MindBodyGreen: A Psychologist's 3 Tools To Quiet The Negative Voice Inside Your Head

"Your inner voice is a powerful force, and it can really affect your mood and overall well-being. It happens to us all at some point: You experience a stressful event or face a problem, and you become caught up in a whirlwind of negative self-talk, or what award-winning psychologist Ethan Kross, Ph.D., calls "chatter." However, forcing yourself to stay positive often has the opposite effect; rather, try these tools whenever you're caught within a negative thought loop.

1. Distant self-talk

Chatter causes you to narrowly zoom in on the problem at hand. You keep replaying it and think, 'what am I going to do? What does this mean?'. That's why Kross recommends implementing "self-distancing" tools to help you escape that tunnel-vision mindset. Try to work through a problem using your own name and give yourself advice in the third person. It is much easier for us to give advice to other people than to ourselves. Distant self-talk uses language to shift your perspective and talk to yourself more similarly to how you would communicate with someone else that you care about. That way, you can effectively work through a problem without berating yourself in the process.

2. Temporal distancing/ Mental time travel

Think about how you're going to feel about the problem a week, month, or year from now. Will it still hold the same amount of brain space? When chatter takes hold, it often feels like everything is wrapped up in this experience and you're never going to break free. When in reality, these negative experiences ultimately fade with time. This strategy reminds us of this phenomenon right in the heat of the moment and highlights the instability of what you're going through.

3. Rituals

The specific ritual varies from person to person—some like to organize and clean; others prefer to garden or go for a walk—but the key is to engage in something that requires your full attention. Rituals provide us with a sense of order and control, which is often lacking when we experience chatter. It gives you a sense of agency and focusing on the ritual takes your attention away from the chatter, which can keep those feelings from dominating your psyche."

Read the complete article here.

#MentalHealth #Well-being #Negativity

What are strategies you use to deal with negative chatter in your mind?