STOP YOUR RACING THOUGHTS AND ANXIETY! START LIVING FOR REAL!!!

What are the Causes of your Racing Thoughts?

Even though racing thoughts can become overwhelming at times, they are not always caused by fear or negative thought patterns. In some instances, they can also be linked to a state of excitability in preparation for or following an important life event. Whether it is coming from a pessimistic space or not, having a mind that is always going 200 miles an hour can become very stressful and take a serious toll on your health in the long run. This is why it is very important to understand what is causing you to have those racing thoughts in the first place?

Racing thoughts (fast, repetitive thought patterns about a particular topic) can come from different physical imbalances like the lack of sleep, hyperthyroidism and the use of drugs, but, typically, they are a common feature of anxiety and can be related to other mental-health disorders. Having a psychological condition is not a prerequisite however. Even if you are not experiencing any other symptoms, they could manifest themselves any time you are in an anxious or stressed state. They may be replays of past events which generated anxiety or sadness for you. They may also be worries about things that could happen in the future. They are strings of thoughts that are blown out of proportion, have a pattern, consume time and often have no rational conclusion.

At times, your thought patterns may look like this:

- "I'm so stupid." - "I'm too fat." - "She/He is cheating on me." - "I am not good enough."

- "I don’t deserve to be loved." - "What if she/he leaves me?" - "What am I going to do?"

- "I am a bad mother/father." - "I have failed my family." - "I don’t have enough time."

- "I can’t take it anymore." - "I'm so miserable." - "I'm just exhausted." - "When is it going to stop?"

- "I always forget what I have to do." - "If I don't remember everything, I'll get fired."

- "I don't know what I'll do if that happens." - "I should have taken that job six months ago."

- "If I lose my job, I won't have any money." - "I need to work longer hours to keep this job."

- "That just makes me more depressed."

When thoughts like these flood your mind, they stop you from living in the present moment and can create a loop in your brain that feels difficult to escape. They can also make it hard to concentrate or accomplish daily tasks and impair your memory or sleep. Having racing thoughts is often disturbing and frightening, because it creates a sense of being out of control, but having them does not mean you're out of control or crazy. It means that you are anxious and that your stress level is higher than usual.

Why do you feel out of Control?

The problem with racing thoughts is not just in the content of the thought, it is in the fact that your thoughts are firing at such a fast pace that you cannot even remember what you were thinking right before your last thought. By the time you have a new thought, another one immediately takes its place. This is caused by the way your neurotransmitters interact with the surge of adrenaline that you get when you are stressed. Adrenaline, in particular, makes your brain far more reactive than usual. It causes your mind to be over-active while simultaneously making it harder for you to control your thoughts or focus on any single one of them. Technically, stress is supposed to be activating your fight or flight response and to keep you safe from danger. During life or death situations, thinking quickly is in fact to your advantage. You have a better chance of surviving if you are not focusing on any given thought for too long and react quickly. Racing thoughts become a nuisance, nonetheless, when they add stress and feed your anxiety where there are actually no reasons to experience fear.

There isn't one specific "cause" for racing thoughts, because cognitive processes are generally unique to each individual, but studies have shown that sleep deprivation can be a key factor. Since the lack of proper rest can create anxiety and vice or versa, this can lead to a vicious cycle that is particularly draining due to its recurrence. In many occasions, people find that their mind have a tendency to accelerate most especially when they're trying to go to bed. One of the main reasons why this happens is because there are no distractions. When you're left with your own thoughts, they often go unchecked and might eventually spiral out of control, which will greatly impede your ability to fall asleep quickly.

If this is true for those that experience anxiety once in a while, it is even worse and more common with those that have panic attacks or generalized anxiety disorders. Anxiety, in their case, may cause them to hyperventilate, which can temporarily bring less blood flow to their brains and increase their feelings of anguish. Although, it does not leave any permanent damages, the lack of oxygen might actually keep their minds from functioning as well as they should and inhibit their ability to stop undesirable thoughts. In some instances, their conditions might not be able to resorb themselves without the help of a Mental Health professional. So this avenue should be considered if you have similar symptoms and if they persist or aggravate in spite of your efforts to implement the different techniques that we will discuss.

Stop your Racing Thoughts

Racing thoughts are a significant problem when they make it nearly impossible for you to rest, focus and cope with your anxiety. That's why it's so important to find strategies that will enable you to stop your racing thoughts. The solutions tend to differ a little bit depending on when your racing thoughts occur. Generally, they will mostly take place throughout those three instances:

1. During the height of an anxiety attack.

2. When you're trying to go to sleep.

3. For no reasons when you experience some anxiety.

Let's break out some tips for controlling your racing thoughts based on when they arise.

1. During a Panic Attack

During a panic attack, your racing thoughts are often health related. You are paying attention to every little change in your body, wondering what's happening and often experiencing a degree of confusion that only makes your thoughts worse. During those episodes, your goal should essentially be to take yourself out of your own head. You won’t be able to stop the adrenaline from pumping through your mind when you are experiencing an anxiety attack. What you can do, though, is to use strategies that will make your racing thoughts less upsetting and possibly reduce the anxiety that causes them.

