How do I prevent negative thinking?

There are many techniques. But here is one that I like particularly. It’s based on the principle of meditation on which to empty our mind we don’t fight the thoughts we let them come and go. Having negative thoughts is natural, but rumination is the problem, it causes the damages. Be kind to yourself, and let the negative thoughts come and go. The more classic one is try to shake it off. Replace them by good thoughts, by absorbing good vibes around you. Music on, meeting with others, simply watching something that makes you laugh, doing something that you enjoy, etc... keep your mind busy with positive thoughts

It's hard to completely stop all negative thinking, and it takes a ton of practice to improve on this! I would try to just start challenging your thoughts, and replacing them with positive ones. For example, if someone makes vague comment that you believe confirms the worst about yourself, challenge that. Are you sure it isn't the preconceptions that you already have about yourself that are causing you to falsely interpret this message? Sometimes, we have filters in our brains that everything goes through. So if you think you don't look good, you will find things to confirm that, whether its true or not.

If you want to prevent negative, you have to first be mindful of your thoughts, whether they are positive or negative thoughts. Preventing negative thinking requires learning a new habit of positive thinking. Every time you notice that you are thinking negatively about something, shake the thought and think something positive about it. Be optimistic and look at the bright side of things no matter how bad the situation seems. But it starts with being mindful of your thoughts which allows you to notice what you are actually thinking about and adjust the way you are thinking about it. No matter how bad things seem, there is always something positive to look at it.

In my experience negative thinking is the result of inner reflection that is blind to one’s personal self worth. Training yourself to see at least one positive thing in every situation changes what you’re looking for, and with that small change you will begin to find more and more positive aspects of yourself. The positive aspects are little precious gems. For me these gems became more valuable to me because, sometimes they are very hard to find unless I ignored the negative which was only there because my mind put it there to begin with and was never real. I don’t believe positive thinking comes naturally or easily for some but is a learned skill we are all capable of mastery

Try hanging out with people, try not to be alone with yourself. Try talking to anyone, even an adult, or maybe right down to your pet if there isn't anyone, then get a helpful therapist. Negative thoughts never escape, especially when your moody feelings penetrates the mind into thinking your a failure, your not good enough, you need to end it all, the pain and suffering is terrible...You know there is a reason for your life, not to be worrying about some stupid thoughts. There are things to look up to like schools, colleges, jobs, love, money, and mostly yourself...Once you get out of the "lifesucksphase" and your mind is fully developed, you will figure out your story to your life is just the beginning.

I prevent negative thinking by taking a deep breath and doing some high intensity activity for 2 minutes. If it's really bad I like to take a shower. Also, I like to place myself in other people's perspective. Why would this person do? I ask myself. Breathing deeply helps me calm down and refocus. Working out helps me clear my mind and exert some energy that otherwise would not be use the smartest way. When negatives thoughts come your way, you must re center yourself and replace it with a positive thought. Thoughts come and go, it is up to us to allow them make us or ruin us.

Blow out the bumble bees and breathe in the butterflies. Do something positive or something that makes you feel good. Keep busy. Create a hobby for yourself that will give you a positive feeling . Set a goal and something that is easily achievable. When negative thinking starts, get up and do something you like . Keep your mind busy with errands, chores, activities. Call a friend that supports you. Reach out to us here at 7 cups. Know that someone is always here for you. Keep telling yourself you can achieve all.

Negative thinking can be difficult to prevent depending on the reason you think negatively. Even people who think positively have negative thoughts. I feel that it is more about pushing those negative thoughts away that eventually help you to make positive thinking a habit. Like the saying goes, the first thought that comes to your mind is what society has conditioned you to think, the second thought is what you truly think. You just have to tell yourself, "No, that's not right," and then try to find the positive side of it. I always try to find the positive side of even the most negative situations. You may have to really think about it at first, but it becomes very easy to see the good in things after a while.

