7 brain hacks for negative thinking
Make your brain and thoughts work FOR you not AGAINST you.
Check out this list of 7 brain hacks to support you to self-mastery in your thought regulation.
7 brain hacks for negative thinking:
Your brain has a negativity bias;
We register negative stimuli faster and stronger than positive. We have to work harder with intentionality at cultivating the positive. Set yourself consistent alarms to notice your thinking, put post-it’s around the house to remind yourself to cultivate a helpful and healthy inner world.
2. Neuroplasticity;
Neuroplasticity is the ability of the neural networks in your brain to change through growing new networks and reorganising. Essentially, we can grow, change, and reorganise the memories, skills, knowledge and thoughts in our brain. Our brains are continually learning, expanding and changing. The more times you think a thought, the more automatic and strong it becomes. This is true for both unhelpful and helpful thinking (negative and positive). Our thinking works from automatic thoughts, attitudes, intermediate beliefs and core beliefs. Our beliefs drive our behaviour. Thoughts are the easiest to change, but a belief is basically a thought we have thought thousands of times! You can retrain your ingrained belief system through the intentionality of neuroplasticity.
3. Fear and excitement physiologically appear the same in the body;
It is the meaning we attach that decides how we view the emotion. Therefore, if we change our mindset to look for all the ways it serves us, allows us to learn or grow, or gives opportunity we have more control over our fear responses.
4. You can challenge and change your thoughts;
How you think and your inner world can be trained and under your control. Thinking regulation is an important skill to be mastered. Start by compassionately calling yourself out on your negative thought patterns and noticing your inner critic.
5. Caught in a loop or negative thought cycle? Find a circuit breaker.
E.g. Take 3 deep breaths to trigger your rest and repair nervous system. Another idea is to have a rubber band on your wrist to gently snap, drawing attention. Negative thoughts tend to take on a life of their own. Once one starts another one comes and another until you are miles away and feeling very unhappy. Mastery starts with awareness and breaking the negative loop cycle.
6. You will always have ‘negative’ thoughts
Even with self-mastery in thought regulation you will always have 'negative' thoughts. Don't despair! Befriend your inner critic. Your brain and thinking has evolved to keep you safe. Often dwelling on the negative and reacting to potential threats is how your brain does this. Thank your thoughts for trying to keep you safe, practice some self-soothing and shift attention towards where you want to go.
7. Retrain your language from 'negative' thinking to unhelpful or unhealthy.
There is no such thing as negative thinking. Thoughts have evolved to keep you safe, they look out for threats and keep you alive. However, thoughts can be unhelpful or unhealthy; stopping you from reaching your goals, living out your extraordinary life and journeying towards self-mastery.
Self-reflection questions:
How healthy is my inner world? What is my relationship like in my own head to my thoughts and self?
In what ways will I commit RIGHT NOW to having self-compassion for my habits of unhelpful thinking?
What have I learnt (from the above) that I will implement into my moment-by-moment thinking regulation and experience?
What am I curious to learn more about? How will I put action around this curiosity?
This work gets me NEXT. LEVEL. PSYCHED!!!!
It is one of my greatest joys in the work I do to support people in understanding their thoughts, and regulating their inner world for more self-compassion, mastery and performance.
Make your thoughts work for you.
If you want to find out how can Wellbeing Explorers can best support you with this, get in touch to find out info on working one to one with me, Wellbeing Explorers founder, Wellbeing Specialist and positive psychology coach, Emma.
This work is why many of the Wellbeing Explorers transform their lives towards self mastery, multidimensional wellbeing and an adventurous way of being, with happiness, health, passion, purpose and connection.
I want to hear from you! How have these 7 brain hacks have changed your relationship with your inner world?
Email me at emma@wellbeingexplorers.com
Yours in exploration and with love,
Emma