1 . Slowing Down Racing Thoughts

Everyone has moments when their brain suddenly goes messy. When racing thoughts take over your mind, you can’t stay focused, and you feel trapped. How can you keep racing thoughts from controlling you? Here are five tips to try.

Give yourself permission. Racing thoughts are often made worse by the anxiety over having racing thoughts.     1     This gives you a sense of control so you don’t feel helpless. When you put racing thoughts in their proper context, they feel less threatening and easier to manage.

Distract (分心) yourself. As soon as you notice yourself worrying again or thinking about things over and over, make an inside comment on yourself, like “here I go again, with my list of thoughts that never ends”.     2    

Get mindful. Practicing mindfulness can help change your thought patterns.     3     Close your eyes and count to yourself as you take slow, steady breaths. When you reach 10, start over and repeat the process until you calm down.

Get moving.     4     For instance, when racing thoughts strike, do a set of push-ups, do 10 jumping jacks, take a five-minute walk, or do household chores. Also, try to build regular exercise into your life as well as these short bursts of activity. That can help relieve anxiety and stress.

    5     Sometimes it’s best to let racing thoughts run their course; otherwise, they may wander indefinitely. When anxious racing thoughts occur, recognize them, but tell yourself that now is not worry time and you will deal with them later. Then at a fixed time of your choosing, do nothing but explore those thoughts and work through them.

2 . As the trees drop their leaves and frosts advance in, we prepare our homes and ourselves for the winter months.     1     When the seasons change, we know that we have to change our behavior to keep ourselves safe and warm. Our feelings change like the seasons. Laughing, joyful and positive like summer; sad, angry, and hopeless like winter.     2     However, it would not be practical to feel wonderful all the time.

The phrase “emotional wintering” was popularized by Katharine May. She mentions emotional wintering asks us to see our difficult or uncomfortable feelings as winters which we can get ready for and live through.     3    

Sometimes the emotional winters are caused by an event that makes us feel as though we want to withdraw into ourselves.     4     We need to take time to replenish (补充) them while accepting that we are sad. Whatever the cause, emotional wintering encourages us to accept that our emotional seasons are normal and we should manage them as best we can.

    5     To manage through challenging times, we need to adjust our habits, reassess our expectations of ourselves, and ensure that we sustain ourselves appropriately. This process gives us the space to explore the full range of emotions that make us human, and allows us to safely sit with a feeling, in relative comfort, until it passes.

With the management, we believe we will be well by the time the next summer rolls around.