Sometimes situations can overwhelm us and even if we don’t want to keep thinking about it, we do. Our thoughts keep racing and racing, until we have thought of every bad scenario possible. There does not seem to be any escape. Can we get out of this vicious cycle?
According to the expert panel at Psychology Today repressing anxious thoughts won’t work; they will just come back, sometimes with more intensity. But there are more effective techniques you can borrow from mindfulness-based stress reduction and cognitive-behavioural therapies:
Practice mindfulness
Practice observing your thoughts, rather than reacting automatically to them. Think of your thoughts as clouds floating by. Which draw you in and which make you want to run away? Is there a way you can untangle yourself and just observe your thoughts, rather than reacting?
Get up and get going
Worrying over an issue without creating a solution will not help you solve the problem. It may, in fact, make you less likely to act by feeding your anxiety. When your mind is stuck in a loop, you can interrupt it by getting up and moving around or doing a different task or activity. When you sit back down, you should have a different perspective.
Decide whether a thought is helpful
Just because a thought is true doesn’t mean that it is helpful to focus on—at least not all the time. If, for example, only 1 in 10 people will get the job you want to study for, and you keep thinking about those odds, you may become demotivated and not even bother studying. This is an example of a thought that is true but not helpful. Focus your attention on what is helpful and let the rest go.
