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Get out of your head: how to quiet your thoughts
A short guide to overthinking
The average person thinks 70,000 thoughts per day.
Our mind can feel like our best friend — or our worst enemy.
It’s our friend when it has a task to fulfill. This sense of purpose streamlines our thinking, making it lucid and focused.
It’s our enemy when it’s left unattended. Like a puppy, it’s prone to wandering off in all sorts of directions:
… Why you and your partner had an argument, when your bills are due, why your flatmate said something in a passive aggressive tone of voice…
These are thoughts that float to the surface in moments of stillness: before bed, brushing our teeth, on the subway. Without a focal point, our brains default into repetitive worry rather than happy musing.
A Harvard study explored this and the verdict was clear:
“A wandering mind is an unhappy mind.”
So how do we deal with meandering thoughts? Can we tame them, or train them into more positive thinking?
First, we need to establish something very important:
