10 lessons I learned from: Calm your thoughts book.
“Calm Your Thoughts” is a book by [Nick Trenton] that helps people learn how to control their thoughts for a calmer mind. It gives practical tips and exercises to understand how thoughts affect feelings and actions.
The book teaches techniques like mindfulness and positive thinking to reduce stress and feel happier. It’s like a guide to managing your mind better for a more peaceful life.
Nick Trenton is an author who specializes in behavioral psychology. He holds a master’s degree in this field.
Why does your brain focus more on negative things?
According to this book, your brain has a built-in system. In simple terms, your brain gives more importance to negative information.
There’s an experiment Dr. John Cacioppo conducted where he showed people various images — positive, neutral, and negative. What he found out was that the brain always responded with a stronger electrical surge to negative images than to positive ones in the cerebral cortex.
If you really want to live a positive life, you have to apply this method: a 5 to 1 ratio.
It means, in order to be happy and focus more on the positive sides, you have to go through 5 good, positive thoughts or memories and one negative one. That’s how you can balance your life.
You’ve seen that people who live with a 50/50 balance aren’t happy because you need 5 positive thoughts and one negative thought to live a positive life.
How to stop anxiety?
Have you ever noticed that trying to escape from anxiety can actually create more anxiety? For example, if your partner says something rude and you start worrying they might leave you, you’re creating anxiety for yourself.
You might start researching if it’s true or not, and even if your partner reassures you, you might still doubt them, thinking they’re lying. This creates a chain of never-ending problems.
Why does this happen? Because you’re trying to escape uncertainty by seeking temporary comfort, which actually leads to long-term discomfort. The only way to stop anxiety is to face your problems. Instead of trying to control yourself, accept the situation.
Teach your brain a new approach: uncertainty is okay, it’s not dangerous. Start training your brain to accept uncertainty.
Stop trying to gain control, just let go and accept that some things are out of your hands.
Don’t try to find all the answers, just let it be.
Feel the emotions.
If you want to release your emotions, there’s only one way to do it: feel them. When you feel your emotions, you’re allowing and accepting them.
Emotions are vital for living; they add color to our lives. Without emotions, we’d be like robots.
Now, you understand that emotions are important, but you might not want to feel them because they can make you feel sad, stressed, or depressed. But has suppressing your emotions helped you so far? No, right? It often creates even more emotions. So, start accepting them.
How to do it? You can start by responding instead of reacting. Before saying anything, pause for a moment and think about the outcome, not just the process. This will help you consider your benefits, including your mental health.
When you start practicing this habit 2 to 3 times, you’ll notice how it helps you.
You’re leading yourself to undesirable outcomes.
I can’t stop myself from sharing this lesson, and I’ve reread it 3 to 4 times.
When you feel sad or hurt, what do you do? You shout and argue, right? But what you did just now harmed yourself. You might think you released your anger, but you didn’t.
The word I liked the most from this is “compounding.” It hit me hard. When you shout, react, or argue, you compound negative feelings with guilt and shame.
I resonate with the word “compounding” because I’ve read a book on it, and I know how dangerous it can be if it’s negative. Compounding means slow growth for anything, which isn’t visible in the beginning, but in the end, it just explodes.
Whether it’s negative or positive, compounding always works. That’s why it’s essential to be aware of your emotions. Build self-awareness and understand the pattern of your thoughts, then respond accordingly.
5-Minute method.
The 5-minute method is like creating a stress budget; you’re budgeting your anxiety or negative thoughts. It’s a great technique to use if you don’t want to overwhelm your mind.
Anxious and negative thoughts stick with your mind for a long time. Once they come, it’s hard to shift your focus and ignore them.
But is it really important to focus on every negative thought? Of course not, right? The more you dwell on negative thoughts, the more your brain thinks they’re important.
That’s why you can put a time limit on them. For example, you can say you’ll only think about it for 5 minutes, then move on to the next problem.
Some thoughts might feel like 5 minutes is too much time, while others might feel like it’s too little. But the important thing is that giving them a proper 5 minutes can help calm you down and focus on your work.
After 5 minutes, you’ll realize it’s not working. Why? Because it’s not an important thought. You’ll only know if you give it time; otherwise, it’ll just confuse you.
