How to control your thoughts? Individuals who keep up with modern times dream of learning this science. In the era of the dominance of the Internet, almost every individual has heard the statement that the visual image produced by the brain through consciousness is something material, in other words, every thought of the subject is transformed into reality. This is why an increasing number of human individuals believe that it is important to control their thoughts. After all, the direction of thinking can predetermine the future life of an individual - positive thoughts lead to well-being and success, thought processes proceeding in a negative direction will only attract troubles and various kinds of problems.
The ability to regulate your own thought flow, to be able to control your thoughts can be considered a real “panacea” that gets rid of everyday problems. Since there are no human subjects who, at least occasionally, do not dream of useless things, do not get upset, do not harbor resentment, do not wish harm on a neighbor or passer-by. There are no people in whose heads negative thoughts do not periodically arise. Moreover, many people like to invent unfavorable developments of events, thereby attracting “bad” situations into their own lives. In the head of an average adult individual, about fifty thousand of all kinds of thoughts flash through the head of an average person during the day, which he is not able to control, however, there is no need for such actions. You just need to learn to cut off negative thoughts from positive thoughts.
Is it possible to control thinking?
Yes, you can direct your thoughts, but it requires training. Moreover, you do not need to live in a monastery, cave or forest to achieve this result. You can do this while living in the same conditions as you do now.
The main thing to remember:
- It is not enough to simply want to quiet your mind and control your thoughts;
- It's not enough to try once or twice.
If you want results, you need to strive for them with all your might. Success in every area of life requires some effort.
Thoughts constantly occupy our mind, constantly coming and going. They can be related to work, relationships, plans, goals, health and much more. Sometimes these thoughts cause stress and anxiety and keep you from sleeping at night.
How our thoughts and emotions affect life and health
No one would be wrong if they said that thoughts shape our lives. Positive emotions and thoughts create an energy field with which in the future we can attract joy and a stable sense of balance in life on ordinary days. Correct thinking ensures a calm state of mind, which improves our health.
The fact that our thoughts and feelings affect our health has been known for a long time, but previously this was mainly talked about by religious figures and various esotericists. Recently, scientists have also started talking. Now this fact is more difficult to ignore and classify as superstition and fiction.
What are they saying?
It is worth remembering the famous hypnotherapist Milton Erickson, who, through suggestion, enlarged women's breasts, and his followers already improved vision, sexual and urinary function, and skin disorders. Many studies also talk about the impact of negative thoughts and emotions, which can cause stomach ulcers, cancer, diabetes, and much more.
It follows from this that every thought and every feeling affects the state of our body, and if they are prolonged and intense, then they influence especially strongly.
The need for positive thinking and a culture of emotions becomes obvious.
The ability to control your thoughts
Below you will learn several ways to calm the non-stop chatter in your head and make your mind more focused, peaceful and calm.
1. Don't return to the same events over and over again.
Strive to catch those moments when you think too much about the past.
Research shows that focusing on your shortcomings, mistakes, and problems weakens your focus and increases your risk of developing mental health problems.
2. Be more aware of the present.
Pay more attention to what you are doing now and what is happening around you. This will calm your mind and body.
3. See things from a broader perspective
There is no reason to overthink minor issues. They are not worth your time and energy. These questions will become irrelevant in a few minutes or days. So why waste your energy on them?
Highlight the fundamental points that interest you at this stage of life and concentrate on them.
By looking at things from a broader perspective, you see them as they are and avoid making a mountain out of a mountain.
4. Repeat the mantra
A mantra is words that you repeat to calm your mind. Repeating a mantra prevents thoughts from filling your inner world.
This is a very good method to control your thoughts and stop thinking too much.
You can use any word, sound or short inspirational phrase. The goal is to focus on the sounds and not let the mind wander elsewhere.
To start, you can repeat the word “happiness,” the sound “Om,” or the phrase “I am calm and relaxed.” Repeat your mantra over and over again, focusing your attention on it.
The great thing about mantra is that you can repeat it anytime and anywhere.
5. Breathe deeply
When you find your mind drifting, take a few deep breaths. This will relax your mind and your body.
How to learn to control the flow of thoughts in your head?
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The mind lives its own life and constantly gives us things that, in its opinion, need to be thought about, smeared or chewed during the day (that same mental chewing gum when thinking is not productive and does not lead to either obtaining answers or solving problems).
The first place to start is to understand that we mistakenly separate our minds from ourselves. It’s as if we see constant updating of content in the news feed on social networks. But, if there we have the opportunity to choose: unsubscribe, subscribe, complain about the content, click “dislike”, then for some reason it doesn’t work that way with the brain. We cannot say to ourselves: “This, of course, is not a bad thought, but I won’t think it, at least not now.” Or when you need to focus on a specific issue, but instead spam content keeps creeping into your head from vain thoughts about nothing and everything at once. So is it even possible to control the hell in your head?
