Many people, while in the shower, are distracted from the everyday hustle and bustle and begin to think about more global and detached things. Sometimes thoughts come into their heads that surprise them themselves. Reddit users decided to share with each other the ideas that came to them while taking a shower. Some of them are quite strange, and some seem simply brilliant.
What are you thinking about in your heart?
Politically incorrect thoughts
“If they know what I'm thinking, they'll hate me.”
The hateful voice in your head that kicks in whenever an “other” comes into your field of attention—be it a man in a wheelchair, a woman in a veil, a flamboyantly dressed transsexual, or a foreigner with an unusual skin color. This voice, which you try your best to drown out, questions the adequacy, behavior, abilities and general presence of human qualities of “others”.
Mark Schaller, a psychologist at the University of British Columbia, believes that such thoughts are caused by a primitive defense mechanism that formed at the dawn of humanity, when strangers were by definition a source of threat. The mechanism of “psychological immunity”, however, does not justify modern manifestations of intolerance - fat-shaming, xenophobia, religious prejudice or homophobia.
The good news is that automatic politically incorrect thoughts can be overcome: psychologists advise you to stop thinking about how polite and open-minded others think you are, and concentrate on the personality of the person you are communicating with.
Treatment of obsessions
To free your mind from unnecessary and unnecessary thoughts, the following methods are recommended:
- psychotherapy;
- medicines;
- self-help.
Psychotherapy
In advanced cases, only an experienced psychotherapist can help get rid of obsessions. The most common method is cognitive psychotherapy. Its goal is to help a person realize his thoughts and responsibility for them.
Through such sessions, the patient learns to respond constructively to illogical thoughts and ideas that arise. Patients who are accustomed to performing certain rituals (for example, counting before going to bed) learn to perform important actions without these habitual rituals.
A person with obsessive disorder usually lives in a family or has his own environment. And since the environment has a very strong influence on us, ideally the psychologist should work with the patient’s family.
In most cases, it is problems in relationships with family or loved ones that provoke the emergence of obsessive thoughts. A specialist needs to identify the problem and help restore harmony in family relationships.
I suggest you watch a short video in which a practicing psychologist explains how a session goes when working with obsessions.
Medicines
To reduce the manifestation of physiological symptoms associated with anxiety disorders, the doctor prescribes special medications - antidepressants. They help fight neurosis. But no pills for depression will relieve a person of obsessive thoughts.
You can effectively cope with obsession using complex treatment: psychotherapy and medications. Side effects of antidepressants include increased drowsiness, lethargy and inability to concentrate. Many patients do not like this very much and interfere with their normal work.
Gloating thoughts
“Your failure is my joy”
When we hear on the news that some girl was caught drunk driving and arrested, it doesn’t bother us. But if that girl turns out to be Paris Hilton, we feel a strange, evil satisfaction that the Germans call "shadenfreude" (literally, "joy from harm").
Australian psychologist Norman Feather (Flinders University) proved that we are more pleased by the failure of someone outstanding than by the failure of a person equal to us in status. When successful people fail, we feel smarter, more insightful, and more confident.
Perhaps this is how our inner desire for justice manifests itself. But where does the feeling of shame come from? According to Professor Richard Smith, author of The Joy of Pain, there is no point in beating yourself up over this trivial emotional reaction. To overcome an attack of schadenfreude, you need to imagine yourself in the place of the victim or concentrate on your own achievements and merits, because the best antidote to envy is gratitude.
Symptoms of obsessiveness syndrome
Obsessions cause a person to feel anxious. The brain reacts to them as a real threat. This manifests itself in the occurrence of symptoms, both internal and external.
External (somatic) symptoms include:
- instability of heart rhythm (tachycardia, bradycardia);
- dizziness and nausea;
- increased pallor of the skin or, conversely, excessive redness;
- disturbances in intestinal function.
Internal (psychological) symptoms are manifested as follows:
- a feeling of guilt, remorse, shame arises;
- a person constantly has a conversation with his “I”, replays the same bad thoughts and unpleasant memories in his head;
- phobias develop (fear of heights, death, social phobia, etc.);
- aggression towards close people increases;
- a desire arises to commit a bad act, but most often it is not realized.
I have not listed all the symptoms of obsessive thoughts syndrome. But this list is enough to understand how dangerous obsessions are and what harm they cause to a person.
Psychological advice
Living for more than two weeks in a swarm of obsessive thoughts is dangerous. We definitely need to start driving them away.
Release your anger
Helpful tips:
- Try to throw out negative emotions: write and burn, scream into a pillow, cry, break plates.
- Completely immerse yourself, “live” a bad thought. Work through every negative emotion, experience all possible scenarios. The brain is probably looking for a way out of a difficult situation.
- Realize that the government, boss and wife are not to blame for bad thoughts. Take responsibility for your life.
- You can drive away bad thoughts by focusing on the present. You shouldn't live in the past.
- Often the reasons for a depressed state are the meaninglessness of existence, lack of mission and goals in life. It will be very useful to sit down and figure out what you would like to live for, what kind of life you can dream of and how to achieve it.
- Listen to music and sing. However, you should not include heavy rock and metal, so as not to achieve the opposite effect. Classics have a positive effect on the psyche; singing can relieve suppressed emotions.
- Keep a gratitude journal. Every day, write down any little thing for which you can say thank you to the world and those around you.
- Accept the situation if it cannot be changed.
- Switch to proper nutrition. Eating heavy food at night can result in poor sleep and worries about what it can mean. There are natural antidepressant products. These include banana, chocolate, honey, vegetables and others.
- Try to avoid negative information. Don't communicate with people who complain all the time, stop watching the news.
- Start every day with positive thoughts and attitudes.
- It’s easy to remove negative thoughts if you develop the habit of looking for positive aspects in everything.
