5 Tips to Break Your Addiction To Negative Thinking

Stop Sabotaging Your Happiness

According to Dr. Fred Luskin at Stanford University, people generally have over 60,000 thoughts in a day, most of which are repetitive. We often hear the reminder to “think positive!” and be “mindful” of what we’re thinking. Still, it’s easy to get caught up in negativity, worry, or doubt, and spiral into the repetition of those not-so-positive thoughts.

Negative thinking can take hold of us for many reasons. Critical self-talk, being judgemental, or feeling fearful are just a few examples. If you ask most people, they would prefer to be happy, peaceful, safe and positive. But sometimes it’s not that simple. So let’s take a look at how we started thinking this way in the first place.

In early human development our brains were wired to notice danger or negative situations and remember them. In those days, our survival depended on it. Out of a hundred thoughts, ninety-nine things can be fine, but the one thing that is not fine is the one that our brains will zone in on.

Negative thinking becomes a habit when our brains connect those particular neural pathways and reinforce them with another worry or negative thought. Some degree of negative scrutiny may be helpful and protective in certain cases. But if you get stuck in this mindset and see everything as negative, it’s defeated the purpose.

So what can be done if you’re addicted to negative thinking? Can this loop be broken? Here are a few tips that might help you understand how you’re thinking and what changes you could make to stop the negative cycle.

Tip #1. Catch Your Thoughts

The first thing to do is become aware of what you’re thinking. If you can catch your thoughts as they arise, you can just observe them. Author Eckhart Tolle commented in his book, The Power of Now, that he appeared to be two people. The one who was thinking, and the one who was aware of what was being thought. During a difficult time, he said he felt that he could no longer live with himself. At that point, he wondered, am I the person who I can’t live with? Or the person who can’t live with me? That realization led him to the understanding that we can observe our thoughts. And in doing so…