Psychological techniques for Rebooting your Brain

Consider two youngsters waiting for their driving test. Mr Sam sat worrying about whether he had passed, doubting his driving skills, and imagining being told that he couldn’t get the license. Meanwhile, Mr Arun’s father joked around with him after he took his driving test, which kept Mr Arun from focusing on possibly failing. Thanks to Arun’s father distracting antics, Arun didn’t think about potential negative outcomes. As it turned out, both passed the test, but only Mr Sam had endured a stressful, anxious waiting period.

This story gives us a meaningful insight that when people change their thoughts, they need able to prevent their mental process from contributing to their anxiety.

Some cognition is illogical or unhealthy and can create or exacerbate unhealthy patterns of behaviour or mental states. We have to focus on identifying and changing thoughts that are self-defeating or dysfunctional, particularly thoughts that lead to increased level of anxiety and depression.

In our brain cortex path way produces worries obsessions, and interpretations that create anxiety and depression and the amygdala in our initiates bodily reactions that make up the fight, fight or freeze response. How you can change the way these parts of the brain responds? In order to so, you need to make changes in the brains circuitry. The brain is made up of billions of connected cells. That form circuits that hold your memories, produce your feelings, and initiate all your actions. These cells are called neurones and they are the basic building blocks of the brain. They are the reason that your brain has neuron plasticity; the ability to change itself and its response. On the basis of your experiences, the neurones in your brain are capable of changing their patterns of responding. Cognitive restructuring is one of the ways to change its structure.

Cognitive Restructuring

Cognitive restructuring is one of the ways to changes negative circuitry in our brain structure. Cognitive restructuring to compact anxiety intervenes directly in the cortex path way. When we discuss self-defeating or dysfunctional thoughts, we are focused on processes that occur in the cortex, primarily in the left hemisphere. Of course whenever we tried to change our thoughts, we are trying to modifying the cortex in some way. Our thoughts are not simply a result of neurological and chemical process in the brain; they are the neurological and chemical processes in the brain. In cognitive restructuring, the thoughts you think are used to rewire your brain

Coping Thoughts

Anxiety- igniting thought	Coping thought
It’s no use trying. Things will never work out for me.	I am going to try, because then there’s at least a chance that I’ll accomplish something.
Something’s going to go wrong. I can feel it.	I don’t know what’s going to happen. These kinds of feeling have been wrong before.
I need to focus on this thought, doubts, or concern.	Cortex, you have spent too much time on this and need to move on.
I must be competent and excel at everything I do.	No one is perfect. I am human and expect I’ll mistakes at times.
Everyone should like me.	No one is liked by everyone, so I’ll encounter people who don’t like me.
I can’t stand this.	This isn’t the end of the world. I’ll survive.
I can’t help worrying about this.	Worrying never fixes anything. It only upsets me.
I don’t want to disappoint other people.	Trying to please everyone is impossible and stresses me out. Let it go.
I can’t handle this situation.	I am a competent person, and even though I don’t like this situation, I can get through it.

 

Of course, you‘ll have to be vigilant about recognizing anxiety igniting thoughts and substituting coping thoughts, but it’s worth the effort. Some people post their coping thoughts to remind themselves. By deliberately thinking coping thoughts at every possible opportunity, you can rewire your cortex to produce coping thoughts on its own. Remember, you are changing your neural circuitry.

 

Thought stopping

When people work on changing thoughts, they often complain that they cannot get rid of negative thoughts.  How to tackle this issue?

 you might be successful in interrupting a thought by specifically telling yourself “stop!” this technique is called thought stopping. However, the next step is crucial. If you replace the thought with another thought, it’s more likely that you will keep the first thought out of your mind. Let’s say you are working in your garden and keep worrying that at any moment you will encounter a snake. Tell yourself “stop!” and then begin thinking about something else: a song on the radio, the names of the flowers you intend to plant in your garden, ideas you have for a loved one’s birthday present- basically anything captivating and, ideally, pleasant. By replacing the anxiety –provoking thought with something else that engages you mind, you make it more likely that you won’t return to that thought.

Therefore, “Don’t erase- replace!” is the best approach with anxiety igniting thoughts. If you notice that you are thinking something like, I can’t handle this, focus on replacing that thought with a coping thought, such as this is not easy, but I will get through it. By repeating this coping thought to yourself, you will strengthen a more adaptive way of thinking and active circuitry that will protect you from anxiety. It takes some practice, but your new thoughts will eventually become habitual.