How To Deal With Intrusive Thoughts

According to Wikipedia, intrusive thought  are unwelcome involuntary thoughts, images, or unpleasant ideas that may become obsessions, are upsetting or distressing, and can be difficult to manage or eliminate. They are almost always created by anxiety and/or negative emotional experiences. They hinder your concentration, encourage you to procrastinate, distract you from the task in hand and inevitably increase your anxiety, which can lead to an increase in intrusive thoughts.

Daniel Wegner, a psychology professor at Harvard University, pioneer in the field of thought suppression and author of White Bears and Other Unwanted Thoughts, has shown that trying to supress thoughts leads to obsession.

Wegner offers several strategies to deal with your white bears :

1. Focus on something else instead! If you are cognitively engaged, it limits the ability of           instrusive thoughts to your head.

2. Try to postpone the thought. Write a list of things that are bothering you and then set it         aside to be dealt with at an assigned point later in the day. This means that you don't             have to told the thoughts in your memory and you know that you will deal with them later.

3. Wherever possible, avoid multitasking, which can reduce productivity by approximately 40     per cent according to some researchers, as well as increasing stress and anxiety.

4. Exposure. Allow yourself to think about the unwanted thought, so that it its less likely to         pop up unwanted at other times.

5. Meditation and mindfulness strengthen mental control and help to control unwanted               thoughts.