How Do I Stop Thinking?

[m18pak]

I have a problem: I am a neurotic thinker; I literally can't stop.

I think about myself all the time; I think about others all the time; I think about the world etc etc... I find it the hardest thing in the world to just mind my own business and concentrate on doing what I have to do.

So how do I silence the unceasing drone in my skull? How do I gag the thousand mouths that scream for my attention day and night and give me no peace?

In other words, I need some tips on how to kick-start my mindfullness. I have read the Power of Now, tried meditation etc. They did not work for me.

I just want to have one moment of silence. One moment of life.

Anyway, I only have two ideas so far.

1) Have a near-death experience.

2) Drown my body in the alcohol of extreme sensation, so that my inebriated senses lose all awareness. This would be something in the line of experiencing either horrendous pain or incredible pleasure.

Does anyone have any other ideas?

Thanks.

[shivraj]

Go to psychiatrist

[joelyle]

hello,
have you read...

http://home.earthlink.net/~grharmon/I_Am_That.pdf

This lesson always seems to put me back on track. When you believe you are NOT your mind or body: your well-being will improve. If you are attached to your thinking: you will continue as you are.

[Chado2423]

Originally Posted by m18pak

I think about myself all the time; I think about others all the time; I think about the world etc etc...

Who doesn't have problems with this at one point in their lives or another?
The purpose of meditation isn't to stop thinking, but rather to allow the thoughts to flow more naturally.

[Addict]

My fiancee struggles with this problem. She is an obsessive worrier and she tells me that sometimes she just can't block out random thoughts. It's hard for me to understand, since I can often think about nothing in particular if things are going well.

Do you think this is a conscious bad habit or something involuntary? If it's the former, I think I would have some advice for you, but I'm not really sure about the latter.


Hmm... actually I do have one idea that may help either way. I was inspired by chado's response. It's kind of hard for anyone to really "turn it off" all the time. We are thinkers by nature and this is good. The best suggestion I have is to funnel your thinking process into something you enjoy contemplating. I can always come up with or elaborate on ideas for any number of projects that I may or may not work on. The most rewarding and free flowing ideas are often represented as written or spoken word. Sometimes, I love planning an imaginary speech and this can often turn into a blog post or a conversation with someone else later on.

Instead of worrying about things you can't control (what's the point in that), create some "problems" that don't really need to be resolved but that are a joy to do so. Think up a speech, a movie idea, a short story, anything creative. You allow your mind to do it's magic and there's no pressure to resolve anything.

I hope that makes some small amount of sense.

[Halcyon]

Originally Posted by joelyle

hello,
have you read...

http://home.earthlink.net/~grharmon/I_Am_That.pdf

This lesson always seems to put me back on track. When you believe you are NOT your mind or body: your well-being will improve. If you are attached to your thinking: you will continue as you are.

Hey awesome ive been meaning to buy this book. I had no idea it was for free spank ya

[backpocket]

Nice. The advice you guys gave is just what I needed for my 30 day trial. Thanks. And thanks to Joelyle for that book

[AtriumGuy]

hi there--

My suggestion would be to give meditation another try. I lived with the same problem as you for many years, and then I read a few books; the first of which is called Wherever You Go There You Are by John Kabat Zinn. Great book.
You mention that meditation didn't work for you; but the thing is if you want to get control of that little voice in your head you have to purposefully habituate the act of being aware of it. And its hard work!
Try again, and keep trying.....its a life practice and can definitely work for you with patience. hope this helps...

[Lauxa]

Well, my answer for every problem is the same lately: podcasts.

My problem was that when I was doing housework or mindless tasks there were negative voices in my head. So I used podcasts to drown out the negative voices with positive voices. My current favorites are Ajahn Brahm Dharma Talk, Unity Church of Phoenix, and Wayne Dyer's Inspirations. I also keep a large playlist of uplifting music to motivate and inspire me.

