Surely each of us knows the stressful feeling of sinking into eternal brooding and negative thoughts. We will show you effective tips and exercises on how to stop brooding.
What causes rumination and how to stop it
Personal or social crises, such as war or climate change, can weigh heavily on us mentally. They are often the trigger for a seemingly unstoppable brooding: We toss and turn our thoughts for hours without coming to a satisfactory solution. It is mostly about Problems that we cannot handle at this moment and still try again and again, which constantly stimulates the vortex of thoughts anew.
If you can’t stop brooding, this condition is particularly stressful in everyday life, keeps us from productive work and leads to a negative perception of our environment. The good news: There are techniques and tips on how to stop brooding and how you can deal with problems more calmly and calmly. The aim of these exercises is to Distance to your own thoughts to build and therefore yours mental strength to restore.
From a scientific perspective, the limbic system of the brain is active when pondering. It is responsible, among other things, for our emotions, such as fear, panic, love or anger. To stop the musings, we need to engage the cerebral cortex. are suitable for this concentration exercises, the attention and thus require higher brain power.
Stop rumination with meditation
A proven technique to stop rumination is this meditation. The goal of meditative exercises is that you consciously perceive the moment. The here and now is accepted and accepted without any judgement.
- First, create a comfortable environment in which you can relax and feel comfortable.
- Then sit on a chair, your bed, or the floor and find a comfortable position.
- Close your eyes and consciously breathe deeply in and out several times.
- Draw your attention to the part of your body that touches the ground beneath you and feel gravity acting on your body. Notice sounds and smells too, but remember not to judge or change anything.
- Now concentrate fully on your breathing: Notice the area in which you feel the breathing movements most clearly and observe how your breath comes and goes.
- To stop your thoughts from drifting, you can start counting your breaths.
If you have never meditated before, it will often happen at first that your thoughts will wander again. Once you find yourself brooding again, gently bring your thoughts back to your breathing and just pick up where you left off.
Meditation requires a lot of concentration and trains it Awareness of your physical and mental condition. If you only invest five to ten minutes a day, after a while you will notice that you can control your thoughts better and generally think more clearly and attentively. In another article we will give you more suggestions for different breathing exercises that you can incorporate into your meditation.
Distraction through exercise and sport
Physical activity can help you distract yourself from the negative thoughts for a period of time and then one more distant perspective to take It often also helps to leave the house or apartment and thus get new impulses. If you have the opportunity, you can go for a walk in the forest, park or at the lake or to jog walk. But a stroll through town or a visit to your favorite café can also change your mind.
Since endurance sports are a very monotonous activity, you can combine them with meditative exercises to avoid thinking again: try to be aware of your environment by concentrating on different plants, animals, clouds and trees. Pay attention to your breathing and your heartbeat and feel how both change through physical activity.
If jogging or hiking is too monotonous for you, you can also do a varied home workout. By quickly changing the different exercises, your concentration and thus your cerebral cortex will be stressed.
Also less strenuous sports like yoga and Pilates are recommended and will help you relax further.
Stop brooding through factual thinking
In addition to physical activity, cognitively demanding activities useful to put an end to the brooding. They help you to distance yourself from the current, emotional thoughts. Look for topics that interest you personally and give you pleasure. It is only important that you concentrate and work in a focused manner. For example, you can start learning a new language or a musical instrument, or read an interesting article, or even write it yourself. Sudoku or crossword puzzles are also recommended.
Any activity in which you factual and logical have to think. This will consciously direct your thoughts to a different focus. Objective thinking can also help you to look at your individual situation more objectively afterwards.
Read more on Techzle.com:
- Resilience: How to train your mental resilience
- Mindfulness: The difficulty of being in the here and now
- Think positive: How to learn and get rid of negative thoughts