An important thing for me to stop thinking so negatively is to first acknowledge that your thoughts are negative. Whether it's about you or someone else, having negative thoughts fosters a negative mindset, which is bad for your health (both physical and mental!). So when you stop yourself, and say, hey, that wasn't a really nice thing to think about myself/someone else, it's a good first step to preventing your future negative thoughts. From there, I would recommend trying to take a step back from those thoughts, and try to identify evidence in the contrary. For example: "I'm a bad friend." Negative thought! So what do I do that makes me a good friend? Well I'm pretty good at listening to my friends and helping them through tough times, even if I have been isolating myself a lot recently.

First, i accept the fact that I am a human being with emotions, emotions means there's time when i feel up and time when i feel down. Second, negative thinking is temporary, it comes in when i am down and disappear when i am up. Accept the fact that negative thinking is temporary, don't worry about it. I cannot prevent it, it happens and it is just temporary, but i try to make it disappear as soon as possible, build the habit of coming out from negative thought in time, then it will happen less often. When negative thought come less and less often, i think i'm doing the good job of preventing it.

Oof I can relate to that a lot!!!!!!!!!!!! I think you should write your thought down to get them out of your mind and to see what you have been thinking on paper. I think you should ask yourself why are you thinking this way. Is it something you learnt from childhood? Did you parents do the same thing to you? I think also speaking to a counselor or someone like that is helpful too! ( I know for me, it was because of my childhood experiences. I took all that to be current self and that's caused me to be the way I am now. But I know negative thinking isn't healthy at all if you are doing it all the time for no reason)

Have you heard the saying that a whole ocean of salt water cannot sink a ship, unless it gets inside, well it's the same for you, the negativity of the world shouldn't bring you down, unless you allow it to get within you. I know it's hard to stop, but for this you must build your walls high and structure strong. The key is happiness. People misunderstand the meaning of this word but in reality it's quite simple. Happiness is not about others, jobs, education, relationships, family. No. Happiness is about you. About how you embrace it and how much you appreciate yourself. Happiness is about you. It always has been.

The real question one should be asking is how to handle negative thinking, since one cannot simply prevent or control a thought. Stay at peace with the negative thought when it comes, and watch it flow idly by like a cloud drift across the blue sky. Encourage yourself to stay in touch with what energizes you, I believe, is very important, and it will have an enduring effect on your every thinking patterns. Keeping a log of negative thoughts, along with counterarguments is also helpful. It's good practice to put a positive spin on an unpleasant event that triggers negative thought, and write them down on your thought journal. And of course, cultivating gratitude consistently and regularly will be very beneficial for your moods.

This can be extremely tricky. I guess, it’s very different and subjective experience for everybody. However, what I do think is the essential thing for this process of trying to avoid negative thinking and overthinking is trying to recognize that you are about to go into such head space. This way, you will be able to recognize it as something irrational and be able to see that it won’t be beneficial or healthy for you, letting yourself acknowledge its potential negative effects, finding reasons to not want to be in such head space. Avoiding it is the key component.

I have quite a few tips on controlling negative thinking. Negative thinking always comes from a few things: Low self-esteem, overthinking, and depression. Low self-esteem can cause great damage to a person. Try finding something you like about yourself. Look in the mirror. It could be hair color, eyes, freckles, anything! Once you have found something you like about yourself, build off of that. Find something every day that you like about yourself. Next, surround yourself with people who love and care about you. It is easy to feel happy and content when you are around joyful people. Overthinking is a big one I've heard of a lot. People tend to overthink even the littlest things and turn it around into something very negative. It is easy to let yourself overthink. Sometimes, you won't even realize you're overthinking. A way to help with that is to distract yourself, escape your own mind. Find a hobby or a great show you like to watch. It will distract your mind from overthinking. And last, is depression. Depression is always the hardest to recover from since it always kind of follows you. Along with depression comes eating disorders, and lack of sleep. A way to help with this is kind of the same with the overthinking. Surround yourself with people who love you, and adore you. They will truly show you just how much they care.