However, I do have some mindfulness suggestions as well. A friend gave me some good advice when I was telling her that my house is messy. She said that my messy house is a reflection of something inside of me, and I have to work on the inside to solve the problem on the outside. I asked how I am supposed to do this work on the inside since it's something I can't see, and she said that while working on resolving the surface problem, set the intention that you are also working on the problem on the inside. I have also read that you can get measurably better results from working out if you will focus on the muscle you are exercising or on the results you want to achieve. Another thing you could do is try to keep a running dialog about the activity you are currently doing: "now I am picking up a dish... now I am rinsing the dish in the sink... I am scrubbing this blue dish with a sponge... now I am placing the dish in the dishwasher..."

These are all good ways to practice being more mindful, but start small, like 5-10 minutes at a time. Then switch on your podcast or music.

[eblight]

I would like to ask you M18pak how long you tried meditating before you gave up? You may just have a naturally noisy mind. What to do? Perhaps accepting what's happening and allowing it just to be the way it is will take the pressure off you. You could even then start observing your continuous stream of thoughts without becoming emotionally involved with them. The mind is always coming up with thoughts. That is its function. A thought is just a thought. But have you noticed how a single thought before too long becomes a story and then a drama and then often feelings of negativity, judgment, comparisons, resistance?

[ethereal]

All (unintentional) thoughts are coming from this primordial energy source underlying the thought, right prior to the thought coming into form. If you look within you can trace the thought back into that energy source from which it came from. For example, when a fearful thought comes up, it is coming from this fountain of fearful energy in your consciousness.

What you do is to just unhook yourself from attaching to that energy, through awareness. Keep your awareness on that energy, and just sit with it until it dissipates little by little. When that energy runs out, the thoughts that spawn from it will also cease automatically.

[m18pak]

Thanks to everybody who replied. You all came up with great ideas. I was surprised actually at how many there were. I guess it's true that many minds do make light thought.

Originally Posted by ethereal

All (unintentional) thoughts are coming from this primordial energy source underlying the thought, right prior to the thought coming into form. If you look within you can trace the thought back into that energy source from which it came from. For example, when a fearful thought comes up, it is coming from this fountain of fearful energy in your consciousness.

What you do is to just unhook yourself from attaching to that energy, through awareness. Keep your awareness on that energy, and just sit with it until it dissipates little by little. When that energy runs out, the thoughts that spawn from it will also cease automatically.

Anyways, this really touched something deep inside me, and I had to think about it for a long while. The underlying cause is indeed a huge underground reservoir of energy feeding my surface stream of thought.

You are very wise, Ethereal, and it's incredible that I actually did not see that before. Thank you thank you thank you.

But everyone else, do please do keep sharing your thoughts with me. The quality of your feedback is great, and I would like to still hear more opinions.

[Jason S]

I think all the time. Thinking about your question, I realized that I have sort of developed four different ways to settle my mind...

1. I turn my attention to a project that requires brainpower and stay with it for more than 20 minutes. If I can engage on a project, the first 15-20 minutes are usually a struggle, but after that, just about everything not related to what I'm doing fades into the background.

2. I look for and grab moments. Sometimes, I'll catch a view, or a sound, or scene that is completely "normal" and yet stands out for some reason that I can't place. When that happens, I try to memorize the scene. I will literally tell myself, "This is one of those moments that usually disappears from consciousness before the day is over. What a shame to lose this scene from my memory." Then I try to absob everything--everything--about it. The color of the sky, what I'm wearing, where I am, the location of other people, what they're wearing, the details of the location, etc. When the moment passes, my mind's usually blank.

3. Music. I have trouble meditating without "whitenoise." Love my iPod for helping solve that problem.

4. Laughter. When I laugh from my gut, everything else disappears. As much as possible, I put myself in positions where laughing has a high likelihood. If I'm alone, I'll try to remember my 5 funniest dinners, or things like that.

Hope this helps...

[JonRhodesUK]

Hmm your suggestions might work, but they seem a bit extreme!

