Suffering from anxiety and constant negative thoughts isn’t uncommon. In fact, anxiety affects 40 million adults in the United States alone. When feeling anxious, you may experience some negative thoughts.
These thoughts run through your mind and make you feel bad about yourself. That is why it’s time to learn how to stop negative thoughts in their tracks! When you’re prepared with all the right tools to combat negative thinking, you can stop negative thoughts from taking over.
Are you ready to take back control over your mind? Continue reading below to learn a few ways how to stop negative thoughts from entering your mind.
1. Address Them
It would be wonderful if we could ignore the negative thoughts that enter our minds, but this isn’t as simple as it might seem. Therefore, it’s sometimes best to address them. When you find yourself thinking something negative, you can label that thought.
For example, if your negative thought is, “I’m not good enough,” then label it by thinking, “I’m having a thought that I’m not good enough.”
Labeling your negative thoughts helps you realize your thoughts don’t define or control you. You’re in control, and it’s okay to have a negative thought, but you are not your thoughts. Address it and tell yourself it’s not true.
2. Stay Busy
Keeping the mind busy will prevent it from wandering. There are many ways you can keep your mind busy throughout the day. Place yourself around positive people.
Find different social groups to join. Find activities you’re interested in, and then hang around people with similar interests who bring positivity into your life. This could be a fitness group, private guided meditation, a book club, or something else.
The busier you stay, the less opportunity your mind has to wander towards negative thoughts.
3. Focus on Positives
It’s also a great idea to try your best to focus on the positives. Placing yourself around positive people is one way to do this, but you can also focus on the positives while alone. Each time you have a negative thought race through your mind, address it and then reverse it.
Change the negative thought to a positive one. For example, if your thought is, “I’m going to fail my test,” then you should first address the thought. Then, reverse it to something positive such as, “I’m going to do my best on my test.”
If you have a negative thought consuming you, try to focus on all the positive things that happened during the day instead of the bad.
4. Write Them Down
Writing down negative or anxious thoughts is a good way to learn how to stop anxiety in thoughts. You wake up in the morning and have lots to do for the day. There’s so much to get done, causing you anxiety and negative thoughts.
Stop, and write them down. Writing down all the thoughts causing you anxiety can help you remove them from your mind. Once they’re on paper, it also helps you stay organized.
You see them on paper, and you can address them better now. Keep the list with you to prevent anxiety about forgetting to do something. Mark it off as you go to give yourself a sense of accomplishment, which will also ease anxiety.
Do You Know How to Stop Negative Thoughts?
Knowing how to stop negative thoughts is essential to reduce your anxiety and to become happier. Use the helpful information listed in this guide above to get you started. Remember, everyone is different; what works for you might not work for someone else.
That’s why it’s a great idea to try more than one method listed above until you find something that works for you.
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