Anyone may come across wandering thoughts that run in circles and affect our mood. Sometimes the thoughts can heavily ruin our spirits. Whether or not the thoughts concern your work, social life, family or something else, the negativity can be excessive.

Our thoughts that we’d call negative or useless, are rather common. Sometimes they are just a reflection of an uncomfortable or unpleasant situation. Yet sometimes negative thoughts are not harmless, and you want to pay attention to their source. Especially if they come back again and again. The research shows that the repeating negative thoughts, in case you suffer from a depression and anxiety, may cause serious emotional and physical problems.

Surges of negative thoughts every now and then or a random negative thought can be released, because people tend to analyse situations, particularly the negative ones. But if such thought appears again and again for a longer period of time, a person may grow tired of them and become downhearted. If words like ‘never’ or ‘always’ – ‘it will always be like this’ or ‘I will never be alright’ – come to stay in your vocabulary, you should start worrying and perceive it as a red flag. Returning to and recalling the negative thoughts may be dangerous. People tend to be caught in loops and spirals of thoughts, starting a kind of a chain of bad thoughts.

What can you do about these negative thoughts?

In fact, you have to think about what and how you think.  Some ideas:

Recognise your emotions

Do you feel sad because of your loved one? Have you been fired from work? Anyone would feel sad in that situation. It is a serious matter. You have to understand that negative thoughts come naturally.

Identify and specify your thought

Which one from the worrying thoughts is the most stressing? Why does it make you feel bad? Understand the consequences of your thinking. Perceive your thought as an object.

Evaluate your emotions

Sit down and think through your situation. Why do you have such mind-set in this particular situation? If you try keeping your mind calm and rational, you will often find a new perspective. Try distancing from a though even for a while: “Hmmm... it is interesting!" Distancing yourself from emotions may help obtaining a new look.

Look from another angle

Is there any other way to look at this issue? For example: Could this be somehow useful for me? Perhaps you will arrive at a conclusion that misery builds a character, stamina comes from the loss and good things arise from pain.

So what?

The idea is that everything you are going through, if looked from a global perspective, is not so extraordinary. Death is a part of life. People continue living and even thrive after separation – they find other wonderful partners, often engage in sports that improve both looks and health. Look at this situation from a long-term perspective.

Some other methods to distract yourself is, for example, exercising, reading, solving puzzles, meeting friends – simply blowing the cobwebs away.