How to stop negative thoughts?

Do you know; who the biggest enemy to you in this world is? The answer is simple: it’s You 🙂. Yes, you read it right; it’s no one else, but simply you. Your brain keeps creating drama, fear illusions-far away from reality, negative self-talks to make you feel annoyed. If you dig down and look in the deep to every unpleasant incident, dissatisfaction, unhappiness, failed relations, things going wrong and problems in your daily routine life; the root cause of these are negative thoughts sourced by your brain. Negative thinking can be a habit of mind.  Negative Thoughts sink in and linger there; until you take action to get rid of them.

How to Stop Negative Thoughts ?

Thoughts are what create your feelings. Feelings and emotions affects your overall mental health. If you can change your thoughts, you can change your feelings. Here are the tips on how to stop negative thoughts …

Stop and Give a Break

Whenever you notice a negative thought is coming in your mind; stop and give a break. It would not be easy to notice in the beginning. You may not be able to identify and differentiate the negative thoughts. But once you start this activity, gradually you will start noticing when mind is generating negative thoughts. As soon as you notice that the negative thoughts, or images are starting to enter your mind, try actually saying “STOP” to yourself. This may be said in your mind or even you can say it loudly (if not surrounded by people). Along with words you may create a image of red signal which will help you to act and control the thoughts. Images are powerful source of triggering your brain.

Divert your Mind from Negative Thoughts

Divert your mind and take a leave from situation for a while. You may start listening music, go for a walk or go in your balcony and take a deep breath. Try to engage yourself in the things or activities you like. Go out and play with friends, watch your favorite movie or cook and eat your favorite food. One of my friend used to change cloths and do make up. She said she feels good when she look her in mirror. I myself generally start reverse counting to divert my mind. Do whatever you like to do, the whole objective is distract and divert your mind from negative thoughts.

Positive Affirmations

Positive affirmations are extremely powerful and changes your beliefs.  Keep repeating positive affirmations like “I am Good”, “I am valuable person”, “I am good at relationships”, “I have done in past and I will do it again”. Try to look in to mirror with full confidence and stare in your own eyes and keep repeating positive affirmations. Make it a habit for practicing it not only when has negative thoughts but even you are in good mood. It will change your thinking altogether and positive thoughts will replace the negative ones.

You may also start your day with positive self-talk (morning affirmations). Here every morning, you do a positive self- talk. Watch this life changing positive self-talk video.

Mindfulness

Practice mindfulness and observe your thoughts patterns. Mindfulness is the practice of detaching yourself from your thoughts and emotions and viewing them as an outside observer. This will help you to become more conscious about your thoughts and build greater self-awareness.

Mindfulness sets out to change your relationship with your thoughts. Try viewing your thoughts and feelings as objects floating past you that you can stop and observe or let pass you by.

Share with your Best Friends

Talk to your best friends and share your problems. A good friend will always help you to come out of negative thought cyclone. Living in the company of positive people changes your thought process on day to day basis.

No Negative Morning News

Stop watching the morning news. Research has shown just three minutes of negative news in the morning will significantly increase your chances of a negative experience over the course of the day. Look in to it and eliminate the negative influences of morning negative news of television and news papers.

Gratitude

Being grateful is underrated by most of us but it is an essential factor to live a positive life. Gratitude shifts your mind from state of lacking to the state of satisfaction. Recognizing all of the little good things going on around you helps you to reduce negativity in life. It replaces the negative thoughts with the positive ones. Maintain a gratitude journal, keep a good list and refer to it daily.  A focused, satisfied and positive mind will attract what it is seeking over time.

Write Down and Throw

Write down the negative self-talks and thought coming in mind on a piece of paper and throw them in your dust bin. According to one behavioral science study, people who wrote down negative things about their bodies and then threw them away had a more positive self image a few minutes later, compared to those who kept the papers with them.

Daily Negative Thought Time

A paradoxical strategy to gain control over the negative thoughts is to commit 10 minutes everyday ruminating and reviewing them over and over again.  This exercise is simple. Each day, take a few minutes to think about the negative thoughts that you had during the day. When you have a negative thought on other times during the day, jot it down, and tell yourself that you’ll review them during Negative Talk Time. Over time, you will gain control and negative thinking will stop.

Assertive Responses to Criticism

Practice “assertive defense of the self”. When people become critical and judgmental toward you during conversations; it is important that you are able to cope with rejection and criticism. This will help you deal with potentially negative thoughts and anxiety provoking situations.

Over to you now, share with us your experiences and views in comment section about how to stop negative thoughts? What are your ways to deal with it?? We will love to hear your tips and tricks.

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