The answer is yes, you can. And that's good news. You can learn to control your thoughts!
Learning from children
At first glance, this may seem like an overwhelming task. Some certain conditions are needed, for example, to be born a monk in the mountains of Tibet or to go to Goa. But no, the task is feasible and, apart from being yourself, nothing else is required.
Look at the kids. How they learn to control their body. They move funny, walk awkwardly, and constantly fall, but thanks to their persistence in learning to control themselves, they eventually, by the age of 11, master the movements. But then they are overtaken by a new surprise from the body - the reproductive system begins to mature. As a result, they still have to learn to manage it for several more years. And only at the age of 18-20 is a person fully formed and in control of himself. But, not all of us, unfortunately. During this time of maturation and formation, we were not so diligent in managing our thoughts and emotions.
We didn’t really understand why we needed this, but by the age of 25-30 the need is realized quite acutely. And here, our age is both a plus and a minus. Let's start with the minus.
For 20-30 or more years, we have learned to react and think not quite effectively, and relearning is always more difficult - it’s like getting rid of a bad habit. You are actually afraid of losing her, since she has become a part of you (so it seems). And you just don’t understand how to fill the void, what will replace it. But, fortunately, we will immediately replace the habit of “not controlling your mind” with the opposite one. This is the advantage of our age - we know how to learn, we have experience in taming our body. All that is required of us is discipline and regularity, which, again, is easier to achieve from us than from a three-year-old child or teenager.
Mental computer
Our brain is often compared to a computer in terms of coolness and functionality. Agree, it would be strange if we did not have the opportunity to turn off our computer or laptop at any time. Or, if he turned on himself whenever he wanted, opened programs, applications, said: “Look how important and interesting this is, or sad, and we need to be sad.”
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If we support the “brain-computer” analogy, then, in theory, we could stop the running of our thoughts, choose what and when to think about. To live in such a way that the brain, without our knowledge, performs only internal working functions: it controls the body and basic instincts, and the active mind is completely under our control. Then we could think about pleasant things most of the time, imagine beautiful things, and enjoy life. And they wouldn’t have been replaying for the third day the incident with the neighbor who didn’t like the way you looked at her. Or that idiot who drenched you from head to toe at the bus stop. It seems to me that the prospect is quite tempting, so at least devote time to it and practice.
Exercises for every day
I suggest starting small.
- Stop from time to time and review your thoughts. Notice what the thought is and let it go. There is no need to go deeper: you are an outside observer and do not participate in the process of thinking about something. Imagine opening your work email and seeing a lot of incoming messages. Mark each of them in turn as read, but do not open the letter itself.
Do this for 2-3 days, 5-7 times a day, approximately 1 time per hour during the working day. It will take a minute to do everything about everything. That is, 5-7 minutes a day for 2-3 days will be enough for you to learn the principle. In my opinion, not such a difficult task - maximum 21 minutes in 3 days.
- After the principle is learned, in the next 7 days, start noting: this is a good thought - leave it in your inbox. This is bad - we put it in the spam folder.
- Then, learn to group incoming thoughts by topic: pleasant, sad, happy, anxious, unwanted, annoying, and place them in mental folders. This will take you 5-7 days.
- When you are already good at shifting the focus of attention from thought to thought, quickly and accurately determining whether you like it or not, putting them into folders, start immediately sending negative thoughts to “junk mail” or “spam”. Serious, disturbing, important thoughts should be put off until later if now is not the right time to think about them (for example, you are going to bed or decide to spend time in the company of friends). Positive, joyful, invigorating thoughts, learn to call up from the appropriate folders at any time and immerse yourself in them - finally you can open a letter, read it, perhaps several times. Enjoy the beauty of the style, pictures, follow the links to even more pleasant thoughts.
This may take you from 7 to 10 days. If you feel comfortable, then increase the training time and bring the skill to automaticity.
- Try to control your thoughts in the most uncomfortable situation. For example, your boss yells at you, instead of getting annoyed, shouting back or awkwardly defending yourself, you open a folder with pleasant memories, rush somewhere to the Cote d'Azur, listen to the sound of the surf. And when the boss calms down, tell him that you will come back next time.
