Don’t think about more than you can process
Today I wanted to write a short story about a recent conversation I had with one of my friends.
We were sitting down doing homework, and this friend of mine was talking to me about how she was worried about enjoying her future life with whatever job she ended up getting.
Being 22-year-old college students, its a fairly common occurrence that we might be thinking about what our future job will be.
While I’m still waiting to see whether or not the NFL will work out for me, I’ve also had the same thoughts on what job I might have when I’m done with college.
But I realized there was something different about this conversation, it wasn’t a new conversation to be talking about future jobs. Or even just worrying about what we would do in the future for work.
I noticed something in her tone of voice and speed. The manner in which my friend was talking about this, was too much, too fast.
I could see how the information she was thinking about stressed her out. As she jumped from topic to topic the conversation lost focus and it became a confusion of information.
You see there’s no problem with thinking about a lot of things at one time, I think it’s really important that we be able to have our brain constantly thinking about multiple subjects at a time.
We are wired as human beings to be able to process so many different areas of information at one point in time.
But even with this skill of multi subject thinking, I noticed the conversation was different. I could see the demeanor in which she was talking about the subject matter. It wasn’t like previous conversations where it was just a normal conversation to think about the what if‘s of the future.
At that moment I realized I had done the same thing that she was doing. I’ve sat down many times when I was alone and one by one new thoughts and ideas would start to run rampant in my mind. When this would happen to me I would become anxious, and I would lose control of my mental fortitude.
Once I noticed my friends predicament, I tried to make an effort to help my friend calm down, and there was one sentence that came to my mind.
“Don’t think about more than you can process”
While it’s a very simple sentence, I couldn’t stop thinking about it even after I had gone home.
So started writing this blog, or article, or whatever this is.
If I were to ask you how many times you’ve sat alone having too many thoughts going through your head, you would probably tell me it’s happened to you almost every day.
We’re very intellectual beings. Our bodies and our brains are hardwired to find the answers to questions that we pose to ourselves.
It’s only natural.
But this blessing of higher intellect can often bring about what some call the curse of knowledge.
The curse of knowledge is a cognitive bias that occurs when an individual, communicating with other individuals, unknowingly assumes that the others have the background to understand.
Only in this situation the curse of knowledge is with the self. Your own brain assumes you can handle a large amount of information at one time, and you load your brain with more than it can process.
It’s entirely possible that if you think about too many things at one point, your brain won’t be adequately equipped to handle all of it right away.
If we were to compare our brains to a computer, it would look something like downloading files.
If you’ve ever tried to download a movie, music, or even just a basic file from the internet, then you’ll see how this problem builds on itself.
As you add more downloads at the same time, the computer actually begins to slow down and downloads each file slower. In some cases the downloads even fail due to over use of the internet connection or with decoding error due to the large amount of data being processed.
If we look at our brains like a computer, it’s very possible that we can overload it by thinking about too many things at one moment.
So what’s the solution to this?
How do we stop this overload issue?
Well, my advice is to not let yourself think more than you can process at any one moment. If you start to notice that you’re putting more thoughts in your brain than you can possibly process, my first recommendation is to tell somebody. Talking to people will usually show them your current state of mind.
Much like when My friend was talking to me, I was able to notice that she was overprocessing too much information in that moment.
If you don’t have somebody that you can tell about your racing mind, start to breath slower and get a pen and paper.
Slowing your breathing slows your heart rate. Slowing your heart rate slows down the rate at which the rest of your body will function in regards to a fight or flight reaction.
Yes, while it may not seem very likely, our thoughts can put our bodies in the state of fight or flight syndrome.
The fight-or-flight response (also called hyperarousal, or the acute stress response) is a physiological reaction that occurs in response to a perceived harmful event, attack, or threat to survival. It was first described by Walter Bradford Cannon.
Fight or flight is a natural way our bodies protect us in response to an event.
The problem, is that it’s not all that healthy to put yourself in a fight or flight situation simply because of the thoughts you’re putting in your head.
The best thing that you can do is to breathe slower, call me yourself down. If you have too many thoughts going through your brain, start to write them down.
When I have too many things going on in my head, I try to write all of them down.
I’ll write them in a notebook, and when I finish writing I’ll close the notebook and I’ll leave in a different room.
This allows me to physically distance myself from the thoughts that I was having, and it allows me to free my mind.
I’ll put it in a notebook, and when I finish writing I’ll close the notebook and I’ll leave it on my desk in a different room.
Try not to think about more than you can process.
It’s going to happen in times of adversity. And will happen to you at some point in your life.
And when you experience this, write it all down, and put it away.
-Alex