Some of those strategies include the following options:

- Sensory Distractions: Distractions are a key component for curing racing thoughts. They're actually an incredibly important one. You need to find a way to distract your mind from itself so that your racing thoughts don’t become too overwhelming. In order to "get out of your own head", try something simple like calling a friend that knows you have panic attacks and talk to them. Maintaining a phone call requires a lot of your thoughts and can decrease the amount of attention you give to your anxiety, thus decreasing your racing thoughts.

- Use Mantras: Meditation has now been recognized as an excellent relaxation tool, especially for those with anxiety or racing minds. Research has shown that repeating a mantra reduces brain activities in the area that is responsible for self-judgment and reflection. By doing so, it also diminishes the amount of time spent rehashing the past and worrying about the future. The act of making and listening to mantras (they are usually elongated sounds that cause your chakras to vibrate, most especially your Crown, Throat and Heart Chakras), helps to calm the body and quiet your thoughts considerably. Mantras can be simple phrases or words that you repeat to slow down your mind.You can use any words, sounds or sayings you wish, like: "Om," "Life is good," or "Everything is OK", just as long as they make you feel good. Repeat your phrase continuously and focus your thoughts solely on your mantra. If your mind wanders, gently bring it back to your mantra. You can practice this almost at any moment, even while taking a stroll outside or waiting for the bus. Preferably, however, you should try to do it in a quiet environment where you will be able to close your eyes, be comfortable and relax.

- Slow your Breathing: Sometimes, hyperventilation can be one of the reasons why you may start to have racing thoughts, because it causes a light-headedness that makes it harder to focus. In order to reduce this side effect, you should always try to slow down your breathing so that your carbon dioxide levels can increase. Don't hold your breath, but take very deep, controlled inhalations and fight any urge to yawn or over-breathe. If you do start to make mantra sounds, you will need to decrease your respiratory rate as well and let your thoughts pass by until they slow down. In your mind’s eye, you can even imagine, for example, that they are like leaves going down a stream... Avoid judging, responding or lingering over one thought in particular, simply allow them to come and go. Focus your attention on your senses and your breathing instead. Along with what you hear; notice how your body feels. Solely pay attention to your breathing as you try to expand your clarity. If your mind scatters, just bring it back to your breathing by taking deep breaths through your abdomen. Diaphragmatic breathing switches our adrenaline response at off and helps our parasympathetic nervous system to get into a relaxation mode. In order to get the best results, you should inhale and exhale to a count of five. As you inflate your belly first, eventually move up to your chest. Gently hold your breaths for five seconds before you exhale. Repeat this cycle of 5 seconds inhaling, 5 seconds holding and 5 seconds exhaling until you feel calmer. Eventually, there will be a shift of the fight-or-flight response of your sympathetic nervous system towards the relaxed state of the parasympathetic nervous system.

The above tools will help you reel in your thoughts a bit, but a panic attack is by its very nature a temporary loss of control, therefore, it will often need to run its course before it can be calmed down. If you are not in a panicked state, however, you can use some other ways to quiet your mind and stop your racing thoughts:

- Use Cognitive Distancing: Our intellect usually worries about things it is convinced are true but, most of the time, they are actually false presumptions. You can balance your mind's tendency to predict the worst outcome by coming up with positive alternative scenarios. For instance, if your spouse seems distant and is sending out a lot of emails, you could believe that he/she is having an affair or, as an alternative scenario, think that he/she is simply working extra hard on a project. Analyze what's most likely to happen instead of jumping to the worse conclusions right away. Most of the time, the worst-case scenario your brain comes up with is not a reflection of what is most likely to happen.

- Focus on the Present: Try taking a deep breath and asking yourself how you are feeling right now. Bringing your focus back to the present will help you accept and let go of what you can’t control. It will also help you realize that you can't change the past and that the future hasn't happened yet, so it's a waste of time to keep thinking about them. This doesn't mean that you are unaware of what has happened before or that you don’t care about what could happen in the future... It just means that it’s better if you focus your energy only on what you can currently influence.

- Write Things Down: Try to write your thoughts in a journal, a notebook or a designated electronic document. Very often, racing thoughts occur because your mind is trying to remember the thoughts you can’t control, so write them out on a piece of paper or on your computer to give your brain a break and help you relax. Putting your concerns in writing will allow you to return to them later if you feel like it. A fact that few people grasp is that the mind always tries very hard to remember things, especially before sleep. When it knows that it can revisit notes as needed, it is less likely to worry about having to recall everything. This does not mean that you will be able to dismiss your worries entirely, but, at least, this process will help you to reduce your anxiety. Moreover, the act of writing engages your mind into action and therefore reduces the hold of racing thoughts over it. As long as your thoughts are solely in your intellect, they might feel chaotic, but once you write them down, it becomes easier to organize them. After taking a few minutes to sort through your thoughts on paper or onscreen, your mind usually becomes more at ease. Ideally, however, you should always try to limit the amount of time that you set aside for thinking about certain issues. After 30-45 minutes, you should take a break, do something completely different and come back to them at a later date if you have to. Avoid running in circles around the same problem over and over. In some instances, lingering for too long won’t bring you any clarity or comfort, but just increase your confusion and reinforce your negative beliefs.