- Your next task will be to learn how to deal with spam, that is, with the flow of incoming thoughts. Oh yes, if you still haven’t guessed, then it’s you who produce them. It is not they themselves who get into your head, but your own mind plays chess with you, putting you in check and checkmate. But now you take control of the situation and simply learn to reduce the flow of incoming thoughts. This will allow you to focus as much as possible on the task at hand, easily catch a state of flow and increase efficiency - since you are not distracted by neural chatter, but get the job done using 100% of your mind's time.
What will happen when I stop the flow of thoughts?
Will there be emptiness? Sounds scary. It's the same as going to social media. network, but there is not a single message in the news feed. First thought: something is broken! An evil on a universal scale has occurred. But no, don’t worry, most likely, if you are not one of those Tibetan monks, do not live in daily meditation, and the state of nirvana is generally a dark forest for you, then you are reliably protected from this, but it’s up to you to decide what exactly to think about, what filmstrips scroll in your head, you can 100%.
Visual images and inner voice
Most likely, as soon as you begin to focus on what is happening in your brain, you will be faced with the fact that one thought is inseparable from another. Moreover, they are kind of a mess: just when I was thinking that it’s probably time to start preparing my child for school, I’m already thinking about what day of the week is better to undergo a technical inspection. And, if you listen, in parallel with all this, I remembered that I didn’t send an important letter for work and in general, I’m fat.
I would compare it to a radio receiver that constantly loses wavelength. To highlight a specific thought, turn the program search knob. Do you feel that it is becoming more distinct, there is less and less interference? Of course, you won’t succeed the first time, but daily training will give you results.
How do we usually perceive what we think about? - this is the inner voice that we seem to hear and the visual images that we seem to see.
What can we do with sound?
We can turn it off, make it quieter or louder. We can change the speed of speech, voice timbre and intonation. If you hear your mother’s dissatisfied voice, then it is in your power to replace it with an affectionate or approving, supportive one.
What can we do with visual images?
Send a mental signal to change it. For example, add colors, colors, dynamics, complete missing elements or remove unnecessary elements; change completely. We can make it movable or static. Just experiment and manipulate what you see and hear within yourself. Exercise briefly, but regularly. And in the future, you will feel that you can tune your brain to the desired work quite quickly.
Why learn to manage your thoughts?
This is a very important skill, in principle, for any person, and is especially relevant for those who are embarking on the path of self-love. Over the years, we have become accustomed to offending, humiliating, blaming and reprimanding ourselves. We do it instantly, without thinking. It is precisely such thoughts that we need to track and filter out, first of all. Send them to the spam folder. And in their place, evoke praise, approval, acceptance and forgiveness.
- Will you succeed the first time? - Unlikely.
- Will you be able to completely get rid of negative and “extra” thoughts? - Don't think.
But what you will definitely learn is to focus on those thoughts that are necessary and useful to you.
Our thoughts cause our states. We drive ourselves into despondency, fatigue, and depression. And in the same way, we can evoke calmness, joy, and delight in ourselves. It may seem that sadness came on its own - nothing foreshadowed trouble, and in general, nothing bad happened, but! uncontrolled thoughts and memories in that same confused mess, at some point sent a signal to our emotional brain and body that we should be sad, and we responded to it.
When we pay attention to our active mind and notice what is happening in it at the moment. When we consciously shift the focus of attention from thought to thought, then all other thoughts seem to lose weight. They are there, hanging out there on their own, restless, but our brain, emotions, feelings and body are busy with signals that have a greater intensity of impact, and it increases due to our conscious deliberation.
Finally become the king in your head. Tame your brain. Be more effective and joyful. Train every day to achieve amazing results.
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Love to all!
Classic techniques for getting rid of annoying thoughts
- Include physical activity in your life. Most often, bad thoughts creep into the heads of those who have a surplus of time. Therefore, all experts strongly recommend doing sports or at least an active walk.
- Immersion. To do this, you should maximize the state that causes the thought flow. Intensify all your senses, deliberately immerse yourself in these emotions, think through all the negative options that the subconscious draws. After bringing your consciousness to a real frenzy, fears and phobias recede.
- Concentration on the subject. For 10 minutes you need to look and think about only one object. Thoughts that arise that are not related to the subject must be forcibly rejected.
- Playing with imagination. Imagine that an obsession is an object that can be hidden in a box, thrown in the trash, dissolved in water, etc.
- Give up habitual words. From those words that increase emotional anxiety. For example, “I’m afraid”, “I’m tired of this”, “I won’t be able to do this and will be humiliated.”
- Self-hypnosis. As the saying goes, “tell a man a hundred times “pig” and he will grunt.” Periodic repetition of phrases such as “I am calm. The body is relaxed. Thoughts are calm as a stream. I am their creator and I control them...etc,” really instill a sense of calm. However, using such speech without using other methods will be meaningless.
