Want to struggle less with anxiety? Try looking at your thoughts differently.
Image of sticky notes pinned to a board. Photo by Patrick Perkins on Unsplash
This is the second part of a six part series where I discuss how the principles of ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) can help you reduce the struggle with anxiety and move you toward a more meaningful life. In this post, I’ll be discussing how easily we buy into our thoughts which can lead to anxiety and struggle.
You can get hijacked by thoughts.
Anxiety means different things to different people but for many a part of the anxiety experience is becoming tangled in and hijacked by thoughts. It can be a single thought that can start a panic attack or it can be a stream of catastrophic thoughts - all the things that can possibly go wrong in your future. Or it could be a thought that you just keep chewing on, over and over but that keeps you feeling miserable.
In all of these instances, a thought or thoughts becomes really influential. It has a direct effect on mood and consequently on behavior. You have an anxious thought like “What if I get covid?” or “What if my flight gets canceled?” and then anxious feelings and anxious body sensation often show up. These anxious thoughts and anxious feelings often lead to behaviors that aren’t helpful.
Why are thoughts so powerful?
It can help to see how useful a thought can be, until it isn’t. Our ability as humans to use language to problem solve is amazing. It is what allows us to cure diseases, build bridges, and invent pizza. Many animals can problem solve in the physical world but don’t have the same capacity for using language and thought. For example, an animal can see a tasty fruit hanging from a tree, see a rock on the ground and can quickly problem solve that climbing on the rock will get them closer to the fruit. Humans can do the same thing and then while enjoying their fruit start problem solving in their minds how they can make this easier next time. They might think about creating a pulley system to climb higher, or imagine building a tool to grab the fruit, etc. All of this happens in the human mind through the use of language and thought.
The challenge comes in that this problem solving can only go so far and usually only works for concrete things like building a tool to pick fruit. That human who picked the fruit can also start wondering if they are going to get diabetes from all the sugar in the fruit, or if climate change will mean no more fruit in the future, etc. In other words, the same problem solving mind can start thinking about potential ambiguous problems in the future like their health or the environment and this can often lead to anxiety.
The example above shows the challenge of thoughts. While we can problem solve lots of things in the physical world around us, it is not as easy to problem solve our way out of experiences like anxiety. But our minds do try - and we can get caught up in thoughts that distress us but don’t really make the situation any better.
Why not just stop having a thought?
The tricky part of all of this is you may have thoughts that you struggle with (like worries about your health or the environment) but it’s impossible to get rid of them or to not have them. All humans at one time or another try to stop the stream of powerful and distressing thoughts that show up. And yet, it doesn’t work. You probably know this intuitively but if you’d like, run an experiment. Set a timer for one minute and during that minute, don’t think about lemons. You can think about anything else you like but absolutely don’t think about lemons. It is impossible. Just trying not to think of something like the word “lemon” will usually bring it into awareness.
You can’t get rid of thoughts, so what can you do?
If you can’t get rid of a thought or not have a thought, then what can you do? You can reduce your struggle with the thought. You can take some of the power away from the thought. You can make it a string of words in your mind like any other. You can create space between you and the thought you’re having.
How? There are a number of ways that you can do this. One of the easiest is to externalize the thought. Simply writing it on a piece of paper or saying it out loud can start to help you relate to it differently. You’ve probably already experienced this. When you tell a loved one something that is bothering you, you may immediately feel better once you say it and it’s no longer rattling around in your head.
Another technique that can be really helpful is to label thoughts. This can also help put some space between you and a challenging thought. Consider this statement:
I am having the worst day of my life.
Pretty strong, right? I imagine that when you read this you react to it. You might even notice memories of bad days you’ve had, feel uncomfortable body sensations, etc. Now consider this statement:
I’m having the thought that I am having the worst day of my life.
What do you notice now? Often when we label a thought, we begin to create some space. We can observe it for what it is, a thought, rather than get hijacked by it. You can even try adding noticing in:
I’m noticing myself having the thought that I am having the worst day of my life.
Consider trying noticing with particularly problematic thoughts. As you begin to label them you create space from them.
There are lots of other ways you can create space and take some of the power out of thoughts. In addition to saying them out loud, try using a funny voice when you say the thought, or speed up or slow down the thought as you say it out loud. These techniques can begin to change your experience of it.
You can’t get rid of your thoughts but you can change how you handle them.
Ultimately, dealing with thoughts that you find challenging is going to be about relating differently to them, rather than trying to avoid them or not have them.
In part three of this series on using the principles of ACT for anxiety, I’ll be discussing how getting in contact with the present moment can help reduce your struggle with anxiety.