welcome to this video on thought stopping this is another video in
the cognitive behavioral therapy nugget series i'm your host d dr dawn elise snipes
sometimes our brain goes in multiple directions that we don't want and some people call this
monkey mind what we're going to talk about is one aspect of taming that monkey mind
stopping some of those intrusive and unwanted thoughts
thought-stopping helps you redirect your brain maybe you're sitting there doing something at
work and your mind wanders to something you're worried about all right well in order to tame that
monkey mind you don't want to continue thinking about that thing you want to tell yourself no i'm
going to focus on what's going on in the present moment so how do you do do that well first thing
you do is exactly that tell yourself no i'm not going to think about that right now replace the
thought with something else you can replace it with a mantra you know maybe you're worried about
getting some test results back or you're worried about a loved one and your mind keeps going there
well tell yourself no i'm not going to think about that right now and then say some sort of
mantra or prayer like you know the serenity prayer is my go-to grant me the serenity to accept the
things i cannot change the courage to change the things i can and the wisdom to know the difference
or you know a few hail marys whatever it works for you in order to occupy your mind so that
that thought can come back and it can knock on the door but you're not letting it in
a mantra a prayer some people will pick up a book and say no i'm not going to think
about that right now i'm going to start reading this book so i can focus on that
or sometimes you just return your attention to whatever you're doing in the moment
if you were working and you were just you know typing away in an excel spreadsheet and all of a
sudden your mind went over there bring it back and say no i'm not going to think about that
right now i'm going to focus on what i'm doing i find that sometimes it's helpful to talk out
loud talk myself through it in order to stay more grounded if my mind starts wandering like when
i'm cooking i will just start kind of narrating exactly what i'm doing when i'm doing it now that
doesn't work perfectly if you're in an office with a bunch of people but if you're at home if you're
laying in bed if you're at the gym well maybe not at the gym there are a lot of times you can
narrate you know out loud and that really helps keep you focused and grounded in the moment
if that thought keeps coming back ask yourself what's the benefit
to ruminating on this thought what is the benefit for me to keep worrying about this is worrying
going to change it is worrying going to help anything and the answer is 99 times out of 100 no
worry doesn't do anything worry and anxiety are feelings you have that
are supposed to motivate you to do something not just sit there and nurture the feeling
which takes us to our next step once you decide that there's probably no benefit to ruminating
on it to worrying about it or stewing on it ask yourself is there anything i can do
to address this thought and improve this issue at this moment if you're waiting on test results
or worried about a loved one for example the answer is probably no it's just a matter of you
have to wait you have to be patient and that can be really agonizing at times i get that
however also recognizing that worrying is going to you know impair your sleep it's
going to impair your immunity it's going to you know have negative effects it's important to
give yourself permission to not have to continue to revisit that
some people find it helpful to write down their worries if they get it out if they get
it out on paper then they're not concerned that they're going to forget about it for some reason
so write it down and put it into your thought box some people will call it a god box some
people will call it a universe box whatever it is you take this worry this intrusive thought
that you're having you write it down and you give it you put it away you put it on a shelf
and that's actually physically giving you the experience of shelving that thought for a moment
you can come back to it whenever you want it's not going anywhere but you're shelving it for
the moment don't get discouraged it takes time to develop this skill especially if you are a person
who does ruminate a lot who does worry a lot start small if you have an intrusive thought
you know try some of these techniques and try to get to the point where you can stop having
the thought for five minutes and then once you can do that pretty easily then 10 minutes it sounds uh
like not not a big deal but it can be especially if it's something that you are really concerned
about it can be hard to even go five minutes so set yourself up for success taking small steps
towards learning how to tame that monkey mind i can give you the other example and it's not
you know a monkey but if you've ever tried to train a dog to do the basic commands
at first if you can get your puppy to sit and just you know sit and hold it for about a second and a
half oh that's wonderful and then you want to get it to where the puppy will sit for three seconds
and then five seconds and then eventually you want the puppy to be able and willing to sit until it
comes when it's called that's exactly what we want to do when we tame our monkey mind we want
to get to the point where we can prevent it from getting up and jumping into our brain right away
i hope this skill ends up being helpful for you it certainly helps a lot of people reduce their
distress and improve their productivity once they get the hang of it but be patient with yourself