Silencing and stopping intrusive thoughts

At the beginning of the month, we ran a poll in our FB group to ask what they wanted help with and the winner was intrusive thoughts.

Intrusive thoughts don't necessarily need to be anxious in nature, they can be any sort of thoughts that are unwelcomed and unhelpful.

Once these types of thoughts start running on a loop, it can be tricky to silence and stop them.

So here are my top 5 tips and techniques to still and silence intrusive thoughts.

1. The 321 game. This technique is designed to redirect your focus and uses the 3 main senses that we tend to use most. You can get a free audio here.

2. The Wiggle toes method. This is an incredibly simple yet effective way to get yourself out of your head to shut the door on those intrusive thoughts. You focus all of your attention on your toes as you place your feet flat on the floor. Then you wiggle your toes and notice the sensations of all of your toes as they wiggle. You may notice that some are more difficult to find than others or feel different as you move them. For more details, you can download an audio here.

3. Go outside for a walk and whilst you walk, focus on a set of specific things you are looking for. This will depend on your environment but things such as chimney pots, certain coloured cars or types of windows for urban - or birds, and types of trees or plants for more rural. You get the idea Focus and direct your mind to find what you instruct it to find so that you learn how to be in charge of your thoughts.

4. Listen to music that immerses you. I often recommend binaural beats listened to through headphones as the theta waves alter your brain waves and can help you focus on the here and now.

5. Learn a new skill. We need to use a lot of our brain power when learning a new skill, especially one that interests us. This focus allows you to push out the unwelcomed thoughts, and if they attempt to make a reappearance, redirect your thoughts back to the new skill you are learning.