Unwanted thoughts are unavoidable. Here’s how to use them to your advantage

Thoughts that are worrying, disturbing or stressful may seem like something you’d want to avoid. But can you really stop them? And even if you could, should you?

You know the drill: you wake up at 3am, start worrying about something, and when the alarm goes off at 7am, it feels like you’ve been thinking for four hours straight – and then the worry spills over into the rest of your day, too.

A new study suggests there’s a novel way to prevent that pattern.

Researchers say that while you can’t stop an initial unwanted thought, you can prevent it from recurring by using something called “proactive thought control”.

In other words, by learning to pre-empt a thought rather than simply reacting to it, the researchers say you could make a worrying thought a once-only event.

But, while avoiding “rumination”, where negative thoughts replay on loop, is something to strive for, the idea you can worry about something once and never again is less realistic.

“You’re unlikely to just forget your worry thoughts,” clinical psychologist Dr Amanda Mullin says.

“They’re going to come back, particularly if they revolve around genuinely serious, important situations or life events.

“Instead, our job is to train ourselves to manage these thoughts better so we can have them and let them go for a while to find balance.”

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How unwanted thoughts serve a purpose

Don’t write unwanted thoughts off as pointless, “bad” or as things we shouldn’t have, either.

Dr Mullin, who is director of Sydney’s Mindworx Psychology, says “worry thoughts” can help us identify something is important or needs our attention.

“As humans, we’re primed to notice and pay attention to negative events.

“Neutral or pleasant events are lovely, but historically, it’s the negative events and associated worry thoughts that were far more likely to keep us alive.”

Health and community psychologist, Dr Marny Lishman agrees.

“These thoughts are there for a reason – to protect us,” Dr Lishman says.

“They’re giving you information to make you think a little bit more about what could happen, what needs to happen or even to help you learn from the past.”

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3 strategies for managing ‘unwanted thoughts’

“Constant unwanted thoughts that you don’t do anything with can be stressful, increase your anxiety and depress your mood,” says Dr Lishman.

To avoid this, the following strategies may help.

1: Notice what you’re thinking. Rather than labelling worry thoughts “unwanted thoughts”, Dr Mullin says it’s more effective to think about whether a thought is helpful or unhelpful.

“Helpful thoughts are those that move us towards our goals, while unhelpful thoughts are ones that cause stress or confusion,” she says.

“In stressful situations, we probably have a mix of unhelpful and helpful thoughts and a good first step is simply noticing which ones you’re paying most attention to.”

2: Reframe it. This helps to shift your attachment to an unhelpful thought and diffuse its power.

“Instead of thinking ‘I can’t stand this’, you could reframe and rephrase that as ‘I’m having the thought that I can’t stand this’,” Dr Mullin says.

“It’s not about getting rid of the thought, it’s about moderating it to make it more manageable.”

3: Problem solve. Dr Lishman says this is the antidote to not doing anything with those worry thoughts.

“After observing and analysing your thoughts a little, you can then choose what you do with them – either problem solve them or learn to let them go,” she says.

Dr Mullin says problem-solving is a good example of a helpful thought.

“Trying to see if there’s something we can do about what we’re worrying about means we’re still giving the situation the importance it might deserve, but rather than worrying for the sake of worrying, by problem solving, we’re managing our thoughts quite well.

“And if we discover we can’t problem solve in the moment, this same process can help us to set our worry thoughts aside for a while so we can still have a good quality of life while we continue to deal with the problem.”

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Practise managing your unwanted thoughts

Dr Mullin says there are a variety of techniques you can learn and use to help manage your worry thoughts better.

“And like anything you want to do well, practise and coaching can help,” she says.

A good time to practise or seek advice? Now.

“I’m passionate about early intervention, rather than waiting for the next time you’re faced with a stressful situation,” Dr Mullin says.

“When we’re in the moment and having big emotions, we can get really overwhelmed.

“Once that happens, we’re generally not working at our best – even though it’s precisely during those stressful situations when we need to be working at our best.

“By practising these skills beforehand, you’ll have some really good tools and skills in place that you can draw on.”

Written by Karen Fittall.