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Interrupt Negative Thoughts in 3…2..1. – Anxiety Help
Interrupt Negative Thoughts in 3…2..1.. – Anxiety Help:
Have you ever noticed how easy it is to get lost in your negative thoughts? Sometimes they just sort of creep up in your mind and before you know it, those anxious, negative thoughts and intrusive thoughts have taken hold and the spiral of anxiety can soon take over. And of course, once you feel anxious, your mind will always find something to attach it to in your imagination so it flows like a river, soaking everything you think.
Further down this article I’ve described a simple way to switch your negative thoughts so that your thinking and attention comes back to the here and now, rather than getting lost in future anxious thoughts. Anxiety is often described as like having an overactive mind that never switches off and starts to consider everything as a potential threat, and so you get all those what if this bad thing happens type negative thoughts, along with the worst case scenarios. And as anyone who has ever suffered with anxiety knows, most of those things never actually come to happen (but that doesn’t stop the anxiety finding something else to worry about).
Yet when we bring our attention and thinking back to the here and now, there is no room for those types of negative thoughts and we can give our brains a bit of time off from all the anxiety.
Of course, one reason I love this 3-2-1 technique is because it reminds me of my younger days spent watching the TV show called ‘321’ on prime time TV (back in the days when we only had three channels to choose from!). If you remember the show, you’ll remember how the host, Ted Rogers, did this (seemingly amazing) quick thing with his fingers as he said the words three, two, one. We used to try and copy that on the primary school playground. And who can forget Dusty Bin! (If you can’t remember the quiz show, or are too young to have seen it, then have a look at this video which will help you understand the primitive world of TV in 1982! We thought this was great back then!! And be sure to catch the fastest fingers on TV!).
Anyway, enough of my childhood reminiscing, now back to interrupting negative thoughts in 3-2-1…