Now that it is clear how important it is to get bad thoughts out of your head, there should be no problems with motivation. To rid your mind of negativity and life from many problems, you should engage in the formation of healthy thinking
How to deal with this?
If you are often in this state, basic rest will not be enough. You need to take action right now and be consistent in your decision. The first and most difficult step is to admit that worrying thoughts are causing you harm and sheer suffering. Breaking this habit is not so easy, and there is no universal way for every person. But there are still several options to overcome this problem.
- Take a time out. Do something that requires concentration and brings you pleasure, something that will improve your mood. Take a break from your thoughts, immerse yourself in a different state. Psychologists' studies have shown that distraction from thoughts for at least 8 minutes helps break the negative chain. Anything will do: walking the dog and reading books, working out in the gym and dancing to your favorite music, cooking a new recipe, drawing and handicrafts. Even house cleaning and dishwashing.
- Pull yourself together. Control your thoughts. If you find yourself thinking about something 10 times in a row, tell yourself to stop. Just tell yourself: “Stop! I don’t want to think about it anymore!”
- Find the reason. If you fall into such a state in crisis situations (it could be anything, for example, a lot of problems have piled up in connection with the upcoming repair), immediately pull yourself together. This condition progresses, so try to concentrate not on thoughts, but on deeds. Instead of suffering and thinking how unhappy you are, develop a plan and start solving problems gradually.
- Analyze your thoughts. Remember that you may only think that the problem is extremely serious. Share it with people close to you and see their reaction. Perhaps they will help you understand that you are worried about trifles. You will see how your worries will dissipate in one minute and will no longer bother you. If you have no one to share with, write down on paper what you feel and think. Then try to analyze what you wrote impartially, as if it were written by an outsider. You'll see, it turns out that this is a problem and not worth a damn.
- Time to think. Set aside a certain amount of time for yourself to think about minor issues. Imagine that you store all your unpleasant thoughts in a special box, which you open only once a day, at a certain time, and when the time is up, you put it back and close the lid until the next time.
- Seize the moment. Make a list of things you enjoy. It can be anything, the main thing is that it works. After all, you must admit, it’s difficult to start thinking about bad things when you’re happy, it simply won’t occur to you. At the end of each day, take time to relax, do something pleasant, forget about your problems, let them wait. Gradually, positive energy will replace all sadness - and you will enjoy life.
- Express your emotions. Being in a state of deep thought can be a consequence of an emotional block. Instead of analyzing your feelings, let them out. Cry, scream, break a plate, kick a pillow - release all the negativity, don’t accumulate everything inside yourself.
- Forgive yourself. Recent research in the field of psychology has shown that you need to be able to forgive not only others, but also yourself. There is no need to engage in self-flagellation: if you have made a mistake, admit it and correct it, this is the only way you can free yourself from feelings of guilt and heaviness. No one in this world is perfect, don’t blame yourself for every mistake - everyone has the right to make mistakes.
- Contemplate more. We live in the present, but many of us forget about it. To prevent this from happening to you, set aside time for yourself, say, every evening before bed or early in the morning before work to con. Yes, it will not be easy at first, but apply a little patience and everything will work out. Start with the basics - learn to contemplate the world around you as if from the outside. For 10-15 minutes, watch the movement of clouds in the sky, or during your lunch break, sit on a bench and watch people, trying not to judge them. Let thoughts appear and disappear, but do not touch you. Feel your body, every part, breathe, listen to the sounds. The world is beautiful! And there is no place for bad thoughts in it.
Let thoughts appear and disappear, but do not interfere with your life. Learn to control them - and you will soon feel how you feel better and see how beautiful this world is.
Cruel and bloodthirsty thoughts
“If only I had a chainsaw now...”
You’re calmly chopping onions in your kitchen, and suddenly the thought flashes through your head: “What if I kill my wife?” If thoughts of murder were a crime, most of us would be found guilty. According to psychologist David Bass (University of Texas at Austin), 91% of men and 84% of women have ever imagined pushing someone off a platform, smothering their partner with a pillow, or severely beating a family member.
The researcher offered a radical explanation: because our ancestors killed to survive, they passed on to us a predisposition to murder at the genetic level. Our subconscious always stores information about killing as a possible way to solve problems associated with stress, power, limited resources and security threats.
However, in most cases, thoughts about violence do not precede actual violence, but, on the contrary, block it. The heartbreaking pictures that the brain paints force us to analyze the situation before acting. The scenario is played out in the imagination, the prefrontal cortex turns on, and the terrible thought disappears.
But what happens to dark thoughts when we suppress them?
Thoughts about sexual perversion
“Do not open at work... or anywhere at all”
Many of us consider the most disgusting thoughts associated with sexual taboos: there is nothing worse than catching yourself fantasizing about something immoral or illegal.
The good news is that being a little agitated doesn't mean anything. Clinical psychologist Lee Baer, a professor at Harvard Medical School, argues that arousal is the body's natural response to attention: "Try thinking about your genitals and convincing yourself that you don't feel anything." If the thought of rape or sex with a minor flashes through your mind, this does not mean that you are going to bring this idea to life. Everyone thinks about sex, but not all fantasies should be taken literally.
Women's erotic fantasies about submission and rape have their own logical explanation. Researchers at the University of North Texas found that 57% of women have ever felt aroused by fantasizing about violent sexual acts with themselves as the victim. This can be explained by the woman's desire to be desired - so much so that the man cannot control himself. Another explanation is the rush of endorphins, which enter the blood more actively due to the accelerated heart rate that accompanies feelings of fear and disgust. An imaginary situation of coercion allows you to give freedom to secret “vicious” desires without feeling guilty. Fantasies about rape, which remain under the reliable control of our consciousness, are in no way connected with the desire to be raped in real life.