This is a good question, but a tricky one to answer. I don't think it's possible to remove all negative thinking from ones mind. That would be the equivalent of saying "Okay, from this day on I will never feel sad again." It just isn't possible. Everyone is going to have negative thoughts from time to time, this is unavoidable. What matters is what you do with the thought. Do you let it drive your actions or emotions? That's when the problem arises. I'd suggest looking at a negative thought just the same way you look at any other "normal" thought. Let it come, acknowledge it, then let it pass away just like any other thought. It doesn't have to have any more power than any other. I hope this helps :)

Quite honestly, you don't. What I do is work past them. So, say it's a rainy day. And you hate rainy days. Well, it helps to make a list of all the pros and cons of rain and rainy days in general. Once you make this list/diagram, it becomes clear that while your feelings are definitely valid, it's important to see the other aspect of it as well. When you do write out all of the pros and cons, it helps to mentally balance the negativity in myself and makes it easier to not let my own negative thinking negatively affect my life.

A great way to refrain from getting sucked into the negativity drain is to seek positivity. A great strategy for this is "Counting your blessings", or rather, focus on what is going well for you. I realize, sometimes this can be difficult and a lot of what is considered positive or negative is relative to the person going through the experiences. If it is difficult at first to find positivity in your life, start super small, build momentum, and create a snowball of positivity. Something tiny to be thankful for could be "Hey, I woke up today!" Another thing I like to do is make my bed first thing in the morning. This allows me to think "Hey! I've accomplished something today!" This in turn helps me feel optimistic and more motivated to approach the next challenge of the day. Cherry-pick those small wins of positivity, build the momentum, and you'll find yourself feeling less negative in no time.

I have experienced negative thinking for a very long time. The best way for me was to set positive goals and work on them. This made me feel more at piece knowing that I was doing at least something to reach my goals which made me feel that the outcomes would be more likely to be positive. Everyone always says that hard work pays off, and it is true. You just have to be dedicated and you will start thinking more positive outcomes than negative. This will also increase self esteem which will also help with positive thinking about yourself.

First think about what is triggering it, is it about the same thing over and over or different things at different times or everything. Try to find the pattern of your negative thinking. And start with why on that particular thing you are thinking negatively. Is it too often or normal than average? Does it related to your past experience or from someone you know. Identify the factors which can narrow down and help you to figure out what is triggering it or why are you thinking about it. You could use a diary to write down your thoughts, if you do so, you can find yourself are you having more or less.

There are number of ways we can prevent negative thinking. One such way is through scheduling activities. The goal is be distracted from thinking negatively through activities that is goal-oriented or pleasurable. Some example of activities include exercising, talking to a friend we like, and solving problem. These activities can occupy our time and distract us. Another way to prevent negative thinking is through a cognitive restructuring. For example, through reframing, we can use more positive thinkings to outweigh the one single negative thinking. For instance, we might found the food we just ate in a restaurant to be bad. We might feel down about it and we might blame ourselves for choosing this restaurant. What we can do to combat this negative thinking is to find and think some positive traits and things around us.

Positive affirmations are a really good starting point! Tell yourself positive things about yourself even if you don’t currently believe those things. This could be “I am strong”, “I am worthy”, “I deserve love”, whatever you don’t believe but still need to hear. This definitely can help eliminate some negative thinking. Always try to find one positive thing in a negative situation. For example, say you had a sports game you were super excited for but then it got cancelled, think about a positive, like how you can now practice something you weren’t sure about before! I hope this helped : )

Here's a very cool tip that I recently came across. It requires self-awareness and some determination, but I have no doubt that anybody asking this question already has both of those in their arsenal. So here we go: The next time you catch yourself in the early stages of negative thinking (for example; rumination, worry, anticipatory anxiety, etc.), try to fill your short-term memory with something neutral and arbitrary. For example, rather than allowing yourself to continue going down a path of worry, start counting instead! Start from 1, and go all the way up to 50... or 100... or 250... Or, go from 1-30 and then from 1-30 again. You can also try different sets, like listing colors, or listing months. You could even do these in different languages to add some greater mental exercise in there. As a bonus challenge, you could also combine listing with positive associations by, for example, listing your favorite things - foods, places, songs, films, etc... :) Hope this tip helps some of you out there the way it's been helping me! Love, forestfires87

