reconceptualization Archives - Amazing Health Advances

Intrusive Thoughts: What They Are & How to Not Let Them Run Your Life

AHA Publisher — Wed, 30 Mar 2022 07:00:16 +0000

Dr. Caroline Leaf – In this podcast (episode #366) and blog, I talk about intrusive thoughts, and how to manage them using what I call “thinker moments”. Intrusive thinking is can be defined as uncontrollable, unwanted thoughts that we feel unable to resist. This kind of thinking is often a way of coping with an underlying, unresolved issue. It’s not always the most effective or sustainable way to deal with pain or trauma, but it’s a coping mechanism—a type of distraction you use to try to keep the source of your pain bearable, at least in the short term. If we are constantly trapped in a web of intrusive thinking, it can become a toxic mindset. Whatever we think about the most grows because we give it energy, which, in turn, can impact our ability to think and our overall health. Fortunately, these thoughts can be changed through the process of reconceptualization. And this includes one very powerful tool that is often overlooked: daydreaming! As you have heard me say many times before, the brain is neuroplastic. This means it is constantly changing. We merge with our environments through our choices, including how long we decide to spend on our phone. “Thinker” time is very important because it balances our minds, allowing us to observe our environment before we just let it influence and direct our thinking, as I discuss in detail in my books Think, Learn, Succeed and Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess. Contrary to popular belief, the mind does not grind to a halt when you are doing nothing. Spontaneous thought processes, including mind-wandering, creative thinking, and daydreaming, arise when thoughts are relatively free from focused thinking and external influences. This type of internal thinking plays an important role in contributing to the richness of intentional thinking and subsequent learning, adding a powerful creative aspect to our lives. Learning in the “thinker” moments can enhance our success in work, school, and life. Indeed, the process of understanding what allows free thinking, and what allows something to get “stuck in our heads,” is crucial to mental self-care. Analyzing our thoughts in this way gives insight into how we can capture and change toxic and intrusive thoughts that are blocking our success—those things and feelings we just can’t seem to move past, which grow stronger as we think about them. Deliberate, persistent, negative thinking like “I can’t do it” or “This is too hard” can result in harm in the brain and body, setting the stage for future mind and brain issues. These types of thoughts can literally paralyze our imagination, inhibiting success in school, life, and work, and creating negative reinforcing feedback loops. The mind can be hijacked, so to speak, by these thoughts as they move up from our nonconscious mind, unless we learn how to control them. Thankfully, “thinker” moments allow us to manage our mind and regulate these intrusive thoughts. Controlling the mind-wandering “thinker” is actually known as an awake resting state. It activates the coexisting default mode network (DMN) and task positive network (TPN) in the brain in a constructive and healthy way. These networks form the brain’s inner life with the DMN dominating and becoming especially active when the mind is introspective and thinking deeply in a directed rest or idling state. The DMN is a primary network that we switch into when we switch off from the outside world and move into a state of focused mindfulness. It activates to even higher levels when a person is daydreaming, introspecting, or letting his or her mind wander in an organized exploratory way through the endless myriad of thoughts within the deep spiritual nonconscious part of who we are. The TPN, on the other hand, supports the active thinking required for making decisions. So, as we focus our thinking and activate the DMN, at some point in our thinking process we move into active decision making. This activates the TPN, and we experience this as action. Being alone with our thoughts can also provide valuable and potent insight into how we function and can positively influence our judgment and decisions. As Socrates once said, “the unexamined life is not worth living.” Thinker moments allow us to examine our own internal lives and develop our unique imagination. Management of our mind and thinking is the key to success, which is why it is the overriding objective of all my work, research, books, and programs. It is your perceptions of your thoughts, and what you do with your thoughts, that are important. Learning to capture thoughts and evaluate them logically by developing a thinker mindset is one of the most significant parts of any mental self-care regimen, allowing us to become more self-evaluative and self-regulatory. Here are some simple ways to activate your “thinker mindset” and build up your resilience against intrusive thoughts: The average person spends up to eight hours a day using technology. Some of the worst effects of electronic devices seem to be mitigated when devices are used less than two hours a day. Find ways to limit your use of technology throughout the day. Thinker moments aren’t an odd quirk of the mind but are natural and spontaneous. Allocate time, at least sixteen minutes a day, to just thinking and allowing your mind to wander. You can spread this across the day in two or three intervals. As mentioned above, thinker moments teach you how to live the self-examined life. As your mind wanders, think about what you are thinking and your own experiences, perhaps writing about your thoughts in a journal or notepad. During your thinker moments, write down, in a self-reflective way, which thoughts are free-flowing as well as which thoughts get stuck. Track the direction of free-flowing thoughts over time. Schedule in time to work on the thoughts that you feel are keeping you stuck. Evaluate whether your thoughts give you a sense of peace or make you worried. If your thoughts concern you, think differently about the same thing every time that thought pops up. In other words, reconceptualize the disturbing thought. Next, practice developing the newly reconceptualized positive thought daily and automatizing it over time into helpful, useful, and successful memory. For more on this process see Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess, my app Neurocycle, and my previous blogs and podcasts. To read the original article click here.

The post Intrusive Thoughts: What They Are & How to Not Let Them Run Your Life appeared first on Amazing Health Advances.