Sometimes, you’ll realize the problem isn’t going away even after 5 minutes. You can learn from this that even with proper time, some thoughts persist.
So, you have to shift your focus from negative thoughts to your work, knowing you’ve already given them their time.
Delayed method.
Now, every time a thought pops up in your head, you can’t give 5 minutes to every single one, right? So, for this, you can use the delayed method. It’s just saying that you’ll work on that negative thought, but not now.
Right now, your work is more important than that. Then, suddenly, are you listening? Suddenly, put a timer so that your focus can’t be disturbed, and start working on your task.
I personally like this method so much because of the example the author gave.
Example: Have you ever been in a situation where something seems so important, and you want to talk to your friends, but they’re unavailable? You think, “Okay, I’ll say this tomorrow.” But what happens is that sometimes, even 80 to 90% of the time, you don’t bring up the problem to your friends because after delaying it, it seems unimportant or unnecessary.
You’ve experienced these situations, so you can use this for your benefit too.
Just delay it and think, “Okay, I’ll solve this tomorrow.” You’ll realize that the problem isn’t that important to talk about or even to think about.
Train your brain to tolerate uncomfortable feelings.
For example, if you don’t like watching the news, train yourself to watch it without trying to escape it. You can start with 2 minutes, then 5 minutes, then 10 minutes. Your goal shouldn’t be to enjoy the news because you don’t have to force anything to enjoy it.
Enjoying is a natural feeling.
What I’m trying to say is you have to train your brain to tolerate uncomfortable feelings without trying to get rid of them. You can start with anything. For example, you may not like taking the stairs; you prefer the elevator.
But you don’t have to enjoy taking the stairs; you just have to control it.
You just have to be brave. You just have to increase your tolerance power.
But don’t try to terrify yourself. Just take baby steps, adjust, and try again.
Set yourself free.
After reading this line, I have to wait for 5 minutes to process this lesson; it’s too deep.
What this lesson is saying is that you have to stop trying to control the people around you. When you do, you’re not in control of them; you’re setting yourself free. Maybe you think that if you can control others, you have power. But it’s totally opposite.
When you try to control others, you’re trapping yourself in anxiety.
And the most important part: when you stop trying to control others, you’re giving them the freedom to fulfill you and removing their power to destroy you.
Because now you’re self-aware, you’re not trying to control others; you’re making yourself a priority, behaving like a mentally strong person, and having control over yourself. You’re not controlling others, and you’re not letting people control you, so you have your own power.
And the line that hit me is, “Letting go is letting happiness in.”
So, you can ask yourself, how many things are you trying to control? Start removing them one by one. You just have to let things be as they are, without complaining, without judging.
Naturally, happiness will find its way. Make a commitment that should be renewed day to day, moment to moment.
Acceptance.
I’m sure this will be a lifetime lesson for you. You’ve all heard about acceptance, right? But hear me out. What does acceptance really mean and how should you accept it?
All people advise to accept the moment, accept the situations, but no one teaches how. Acceptance means not trying to compare. Have you ever noticed you feel sad because you try to compare things?
For example, how it was yesterday, how good you were yesterday, how happy you were before. But time moves on, and everything changes. Don’t try to compare your today to yesterday.
Maybe you think this person was not like this before, why did he or she change, what happened? These are all time-wasting thoughts.
And don’t try to extend the moment into thinking that it will last forever because it won’t. People change, time changes. Try to enjoy the moment fully and cherish it, because it will pass.
Even if it’s a sad moment, it will pass. Even if it’s a good moment, it will pass.
Positive vs negative thoughts
There’s a law called Hebb’s Law, which states that neurons that fire together wire together. It means that when you walk through a forest for the first time, you’ll face difficulties because you’re new to it.
But if you go through it many times, it won’t be as difficult, right? That’s how your brain works. The more you practice positive thoughts, the easier it gets for your brain to see the positive sides of every aspect of your life.
This way, your neural pathways get activated, and it takes less effort to see the positive side.
For example, when you’re going through sad moments, you have to force your brain to be happy, to be positive.
But if you practice positive thoughts daily and do gratitude exercises, it will automate your brain to require less effort.
You can start this practice by listing out 5 things that you’re grateful for and practice it every day, so it gets easier.
Thank you!
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Originally published at https://heyurgrowing.com on May 4, 2024.