2. Disturbances of Sleep

Having anxiety or racing thoughts when you're trying to sleep can be very distracting. Unfortunately they tend to build on themselves, which ends up causing an even greater stress on the mind and inability to fall asleep. Not every anxious person is experiencing negative thoughts though. If you ask most people with anxiety what causes them to stay awake at night, they will tell you that it's not usually fear, but rather a feeling as though they cannot turn off their brain. Sometimes, the thoughts themselves are harmless, but are fed by incredibly active and unfocused minds. For those people, although their racing thoughts might not be caused by anxiety in the first place, their tendency will be to respond to them with anxiety, a lack of clarity and insomnia.

If that is your case, consider doing the following exercises:

- Get Up and Do Something Else: Sometimes, your active thoughts are not triggered only by your anxiety; they're caused by you trying to push the thoughts away so that you can finally sleep. If you find you can never fall asleep when your mind starts to race, give yourself something else to do or think about. Often you'll find that all you needed was a distraction and doing some other activity can be a great way to ensure that you have a calmer mind when you try to go to sleep later on.

- Use Distracting White Noise: Many people use what's known as "white noise" as a type of mental distraction. It works like other forms of sensory distraction. When your brain is being directed towards outside noise, it can’t focus as much on its thoughts. A good tool is to listen to soft music, relaxation recordings or even toned talk shows on the radio at a volume so low that you can barely make out the words. This will give your mind something else to focus on so that your thoughts can’t be as active anymore.

- Avoid using Technological Items before going to bed: The bright light produced by the screens of your TV, your computer and your I phone will falsely send the message to your brain that it’s day time and that it should stay awake. To make sure that you can fall asleep quickly and rest properly, you should cut down on those activities at least an hour before your bed time. This will give your brain the impression that it can finally relax and prepare for a good night of sleep.

- Make sure that all your Organs function properly: Do a detoxification and verify if your hormones are at the right levels. If your liver is clustered, for example, or your adrenal glands are exhausted, you will be likely to wake up frequently during the night and to experience insomnia. Ensuring that you are actually healthy could prevent you from suffering of sleep disturbances and inexplicable anxiety.

In the end, sleeping is also its own cure. If you can find a few days to rest and try to make up for any sleep deprivation you may have had, you'll often find that your thoughts don't race as much as they used to.

3. For No Reason when you experience Anxiety

At last, what should you do when your thoughts don't seem to race for any real reason other than mild daily stresses or if they seem to appear only every once in a while at no specific time? More often than not, even if you're not necessarily in the middle of an anxiety attack, if they are present, it’s because you're still experiencing some anxiety at a deeper level.

Then the tips to stop your racing thoughts are:

- To Exercise/Jog: Jogging is an outstanding tool for tiring the mind. Fitness doesn't just tire muscles, it makes your brain more relaxed as well by releasing chemicals that provide a relaxation/calming effect. So exercising and/or going for a good jog is incredibly valuable.

- Walking: If you can't do intense exercises, walk. Walking provides a great deal of sensory distractions (new sights, sounds, and smells anywhere you walk - even if you're in your own apartment) and provides a bit of extra blood flow that may be useful for calming your body and mind.

- Give Yourself a Task: Find something you can do for a while as your mind continues to race. Doing tasks gives you objectives to concentrate on. Don't worry too much about your thoughts racing... If you try too hard to stop it, you'll actually make it worse. Instead, give yourself a hobby that puts your point of focus on a specific chore that doesn’t require as much thoughts, like catching up on your favorite website, reading or painting. That change of focus will ease your mind back into reality and should slow your thoughts down considerably.

- Practice guided meditations: Doing guided meditations can also help to calm your body and your brain. Youtube, for example, can provide you with an array of free guided meditations that could facilitate your relaxation. If you feel particularly tense, you can start your guided meditation with a technique of progressive muscle relaxation. By contracting and relaxing different muscle groups, you can activates your body’s relaxation response and help you mind to slow down.

The Best Way to Stop Anxiety and Racing Thoughts

It takes time to develop new habits. Whichever of these tools you use; it will take regular practice over a long period of time to see results. Unfortunately, many people expect the effects to be immediate and abandon the practice too soon. Instead, be consistent and patient. All of those tips will help you to reduce the length of time you suffer from racing thoughts, but don’t expect them to stop immediately, because the more you try to fight them away, the more likely they will be to continue. In the end, the most efficient way to stop your racing thoughts is to find the cause of your anxiety/stress. If you find that you aren’t able to get your anxiety under control, consider consulting a mental health provider. Anxious thoughts can be part of a mental health disorder that professionals can treat effectively with psychotherapy, medication or a combination of the two.

In any case, don’t get discouraged, because this is something that you will be able to get under control once you find the appropriate help for you. The solution might seem hard to see right now, but perhaps that it is closer than you think. Sometimes, changes happen only when we accept to open ourselves to a different perspective... If you don’t send your order to the universe, you will never know what you could get! And I wish you to get only the best. So should you! :)