How To Fight Obsessive Thinking
Learn how to combat obsessive thinking, which affects 1 in 50 people and is one of the most hidden psychological problems for those who suffer from it. Obsessive thinking is getting addicted to an idea and not being able to let go of it. Usually the obsessive thoughts are of concern and an irrational and absurd restlessness. All this causes unnecessary suffering.
We’ve all had a bad day, an argument or situation that ends up bothering us all day. Situations that make us spend all day thinking about them, and how we could have acted or reacted differently. As much as we want to, we can’t stop thinking about them. Despite not being able to change anything, the mind does not stop reviewing what happened and everything ends up turning into a “I want to stop, but I can’t”. These are obsessive thoughts.
Obsessive thinking as a psychological problem
We all have some obsessive thinking. So having one of these thoughts is not a problem, much less a pathology. However, for some people this can be a psychological problem as these thoughts significantly affect their lives. Furthermore, they tend to hide what happens because they are ashamed to confess what they feel.
For these people, obsessive thoughts are recurrent. The obsessive thoughts they have involve absurd concerns, and even though they know they are absurd, they cannot avoid them.
Causes of obsessive thinking
Obsessive thinking arises for several reasons, or rather a combination of several reasons. One of the most common is related to the future, specifically the need to predict the future. We want to know the future to know that tomorrow there will be no misfortune. We want to control the uncontrollable, but we cannot. Every day, unexpected things happen.
Another reason why obsessive thinking appears is related to our low tolerance for anxiety. We live in a world where we are always on the run and are constantly bombarded with stimuli and information. We always need to be busy doing things. All of this creates stress and can lead to anxiety. This is something normal the body already knows, but the same cannot be said about the mind. Faced with a certain idea that causes nervousness, we want to get rid of it, we don’t want to reflect on it.
The last reason we will mention is terribilitis. Terribilitis is the belief that any adversity is “terrible”. We think we are the center of the universe, so any setback is considered the end of the world. This tendency to exaggerate problems is another reason behind obsessive thoughts. While these are the three main reasons, there are others, such as superstitious thinking, excessive shame, fear of ridicule, etc.
What to do to combat obsessive thinking?
Any obsessive thought has defining characteristics that can help us to neutralize its negative influence. The main thing is that 100% of people who suffer from obsessive thoughts can let go of them or reduce their power until it is negligible. We can all free ourselves from obsessive thoughts without the need for medication. However, an intervention will need to be made.
Treatment is based on learning to tolerate anxiety. The more uncertainty we are able to tolerate, the greater the levels of anxiety we will be able to withstand. To do this, we must get used to anxiety, at least to certain levels of it. Being able to live without thinking about what we can’t anticipate isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
On the other hand, we must also stop giving importance to the “nonsense”. Most of our setbacks are unimportant, so one of the best things we can do with a problem is to put it where it belongs on the priority plan. For this, we must accept our way of being. Erasing the image of “perfects” so unreal that we form in our heads. We must start to be people who assume their imperfections. All of this will help us to ward off useless thoughts in general, and fight obsessive thinking in particular. In short, we must get it into our head that “nothing is as terrible as it seems”.
