We have, on average, between 40 000 to 80 000 thoughts every day. If you struggle with negative thou

We have, on average, between 40 000 to 80 000 thoughts every day. If you struggle with negative thoughts, you may realise that many of these thousands of thoughts you’re having are preventing you from enjoying life experience and draining your energy by keeping you distracted from the really important things in your life.It’s easy to get overwhelmed by frustration and unhappiness when you’re unable to take a step back and shift your perspective, and it might get even worse when you realise that your only option to feel better is to do exactly that.Many people go through this challenge on a daily basis but it doesn’t have to be as complicated. In this article, I’m going to give you 5 tips on how to tame your negative thoughts and overcome them in a healthy way.You can’t fight something you’re not familiar with - and this applies to negative thinking as well. Before embarking in your journey against this tendency, you need to understand where it comes from in the first place.Mental health conditions.Negative thinking can be caused by different things on different people, so you shouldn’t guide yourself by someone else’s experience alone. More often than not, excessive negative thinking comes from mental health conditions such as Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) or General Anxiety Disorder (GAD).However, beware that negative thinking is sometimes not related to mental health conditions, but rather just a phase in one’s life.Rumination.Many people fall into the temptation of ruminating about their past. This happens when you remember a certain not-so-good episode of your life and spend far too long thinking about the situation itself, what you could have done differently, or what could have been if it had played out differently.This habit can be harmful for your mental health as it prolongs and intensifies depression and impairs your ability to think and process emotions correctly. Basically, rumination makes you stuck in a loop of negativity that can be very challenging to free yourself from.Martin Seligman, psychologist and author, says that the three leading causes of negative thinking for most people are the following:Fear of the future. Fearing the unknown leads people to start thinking of worst-case scenarios. This fear distracts us from the present, which is the only moment that we can truly be in control of.Anxiety about the present. However, worrying about present situations is a real thing, too. What do others think of you? What does the traffic look like while you’re going to work? Are you doing a good job?Regretting the past. Everyone has done something they’re embarrassed or ashamed of. This is a normal part of life. If you’re prone to negative thinking, you tend to dwell on these past mistakes and failures more than others, in fear that these will repeat themselves in the future.Regardless of what’s causing your negative thinking, there are strategies that you can use - or try to use - to cope with them.It’s important to remind yourself not to make a goal of stopping negative thoughts altogether, once and for all. It’s a virtually impossible task.Instead, set a more realistic and achievable goal: managing these thoughts so that you have control over how you want to live your life.1. Challenge your negative thinking.Be prepared and committed to practising this strategy on a daily basis and don’t expect to have control over your thoughts overnight. This is all about teaching yourself how to counter negate your negative thoughts. There are 5 questions you can ask yourself:Is this thought true? Is there a basis for this negative belief?Is this thought giving you power or is it taking it away from you?Can you put a positive spin on this thought or learn from it?What would it be like if you didn’t have these negative thoughts?Is this negative though keeping you from addressing certain issues that need addressing?2. Focus on something else.Visualisation is useful to distract yourself from thinking negatively. Try to picture yourself doing something that you enjoy. The key is to train your brain to think about something entirely different for at least 30 seconds.Remember to be disciplined with this technique. The result will be that your brain will become wired to think of something else whenever a negative thought pops up, so don’t give up.3. Throw away those negative thoughts.Clearing your head from negative thoughts by writing them down and letting them go in a physical way releases you from a lot of negative energy. Some people write them on paper, scrunch it up and throw it in the trash!4. Surround youself with positive people.If you want to be able to manage your negative thoughts, you need to spend time with someone who’s got a positive energy and a positive outlook on life. Dwelling with people throwing out a negative vibe won’t help you overcome your own.5. Reframe your thoughts.People aren’t kidding when they say that you are what you think. Our mind has an incredible ability to make us believe in anything we want to believe - and that also applies to negative scenarios.The next time you’re about to blame yourself for everything that’s going wrong in your life - stop it. All you’re doing is assuming and personalising your thoughts and reinforcing them in your mind. Sooner rather than later, this will become your reality even if it’s not actually real.Keep up with my Blooming Through Life article series for more content like this. -- source link

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