I'm reading a new book called How the Mind Works and which is along the same lines as the Paul David book and Dr Weekes method. The author Will, talks of primary and secondary thoughts, which is what I've talked about in other posts in a different way. As I've said, the anxiety condition starts from stress, and this stress produces adrenaline which makes the body become sensitised, so over time you'll respond more and more quickly to the stress, causing more adrenaline which will eventually build to such a point that it has nowhere to go, no outlet and the result will be anxiety. Anxiety is simply an outpouring of excess adrenaline. When the anxiety strikes it will terrify you, and you'll automatically start to over-think, trying to make sense of what just happened, why it happened, where is came from, why, what if, omg, why ....... etc etc. If you had understood that the anxiety came from being over stressed, that it was adrenaline releasing itself, then you'd have probably felt a bit uncomfortable and simply moved on in life. The confusion of what it was will obviously cause us to try and make sense of it all and hence the mind will start to race, trying to find a reason and a way to fix it. Its often this over thinking that then keeps the intrusive thought to repeat which causes the anxiety to repeat too. The over thinking can start to cause us to feel more anxiety, and if a particular thought spikes anxiety then that thought will more than likely stick in your head, and this thought will now keep popping up and each time it will cause anxiety to spike. So the anxiety caused the thought and this thought now causes anxiety (chicken / egg scenario). You will of course continue with the over thinking, again trying to make sense of why this thought is present, and each time you over think you'll be causing even more anxiety. Can you see how this cycle starts? This new book describes our thoughts as primary and secondary thoughts. The primary thought is any thought and even the intrusive thought that pops up in your mind, and the secondary thought is the analysis, questioning, worry, regret etc of that primary thought. Its the secondary thoughts that keeps you trapped in the cycle of intrusive thoughts / negative thinking / anxiety. After any thought (primary thought) we have a cut-off point which naturally happens and allows the thought to flow through and out …. and disappear. This is what happens to all our everyday thoughts - and lets face it, if our thoughts didn't disappear from our minds we'd be overrun with them!!! Usually what happens with an intrusive thought is that when the primary thought (or intrusive thought) pops up, we feel compelled to revisit that thought to question why its there, how long will it stay, how awful it makes us feel and generally over analyse it thoroughly (these are the secondary thoughts). Also when the primary thought pops up, we immediately tense in readiness for fight or flight, causing anxiety. This is its panic point. To rid yourself of these intrusive thoughts you need to just allow the intrusive thought to pop up (it will anyway), and DO NOT go back and revisit that thought with the secondary thoughts ie the questions, analysis, negative thoughts etc etc. Nothing at all. Also as the primary thought pops up, just leave it to run without forcefully thinking of it, and as the cut-off naturally happens we need to RELAX - release that tension that always comes with the intrusive thought.. This will allow the intrusive thought to flow through and out. Doing this once will not cure the intrusive thoughts, BUT this process needs repeating many times over, and in time the thoughts will stop coming, and if they do in the future they will naturally be allowed to pass through as with any other thought you have. Remember - these intrusive thoughts are a side effect of anxiety, and its the secondary thoughts (questioning, analysis, worry) that keep the intrusive thoughts coming in a continuous loop and why we're stuck in the anxiety cycle, and the reason these intrusive thoughts keep coming is because we do not allow them to flow through and out because we always feel compelled to revisit that thought to analyse every bit of it from every angle. Let them go, do nothing ....... you will heal. For more information read the books by Paul David and Will Beswick.
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