Tips for Controlling Your Thinking and Thought

If you want to control your mind, you should stop thinking about your ex or feeling frustrated by a year of physical distancing and build a more optimistic outlook.

Unwanted thoughts can cause a lot of frustration and distress, and you are not the only one who desires to get rid of them. It is normal to find it challenging to convince yourself of optimism when feeling frustrated in the face of stress and other challenges.

Actual mind control belongs to the world of science fiction, and although you can change the way you think, it takes some effort to learn the trick of regaining control.

Ten tips for Controlling Your Thinking and Thoughts:

1. Identify the ideas you want to change:

There is no doubt that you have to know what is going on in your mind before you start controlling it. Most of us experience frustrating thoughts or emotional setbacks from time to time. If you are now facing some life challenges, you may find it more difficult to control competing thoughts or your mind.

Sporadic intrusive thoughts are also quite normal. Although annoying, they often go as fast as they do when you're not interacting.

Other worrying thought patterns may include:

• Ideas rumination or repetition.
• Negative self-talk.
• Cognitive biases, or errors in thinking, can affect your choices or interactions.
• A persistent pessimistic view.

Identifying specific ideas and patterns can help you make the most of the following tips.

2. Accept unwanted thoughts:

Humans naturally move away from pain, so necessarily they prefer to avoid ideas that cause them distress. However, eliminating unwanted thoughts is not the way to take control; this usually makes them more severe. Instead, try to accept those ideas.

Suppose you feel a little vulnerable because you think nothing in your life is happening as planned despite all your hard work. You say, “Nothing seems to go well, and that's frustrating.” You can do a lot to make a change on your own, but giving up completely is not the answer either, and acceptance can provide clues as to why ideas continue to emerge.

Accepting these persistent thoughts makes you realize that you want to stay connected to the world, and leaving them out with unresolved questions and a confusing feeling that makes you feel unworthy, but acknowledging these fears allows you to confront them and remind yourself that you're not responsible for their harmful effects.

Knowing the situation can help you control your fears about it happening again rather than letting fear keep you from taking the next step.

3. Try meditation:

It's a great way to get used to accepting unwanted thoughts. Meditation may not help you control your mind, especially at first. You sit back and relax, but no matter how you try to clear your mind, random thoughts keep popping up again to distract you from the calmness you're trying to achieve.

Meditation can help you change your mind, but you must stick with it. The trick is to learn to accept the ideas you do not want. At first, you notice them, but then you forget them, which helps to ease their power over you.

In this way, you regain some control again, and the more you practice meditation, the easier it is to let unwanted thoughts fade away. Mindfulness meditation, in particular, can help you become more skilled at focusing on things as they happen. As you become more aware, you'll notice you no longer need to focus on troubling or distracting thoughts.

Meditation offers other benefits than better control of your consciousness; it can also relieve negative emotions and stress, promote resilience and compassion, and even help slow age-related cognitive decline.

4. Change your perspective:

Talking to yourself can help you change your thoughts, but how you talk to yourself is essential.

When addressing yourself in the first person doesn't have much impact, try switching to a third-person perspective. For example, instead of saying, “I feel miserable even though I've been through worse, so I can handle this too.” Try saying, “I know you feel miserable now, but you worked hard to deal with other challenges, and I know you have the strength to face this new problem as well.”

It may sound strange. Still, this cognitive reappraisal strategy offers some essential benefits. First, repositioning yourself as an outside observer helps to move away from thoughts and feelings and eliminate a mindset that only fuels anguish. Looking at the situation from this distant point of view often makes it easier to see the overall picture, not just the immediate effects.

Second, consciously examining situations from a third-person perspective helps you close the way to the hustle of ideas and actively explore your feelings.

As you return your mind to the specific experience that affected you, replace questions like “Why do I feel this way?” And, "What made this affect me so badly?" With the third person's question: "Why does he feel this way?" Or, “What about that situation that triggered those feelings?”.

Changing your perspective helps to delude your mind that it is dealing with someone else, which gives you a distance between you and the difficulties you face, and this also has a benefit when it comes to encouraging yourself, as people also tend to accept external support more efficiently than internal encouragement.

5. Focus on the positives:

Positive reframing is another re-evaluation strategy that can help you regain control of your thinking. Positive thinking does not mean pretending anything wrong, ignoring problems, or failing to find helpful solutions. It involves adding more positivity to your negative thoughts, that is, looking on the bright side.

Paraphrasing won't change the actual outcome of the situation, but it can change how you feel about your circumstances. Suppose you slipped and fell off your bike while training for a race. You may not have suffered any life-threatening injuries but broke your ankle. This kept you from the competition for several weeks, disappointing and angry at yourself for riding a bike without caution.

