What are you thinking right now?
And how about….now?
Are brains are incredibly active but sometimes, you just want that big ball of grey meat to
shut the hell up, right?
Thinking is good - it’s what makes humans special.
Without thinking we’d have no farms, no books, no jobs.
It would just be reality TV, no thinking required there.
But often, we over-think, and cause ourselves a lot of unnecessary anxiety.
So, today we’re going to look at how we can tune out those annoying thoughts and make
things quieter inside our heads
This is todays episode - How to not overthink by Health Chronicle
Like most problems, the first step is seeing that there is one.
You need to learn to recognise when you are feeling anxious because of your internal problems,
not external.
For example, being anxious that you might crash when your friend is driving fast - that’s
fine.
That is a sensible thing to worry about, tell them to slow down.
But if you feel the same when you have a presentation tomorrow, then the problem is coming from
within.
You’re overthinking and stressing yourself out.
And, let’s be honest, you’re not thinking about how well it’s going to go.
No, you are telling yourself you will fail, you’ll forget what to say, your boss will
hate it, and you’ll forget to wear pants.
When you realize you’re doing this, start picturing all the ways it can go right.
You’ll charm them like Barack Obama.
Your boss will love it and promote you.
You’ll wear pants!
Once you’ve pictured all these things, write them down.
In fact, write down all the worries too.
It’s a well established idea in psychology; writing things down helps you to combat stress.
It’s especially useful before bed, as a way to help you get to sleep.
But the important thing with this type of journal is to focus on what you need to do,
not what you have done.
It’s a to-do-list, not a diary
A study published in 2017 in the Journal of Experimental Psychology, showed that writing
a list of tasks for the next day helped people fall asleep 9 minutes faster.
That may not sound a lot but it’s a similar result to a lot of pharmaceutical trials for
sleeping aid drugs.
The reason you focus on a to-do-list is that these are the type of thoughts that normally
keep us awake.
Sure, sometimes you will sit there embarrassed about some stupid thing you did like missing
a meeting or calling your partner someone else’s name.
But normally it’s about things in the future; tests, bills, work, the apocalypse, you know,
that stuff.
Our mind pays more attention to uncompleted tasks.
For example, most of us have one person we were attracted to but we never did anything
about it.
That memory can stay with you for a lifetime.
If you had asked them out and you had dated a while and then broke up, you’re much more
likely to forget them, the task was completed.
So, the process of writing things down will help you to stop overthinking.
It’s like you have taken some of the weight out of your mind.
You’re saying “hey Brain - I know this is important, I promise I will do something
about it”.
Another method is to try to distract your mind.
But not just any distraction, something peaceful that requires concentration.
If you just watch TV, it’s still easy for your mind to wander.
So, meditation is an excellent option but if that doesn’t appeal, try practising a
new skill.
Maybe you learn to paint or draw.
How about learning a new instrument or teaching yourself to cook.
Not only will these skills bring you happiness on their own, they will act as an excellent
distraction because you need to concentrate.
And our final message is - give yourself a break.
All you can do is your best so stop trying to make every part of your life perfect.
Because, here’s a secret; we’re all just making it up as we go along
Make sure to check out our other videos here.
You can also click on the left to subscribe to our channel for weekly videos on how to
make your tomorrow a little bit healthier than today.