4. What to do with anxious thoughts?

Have you ever tried to ignore your anxious thoughts?! I have, and it absolutely does NOT work; actually, it encouraged even more anxious thoughts! Anxious thoughts are threat-focused and trigger our brains to turn up our threat response as it genuinely believes something terrible is about to happen.  

So, let’s find out what we can do when they raise their horrible heads! 

Imagine you have a spotlight in your brain, only one, not two! Now, when an anxious thought hits, create another thought, a nice one (e.g. I really am a great cook!). Now, focus all your attention on that new friendly thought- shine your ONE spotlight onto that ONE nice thought, and you’ll find, like magic,  

that your brain cannot focus on two thoughts at the same time. HA HA, so you’ve tricked it into thinking a positively framed thought and made yourself feel better simultaneously! This nugget of a fact means that you are utterly in control of your thoughts and not they you! 

 I have often heard that writing things down and seeing them on paper can help you step back, see things from a new perspective, process and make sense of the experience you’re having, so I feel it’s worth investing in a nice notebook!