Blaming yourself will likely make you feel bad, yet self-compassion can help you accept disappointment and shift your attention toward your next opportunity.

Maybe you're praising yourself for always wearing your helmet, telling yourself you'll be better prepared for next year's race, or feeling grateful you haven't broken anything else.

6. Try guided visualization:

Guided visualization is a meditation technique where you can imagine positive and peaceful scenarios to promote a calmer state of mind. According to a 2014 study, guided visualization promotes a positive mood and may help relieve stress and anxiety.

Once you feel calm, it can be easy to maintain a relaxed state and regain control of your thoughts and mind.

Start with this simple exercise:

• Get comfortable - and better sit down - and close your eyes.
• Take a deep, slow breath. You'll want to continue breathing like this while creating your visual scene.
• Create a relaxing scene in your mind using lots of sensory detail. Try to think of something that will bring you peace, whether it's the seashore in your childhood home, your favorite garden, or a refreshing autumn day when fallen foliage is strewn around. Develop the whole scene by using sounds, smells, and air texture on your skin.
• Imagine yourself wandering through the scene you've created, carefully observing your surroundings and every detail.
• Keep breathing slowly, letting the scene calm you down and help you relax.
• Spend 10 to 15 minutes enjoying your photo.
• Finish the exercise with some deep breaths and open your eyes.

7. Write down your thoughts:

Expressing thoughts in writing may not immediately change your state of mind, but it can help you better control unwanted feelings. Often, a simple act such as writing down an idea is enough to reduce its intensity. Challenging and accepting distress directly can be scary, but putting these feelings on paper allows you to admit them almost indirectly.

If you want to escape disturbing thoughts, you can even write them in narrative form, as if you were telling a story. Writing can help you feel more comfortable expressing hard feelings. Eventually, these unwanted thoughts may lead to a less fearful response, and you may not feel the same distress when they appear.

Try to end the meditation session or imagine writing a diary, where you can write about any thoughts, positive or negative, that have appeared while still presenting in your mind.

Writing also helps you find patterns of unhelpful thoughts or behaviors - you may regularly take the blame after fighting with your partner, making you feel bad about yourself and questioning your relationship skills.

Observing this pattern helps you realize that both of you have a role to play in the conflict, and you're determined to exercise health accountability as you work toward a more productive solution in the future.

8. Try focused distractions:

You should be focused in some situations. Using a mobile phone during a coworker's presentation may be unwise. However, in some circumstances, focused distractions can help redirect thoughts and improve mental state, and certain types of distractions may lead to increased motivation and productivity.

Suppose you feel frustrated and drained because a week of bad weather led to a postponement of your hiking trip, and you're miserable because you can't do what you planned, so you turn your attention to the things you intended to achieve.

Finishing reading a book, cleaning your room, and arranging old clothes to donate help you feel like you've made the most of your time, inspiring you to get more done before you go out.

Other positive distractions include spending time with loved ones or listening to soothing, energetic, or hiking music. Just be sure to use distractions as a temporary respite, not for outright rejection or evasion.

9. Manage stress:

When circumstances beyond your control add stress to your life, regulating your state of mind mostly becomes difficult. Stress and anxiety can fuel unwanted thoughts. This can provoke more anxiety, quickly leading to confusing emotions.

Start regaining control by exploring the core sources of stress in your life and looking for possible ways to remove or reduce its causes. Most people cannot remove the causes of stress. Stress often comes from external sources, and you cannot always control what is happening around you.

And this is where self-care comes into play. Taking time to nourish your mind and body can improve overall safety and make recovering from life's difficulties easier with a more optimistic outlook.

Self-care can include:

• Sleep well.
• Eat nutritious food.
• Social Media.
• Asking for help when it is needed.
• Make time to relax.

10. Consult a psychotherapist:

Sometimes it is easier to talk about mind control than it is to apply it in practice. The tips above may not make much difference to ongoing mental health conditions and symptoms, including:

• Depression.
• Worrying.
• Obsessions and emotions.
• Intrusive thoughts that keep coming back or intensify.
• Excessive doubt or negative thoughts about others.
• Constant sadness.

It is worth looking for professional support for any idea that affects your relationships and well-being. The therapist can help you start identifying underlying problems and exploring potential solutions. Therapy also provides space to work on self-compassion and practice positive self-talk, which are helpful strategies for regaining control of your mindset.

Find a therapist who offers:

• Cognitive-behavioral therapy.
• Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy.
• Treatment with acceptance and commitment.
• Dynamic psychotherapy.

These methods are designed to help people get used to accepting, challenging, and reframing unhelpful ideas.

Conclusion:

You don't need to be a psychologist to control your mind; you may need some practice and a little patience, and if you're still having trouble regaining control of your mind, consult a therapist.