Dealing with negative thinking is tough! I’ve been trying for so long and I’m still nowhere near perfect but that’s okay! I think when you’re first starting to learn how to deal with negative thoughts, starting small and building up is a good way to minimise pressure on yourself if you don’t get the immediate results you might be after. So maybe start off recognising the thoughts, noting them, learn about cognitive distortions and why you might be having those thought, acknowledging why they’re unhelpful and then reframe those thoughts. We’re always going to have some negative thoughts but practicing mindfulness and cognitive behavioural therapy techniques can help to manage and minimise. Good luck x

What really helps me is stopping for a moment. I try to focus on my body, my thought and the present moment. I calm myself down with breathing (inhale, exhale). Then I try to put my emotions aside for a moment and think of the negative thought. I ask myself if it is really that bad, what are the chances that it will really go as bad as I imagine it could. What can I do to prevent that the results/future event will be a disaster? For example, I prepare better for my presentation, I manage my time in order to have enough time to prepare myself and I remind myself that panicking or imagining the worst case scenario is not going to help. Rather I make a plan and I start dealing with the situation.

Start with a gratitude list! Make sure to name atleast 5 different things that you are grateful for every day. Spend time around people who have positive attitudes, read a book about it/listen to podcasts. Try meditating or any other thing that brings you inner peace, as we often notice and appreciate the sunny side more when we feel good. Ask for advice from a friend who's bright, sunny, and who generally has a positive outlook. Avoid people who speak 90% negativity and in turn watch the things you say as well, correct yourself when you think negatively and last but not least try to find one good thing in every negative story/situation.

To write positive affirmations on my board that is place in my room and look at it everyday especially when I feel negative so that I can feel good about myself and bring back the positivity back that varies in the challenges I face.Looking at these affirmations as well gives me the courage and determination to want to give my ultimate best in every aspect in life as I am someone that gets motivated very quickly when there is positivity radiating from not only the external but mostly internally as that would be the main source of grit,persistence and determination

I find that when I am having negative thoughts, trying to think of the alternate scenario is helpful. For instance, when I believed I would fail my driver's test and I would have to wait a month before I took it again, I thought about what it would be like if I passed. The great satisfying feeling of accomplishment that would have. Once I was able to focus on that, I asked myself which was more likely and why? It was more likely that I passed because of the amount of time I put into learning how to drive. But even if I didn't the worst case scenario was not has bad as I believed. A month is really not that long. Its all about putting thing in perspective.

Preventing negative thinking may not be possible. It's like saying "don't think of pink elephants"... bet you'll think of a pink elephant. The difficulty comes in believing negative thinking. A negative thought unchecked can lock into one's mind, and take one down some challenging paths. I try to focus on challenging my thoughts, or coming up with alternatives. I have a type of cognitive behaviour therapy journaling which starts with 1) my moods and actions, then 2) identifies the thoughts that have sparked those moods, 3) my thinking on each of those thoughts, 4) challenging whether those thoughts and perspectives are realistic or replacing those perspectives with alternatives, and 5) how I'm subsequently feeling or acting. I may not be able to control my thoughts, but I work to control how seriously I take them and my responses to them.

Negative thinking is very difficult initially, even asking how you can overcome it and accepting that you do think negatively is a huge step. So give yourself a pat on the back! I find that when I overthink, I think of the worst possible outcomes that have not yet happened, whether that is about interviews, job, school etc. I like to think of it this way, yes the worst possible outcome could happen but the best possible outcome could happen too! If I use the time I have being positive about whatever is going to happen then it might, but if i’m negative about it and spend time dwelling over it now, i’ve already conditioned myself into thinking it won’t work out for me and then when it doesn’t work out i’ll be negative again anyway. It’s a waste of your energy that you could use thinking positively instead!