4 Steps To Reconceptualize a Toxic Thinking Habit Into a Healthy New Neural Network

AHA Publisher — Thu, 19 Dec 2019 08:00:16 +0000

Dr. Caroline Leaf – This week’s blog and podcast is a follow up to one I did recently on depression with my daughter Dominique. I received a lot of amazing feedback and questions from all of you, especially on the reconceptualizing process and what this looks like. So, this week I am going to discuss what reconceptualizing is, how it works, and walk you through an example from my own life to help you better understand how to use this amazing mind-management technique. Let’s start off with what reconceptualizing is. Reconceptualizing meansto conceptualize or think about something afresh. It involves developing a replacement concept for something, that is to see things in another way or with “new eyes”. It is all about viewing things from a different perspective and redesigning a mindset, but in way that sustains and supports the changes you are making in your life. This process is different to CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy), where you are training yourself to identify the wrong thought and replace it with the correct one. You aren’t simply swopping out files in your brain; you first need to find out whythat “file” was there in the first place. When it comes to reconceptualizing something, you first need to find the reason whyyou need to reconceptualize it. In fact, there could be many reasons, which is why this is an in-depth process—the thinking pattern you have built into your mind and brain is not a nice clean file. Rather, it’s like a complex spider web, or maybe even a splatter graph! This is why you can’t just try to condition yourself to think differently without identifying the cause of why you were thinking that way in the first place; you are not Pavlov’s dog. You need a reason to reconceptualize something and a reason to practice using what you have reconceptualized, and you get this from figuring out how you developed the negative way of thinking in the first place. Although this may sound complicated and rather daunting, the effects of reconceptualizating are incredibly satisfying and bring a deep sense of internal peace. They will keep you motivated to keep changing and help you sustain this change in your life. How? Let me give you an example of reconceptualization in my own life that has made the world of difference to me: I am very driven and used to always think about how much I didn’t finish at the end of day—it would stress me out and keep me awake at night, affecting how much I got done the next day and making me even more stressed out! I decided that enough is enough and I need to reconceptualize this, and, now, instead of saying what I haven’t done, I say what I have accomplished. I have made it a habit to list what I have done at the end of the day and speak to my husband about it, which makes me feel happy and satisfied with how I have spent my day. Now, let’s look at why this process works. Reconceptualizing is very effective because it is the result of a deliberate, self-regulated process that engages the whole brain and body and helps change your thinking in tangible way (through the process of neuroplasticity). As you reconceptualize something, you feel like you are getting control of it, which makes your neurophysiology and physiology work for you and not against you. This is intensely satisfying because it is a creative process, moving you out of a negative spiral, which, in turn, makes you feel mentally and physically stronger, more capable and in control. As a result, you are less thrown by the inevitable ups and downs of life, and you experience greater inner peace and less turmoil. In fact, once you have mastered this on one thing, it’s so much easier to apply it to all your issues—it is the gift that keeps on giving! This is where my mobile app SWITCH can really help you, because it really teaches you how to become a master “reconceptualizer” over 21-days! How Does Reconceptualizing Work and How Can You Apply This Technique in Your Life? 1. First, identify what you need to reconceptualize – the toxic habit, the toxic patterns that are causing you distress. You can do this by listening to the emotional and physical warning signals your brain and body gives you (such as an upset stomach, pounding heart, which tells you that something is wrong). My app SWITCH is also a great tool for helping you identify these signals. You could also use a thought journal to track your thoughts, just as you would track food allergens in a food journal—a thought journal can help you find toxic thinking habits that are causing “allergic reactions” in your mental life. For example, you may notice that you tend to think a lot about the past and constantly say “if only this happened…” or “if only I did that…” I myself am guilty of this, which tends to steal the joy of the moment. 2. Second, start looking for the underlying cause of why you have this toxic habit in the first place: what’s the unconscious driver behind this mindset? This comes from asking, answering and discussing this mindset with yourself or someone you trust using a series of “why” questions, such as “why am I thinking this?” or “what could have triggered me?” My SWITCH app is great for this as well—I use it every day to examine my “if only” thoughts, which teaches me to learn from the mistakes I make rather than wasting time trying to change the past, which is impossible. 3. Thirdly, redesign the thought. For example, instead of regretting the past and saying “if only”, every day I tell myself that “This is what I have learned, I am enriched from it, and it was a great experience. It has improved my character, and now I know what not to do” and so on. I constantly remind myself that I influence how this experience plays out in my future! 4. Last but not least, practice using the new way of thinking. Remember, this is not a quick-fix or magic bullet; it takes at least 63 days to reconceptualize one thinking pattern, so be patient and keep on keeping on! This is why I recommend using my SWITCH app, which I developed based on my experiences and with 25 years of working with patients. I use the SWITCH app reminder every day—as it pops up daily, it prompts me, so I can easily bring the thought I am working on to the forefront of my conscious mind and practice it daily when I catch myself falling back into bad thinking habits. You can listen to how to apply these 4 steps using an example from my life on this week’s podcast (episode 110). Of course, I do understand that reconceptualizing is not always easy. But, with enough practice and over time, you will get better and better at using this technique daily and making a mental habit. And I promise you it is worth the effort! This mind-management technique has not only helped me improve and manage my mental health, but also countless others, including the patients I saw in my private practice. It truly is a life-changer! To read the original article click here. For more articles from Dr. Leaf click here.

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