time.

Fifth technique. Aquarium.

Observe your thoughts, as if from afar. Imagine an aquarium in which beautiful and ugly fish swim. Which fish are more pleasant to look at? Of course, on beautiful, active, nimble, agile ones. Switch your attention from bad thoughts to good ones, you definitely have them, look for them. Look better, fill your aquarium with beautiful fish to the fullest. Your aquarium will gradually become filled with beautiful colorful fish, and ugly fish will simply have no place left in it.

Technique six. Computer virus.

Obsessive thoughts - that’s why they are called that, because once they get into our head, don’t expect peace from them. As soon as you feel that an obsessive thought wants to deprive you of full life activity, imagine that a virus has come to you, and what are they doing with it? That's right, they delete it. Mentally imagine this painfully familiar process and do this every time you catch yourself thinking negative thoughts.

Technique seven. Become a writer.

A very good way to get rid of negative thoughts is to write about them in detail, in color, in detail... You know, the more we write about our experiences, the less we return to them later. Imagine that each chapter in your book is a completed part of your life. This has already passed and become history. We must leave everything negative on paper.

Technique eight. I will think about it tomorrow.

Tired of fighting bad thoughts that don't let you sleep? Tell yourself the phrase: “I’ll think about it tomorrow!”, and you will see how quickly your brain agrees with this. “Tomorrow, so tomorrow” - and you have already agreed with him.

Technique nine. Confrontation.

Build self-confidence with this technique. If thoughts like “I won’t succeed” creep in, replace it with “I will definitely succeed.” As soon as the thought “I’m not good for anything, I’m not capable of anything, life is passing” comes, immediately put the completely opposite thought to it: “I’m capable of anything, I’m a very unusual person, life is just beginning, I have everything ahead of me.” . Since it is impossible to think about negative and positive thoughts at the same time, if you throw out a negative thought and put a positive one in its place, the negative thought will lose its power over you.

Technique tenth. To confuse.

Have you had a bad thought again? Confuse her with the magic word “But”! “Again, I can’t do anything... But my manicure is better than Tanya’s!” Confuse the whole stream of negative thoughts, and fix your attention even on the most insignificant positive aspects. Oh, how difficult it will be to find positive aspects in yourself at first. But Over time, a habit will develop, and doing it will be very fun and interesting.

It is often difficult to take even the first steps in working on yourself. We should always remember these wise words:

“Be afraid of thoughts. They are material"

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“If you don’t control your thoughts, someone else will control them.”

Therefore, working on yourself will also consist of learning to work with your consciousness.

Give your subconscious as many positive and joy-filled attitudes as possible. You will see more favorable events and situations appearing in your life. Your outlook on life will gradually change for the better. You will feel like a benevolent person who brings light, joy and good news to others. You will begin to attract like.

Our thoughts are material. But not in the sense that if you constantly go through the statistics of car accidents in your mind, then sooner or later you will get into them. It’s just that the process of thinking affects your well-being, the state of your internal organs, your readiness to act – everything that determines your quality of life. And if your head is filled with thoughts that someone has wronged you, owed you, offended you, did not meet expectations, or that something might happen to you, this fills everyday reality with a feeling of bitterness and disappointment. How to get rid of bad thoughts?

Where do bad thoughts come from?

A good or bad thought will not appear on its own out of nowhere. That is, it, of course, can come suddenly for you, but from the point of view of psychology, its path is clear and direct: event - emotional reaction - comprehension.

In fact, most events have a neutral meaning, and only when confronted with our expectations can they cause positive or negative emotions.

The main positive emotions are interest, which attracts us to acquire new knowledge about a subject, joy, which can develop into euphoria and jubilation, as well as sympathy, which can develop into admiration, love, respect, trust, friendship.

There are many more negative emotions, and they are the cause of bad thoughts:

suffering– an emotion associated with the inability to satisfy important life needs and goes hand in hand with stress;
anger– a short-term emotional reaction to the appearance of unexpected obstacles that arise in the way of satisfying extremely important needs;
disgust– the result of interaction with objects, circumstances, people that conflict with moral, ideological or aesthetic principles (can result in aggression);
contempt– an emotion that is born as a result of a disagreement with the life position of another person;
fear– a reaction to information about a possible threat to life and well-being, but unlike suffering, it can be caused not by a real, but by an imaginary danger;
shame– awareness of the inconsistency of one’s actions with moral standards and one’s own attitudes.

Emotions arise and pass, but thoughts remain. The ability to recall, discuss, rethink and relive an event again and again is our gift and our curse. On the one hand, by doing this, we extract double experience from the situation, but on the other hand, such thoughts can become obsessive and haunt us even when the situation has exhausted itself. They interfere with living and acting effectively, overshadowing the entire surrounding world and plunging into an abyss, from which sometimes only an experienced psychiatrist can extract.

It's time to act

Bad thoughts are a burden that we voluntarily carry throughout our lives, and sometimes we cherish it and protect it from the encroachments of strangers. But you need to get rid of it, at a minimum, for the following reasons:

Negativity easily enters our lives. The vast majority of people indulge themselves in experiencing negative moments, and therefore, once a bad thought comes, it takes root for a long time - it visits the head more and more often, and the emotions associated with it become stronger and stronger, until the help of a psychologist is needed, to finally break this vicious circle.
Bad thoughts take up time. It just seems that you can simultaneously think about bad things and do something good and useful. In fact, when you think about an unpleasant situation, you stop acting and go completely into the world of dreams.
Anxiety, fear, and disappointment put the body in a state of stress. At the biochemical level, this manifests itself in the regular release of adrenaline into the blood, which can cause disturbances in blood pressure, heart rate, headaches, tremors, dizziness, fatigue, nervousness, disorientation, memory impairment, muscle twitching, sleep disturbances and many other somatic disorders. .

Practices for getting rid of bad thoughts

Bad thoughts could be compared to viruses - they settle in the head and gradually poison us. But in fact, this is only a consequence of our habit of indulging ourselves. Of course, there are situations that pose a real threat, for example, fires, natural disasters, accidents, criminal acts or inactions of people, etc. This requires professional help. But in most cases, the reason for worry is far-fetched: a bad mark in the diary, someone accidentally throwing out a phrase or a suspicious look, the phone is not answering, the coat is not fashionable enough, there is a speech ahead of the public, fear of offending or telling the truth, the wrong color of wallpaper, a box of chocolates there is nothing to watch in the refrigerator (if you are on a diet) or even just in the cinema.

Often, it is only the habit of thinking about bad things that pushes us to give life events a negative connotation and act with this attitude. Therefore, it is within our power to develop immunity to bad thoughts, and this can be done using the following techniques.

Switch your attention. When you catch yourself being negative, try doing something absurd that you haven’t done before. For example, take any book, open it in the middle, and start reading the words backwards - from the end of the paragraph to the beginning, and, preferably, out loud. If you immerse yourself in this action with full attention, then after a couple of minutes of this practice you will find that not only bad thoughts - there are no thoughts left at all. And with this renewed state, you can begin your daily activities.

Get rid of the benefits of being unhappy. Experiencing negativity is a passive position that has certain bonuses. When a person experiences problems with health, personal life, work, he can count on pity, help, attention from others, people can even feel guilty towards him if they themselves do not suffer from anything similar. But most importantly, while they feel sorry for you, you can continue to think about your unhappy state. The problem is that if you don't do anything, your life won't change. It’s just that sooner or later they will get tired of feeling sorry for you, and you will be left alone with your load. An active life position, in contrast to experiencing bad thoughts, requires effort, but only it can produce results. 4.5 out of 5 (6 votes)