It’s a well-known factoid that 60% to 70% of our daily thoughts (give or take) are negative (see, for example, a Psychology Today article on the topic). And upwards of 90% of those negative thoughts are just retreads from the past. So, we are generally repeating the same negative thoughts to ourselves over and over again, day in and day out.
Part of this is just our evolutionary heritage; our brains evolved to allow us to survive in a hostile environment, with life-threatening dangers lurking around every corner (saber-toothed tiger, anyone?) –we naturally tend to fixate on the negative as a matter of self-defense. However, what worked 10,000 years ago doesn’t work today. Out considerable tool-making abilities have allowed us to create our own environment, safe from many of the dangers that our brains evolved to help us avoid, and our tendencies toward rehashing negative thoughts are now more harmful than helpful – such preoccupation prevents us from seeing new opportunities, thinking and planning actively on how to create better lives, and living in the present.
How can we avoid rumination (the endless regurgitation of mostly-negative thoughts) in our daily lives, and prevent the ruin such thought patterns lead to? I’ve learned that a simple 3-step process can help:
- Be aware of the negative thought. Most of the time, we just accept these negative thoughts without even being consciously aware of them. The next time you’re feeling anxious, depressed, sad, or just a bit out of sorts, notice how you’re feeling and what you’re thinking. Try to put the negative thought into words so you can bring it out into the open and be truly aware of it. For example, you might be nervous about an upcoming job interview and, upon reflection, you might be thinking to yourself “this is a mistake; there’s no way I’m qualified for this job, they’ll never hire me.”
- Ask if this negative thought is true, and what the possible consequences are if it’s true or if it’s false. Many negative thoughts are just our brain’s way of being a drama queen: needlessly catastrophizing something to get our attention (there’s that pesky evolutionary heritage again) – and, much of the time, just not true. To go back to our previous example, are you REALLY not qualified for that job you’re applying for? Or are you just expressing some anxiety about getting the job? And, if it is true that you’re not as well qualified for that job as you might be, so what? What’s the consequence if it is true? You might get the job anyway, right? And, if you don’t get that job, aren’t there other jobs out there that you might be perfectly qualified for? Asking these questions subjects the negative thought to the cold light of reason, and that’s usually sufficient to remove its power over you.
- Actively substitute a more positive thought. Once you’ve made yourself aware of the negative thought and asked whether it’s really true, you can substitute a more reasonable, positive thought in its place. In our example, you might tell yourself “I am definitely qualified for this job: I’ve got the education, the experience, and the moxy to pull it off! And if they wind up not hiring me, well, that’s their loss – I’ll find an even better position somewhere else.” You can also remind yourself that you don’t have a crystal ball and can’t predict the future: you don’t know whether getting the job you desire is really a good thing or a bad thing (it might wind up being the worst job in the world), so you shouldn’t work yourself into an anxious frenzy over possibly not getting it. This is a very Stoic attitude: try to detach yourself as much as possible from the outcome which you can’t control, and focus instead on what you can control, which are your thoughts.
Give this a try the next time you’re bedeviled by a negative thought and, as you apply this process over time, you’ll find yourself gradually freed from the ruin of rumination.
Photo credit: Nicholas A. Tonelli from Pennsylvania, USA – Rumination, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=21218062