Have you tried meditation? Meditation is basically the art of thinking about nothing. This is a skill that can be developed with practice - the more you do it the easier it gets.

Try this exercise daily. It might be hard at first, but persevere as it will come with practice.

Sit or lie confortably in a quiet room where you know you will not be disturbed for at least half an hour. Breath in slowly and deeply and count each outbreath. Focuss on your breathing. Notice how it is warmer on the outbreath than it is when breathing in. When you get to 10, simply start again at 1.

If any distrating thoughts enter your mind (which invariably they do), do not worry. Simply re-focus your attention to your breathing.

In time you will find that your 'mind chatter' will quieten down.

Hope this helps

[Phil Parkinson]

I have to echo the sentiments of the Pro-meditation guys...

If you have tried it once and it doesn't work, does that mean it doesn't work period? Of course not... it just means you haven't got the hang of it yet.

Look for another teacher... practice it more... seek out cleaner knowledge on meditation that better relates to you and then approach it as if you have never tried it before.

Good luck on calming those thoughts.

Phil x

[m18pak]

JonRhodesUK, Phil Parkinson, I appreciate your thoughts on the matter, but it just feels to me that I'm not fated to succeed at meditation, at least not yet.

[Uplift]

You might like to have a go at paraliminals. They are advertised on this site. I use them sometimes, and can see that they might be easier at first than meditating for people who have difficulty with controlling thoughts. They have a really relaxing effect, that leaves you feeling refreshed, (for me anyway) and help to focus your whole mind on goals usefull to you.

[Acting Like Godot]

I too would recommend meditation. But since you say it does not work for you, I recommend you another idea.

Journalling. Write down everything that's on your mind. Spend some serious time writing every day. If you write enough, you will reach the point when you (at least temporarily) run out of thoughts to write down.

You will reach the point when you want to write about X, but you realise you already have it down on Page 5 of your journal, and have nothing else to add .... Then you want to write about Y, but you realise that you already have it down on Page 16 of your journal, and have nothing else to add ... Then you want to write about Z, but you realise that you already have it down on Page 27 of your journal, and you have nothing else to add ...

And so finally your mind submits and sinks into a kind of semi-silence.

Now another recommendation I have is vigorous exercise. That works too. It burns off excess nervous energy and so you don't have any left for overexcited, fidgety, worrisome thoughts. Try jogging for an hour.

[Nelson]

Got the same problem. I'm a mild insomniac case as well and this is the only way I can sleep without a prescription med:

Buy a bottle of benadryl (or generic diphenhydramine - much cheaper) and take one or two of those suckers.

Don't know why it works, but it's like a charm.

[Lisa McGregor]

The guy said MEDITATION not MEDICATION. It works. Try it. Costs nothing and doesn't have any negative side effects.
L

[Liara Covert]

Rest assured, there's always hope. Many good suggestions have been offered thus far. In addition, you may check out this article and the follow-up comments:
How to stop overthinking - Dream Builders - Dream Builders: Empower more than Motivation & Goal -setting

[Nelson]

Oi! Watch out, somebody doesn't like drugs.

Benadryl has very few negative side fx, sorry to burst your bubble. My grams been taking it in hayfever season twice a day for about 3 months a year probably since the stuff came out :P. She healthy as a horse by the way.

I'm not saying it doesn't do bad stuff to anybody - just that its almost definitely safe for long term use.

I have read the Power of Now, tried meditation etc. They did not work for me.

Sorry for giving answers that work for me rather than the ones that you'd like to hear.

[Lisa McGregor]

No I don't like drugs, unless it's a matter of life or death. They treat the symptom but not the cause. Maybe you don't need as much sleep as some or maybe you have stress issues in your life that you need to resolve. Yogo should help because it's exercise and meditation in one. One question. If you think a lot, it means you have a lot to think about. Is that a bad thing?
L

[hydra888]

Try consulting a psychiatrist. If that doesn't try a hypnotist. or you could learn to meditate.

visit me and learn to control the inner side of you.