Have you ever tried to stop thinking?

[noname223]

I am overthinking in an extreme way. But sometimes my Radar is right. But in 8 out of 10 cases it's wrong. However, the pain is always the same. Even when I am writing this I am catastrophizing. I just want to stop thinking. Benzos can help but in the longrun they make everything worse.

 

[EvisceratedJester]

No need to try to stop thinking when you were never thinking in the first place.

 

[Hollowman]

I used to be an over thinker then I realized I was wrong the majority of the time. Somehow my brain just shut it off. I can barely think at all anymore.

 

[Kalista]

unfortunately you can't. can only influence your thoughts. see recovery section or talk to a therapist for the most common advice you'll ever get for it.

too bad drugs have shit side effects

 

[Dr Iron Arc]

No but I've been thinking about no longer thinking a lot.

 

[LostLily]

Ironically that makes my brain think more.

 

[DarkRange55]

Yes, it can be a nice mental rest. Quasi-zen-like

 

[ShatteredSerenity]

I am overthinking in an extreme way. But sometimes my Radar is right. But in 8 out of 10 cases it's wrong. However, the pain is always the same. Even when I am writing this I am catastrophizing. I just want to stop thinking. Benzos can help but in the longrun they make everything worse.

Meditation can certainly help with these things. You could look up instructions for mindfulness meditation as a starting point.

It is possible to stop thinking, but it requires a shit ton of practice to reach such deep meditative states. Learning to avoid clinging to thoughts and letting go of them is a first step. It won't eliminate thoughts, but reduces the number of thoughts and improves the quality. If you practice a few minutes a day, and eventually build up to tens of minutes or hours, then over time you can really transform how your mind operates.

There are real risks in deep meditation, particularly for people with any sort of mental illness. I was meditating for hours at a time last year to reach some very deep states, and I had incredible experiences like tingling sensations in my head triggered by music. But then the sensations became permanent, and now I feel strong electrical sensations almost constantly in my face, even though I haven't meditated for months. And earlier this year I had a manic episode with psychosis which was almost certainly triggered in part by the meditation.

It's crazy how much simply "not thinking" can transform your entire conscious experience. I really wish I'd known about the risks of meditation before I dove so deeply into it, but I still think it has great value, and for the most part it's totally safe. You just have to be careful about getting into very deep states without proper triaining.

 

[SVEN]

I don't really need to "try", not thinking is a fairly natural condition for me.

 

[Forever Sleep]

I tried meditation at one point. In part, I probably have always used my (creative) job as a meditative tool. Not with everything but some monotonous tasks tend to send me into a kind of 'flow' state where the time just evaporates. I might be having random thoughts pop in but, it's not as intense. Having stuff playing in the background also helps me to dissociate.

If I'm worried about a particular thing though, it's incredibly hard to get my mind to drop it. That's the worst at night when I need to sleep.

Certain things I suppose you can try to do: Do all that you can to do to try to fix the issue. Compose that email, buy what you need for the upcoming project, look into practical ways of solving it. After that though- tell yourself, there's nothing more you can do in the present moment and, worrying about it will just make the situation worse. Not saying that will work but, you can try I guess.

During my most intense stages of limerence, I used to walk miles and miles listening to music. To basically just bombard my body with sensory stuff and come back too tired to think that intensely.

Another thing would be to do something genuinely potentially dangerous if you don't give it your full attention. I sometimes find that I feel like I've been worrying less when I use power tools because I'm concentrating so hard on not cutting my fingers off! I imagine sports like rock climbing require people to give their full attention to what they're doing. So, while it's not a quick fix, it might be a way of sometimes putting your focus somewhere else.

 

[Warlord's Pulse]

Ironic process theory (IPT), also known as the Pink elephant paradox[1] or White bear phenomenon, suggests that when an individual intentionally tries to avoid thinking a certain thought or feeling a certain emotion, a paradoxical effect is produced: the attempted avoidance not only fails in its object but in fact causes the thought or emotion to occur more frequently and more intensely.[2] IPT is also known as "ironic rebound," or "the white bear problem.

If you actively try to stop thinking, you'll be automatically thinking. You need to ACT if you really want to accomplish such a feat

 

[Pluto]