Anxiety? Me Worry?

Having a "busy mind" is both a challenge and a gift. On one hand, it seems that multi-tasking is a piece of cake compared to co-workers who seem to think of only one thing at a time. On the other hand, imagining lots of potential possibilities can be exhausting and also can take on a life of their own...especially at bedtime, when you would just like to turn off your busy mind and get to sleep.

Thoughts of solutions to problems you've nagged yourself with seem to just appear only at the moment you want to lay your head down on your pillow. Telling yourself to stop thinking just makes the thinking increase!

In 1987, the paradoxical effects of thought suppression were first demonstrated in a study by Wegner and his colleagues. They asked a group of volunteers to imagine a white bear in their minds and then to suppress this image of the white bear. Participants were unsuccessful at prohibiting thoughts of the white bear from emerging into their consciousness with at least one white bear thought occurring each minute despite explicit instructions to not think about a white bear.

We experience a similar effect when we tell ourselves to stop thinking about the repetitive list of worries that seems to fully engage us when we are trying to relax, sleep and sometimes concentrate on the task at hand. I've worked with lots of clients who have this frustrating experience.

Fortunately we have science based methods to explain this phenomena and to help us tailor personalized methods to quiet our busy minds so we can achieve our goals of relaxing, sleeping and concentrating. In our work together, you will learn ways to understand how to work with your busy mind.