Stuck in the Hamster Wheel: 10 ways to stop racing thoughts.

There are times when you need to process, mentally and emotionally. To take the time to review, reflect, feel and let go. And other times, you just need your brain to shut the hell up.

If you’re stuck in the hamster wheel of repetitive or racing thoughts that seem to have a mind of their own, here’s a few things you can do to stop that pattern and kill the hamster, I mean, gain control.

There is no coincidence that most of these racing thoughts happen when you’re trying to sleep. Your brain spends most of your day distracted with saving your life. You don't have time to worry about other threats to your emotions, relationships, finances or whatever. During the quiet calm of bedtime hours without physical distractions your brain calls a staff meeting to discuss all the other issues on the agenda.

You’re in this meeting whether you want to be or not. But you get to decide if you’re just a staff member listening to the supervisor tell you what to think or if you’re the director in charge of this entire operation.

Choosing to be the director means you set the agenda for this meeting and decide what’s important enough to discuss, think about, and take action on. You choose when the meeting takes place and not in your bedroom in the middle of the night. You even get to choose how long the damn meeting lasts and let’s be real, most meetings can just be an email.

#1 Schedule your brain drain.

Set a time at the end of your day, before the thoughts keep you up at night, to do a brain drain; drain all the thoughts from your head. Give each member of the team a chance to air their grievances within the boundaries of a set amount of time.

Set a timer for just 5 minutes and write down all the thoughts on your mental white board. Anything that might keep you up at night, that’s playing on repeat in your head, things that happened that day, random thoughts, fears and worries. Just clear the whiteboard so you’re not holding these thoughts day after day and running out of mental space.

For the next 5 minutes, look at the list and categorize the items like a DAD.

The DAD categories are do, act and delete.

If the item on the list is something you need to do, add it to your to do list. This is a written to do list, often a dry erase board on the fridge so you’re not trying to keep it on your mental white board. This includes making phone calls, picking up something from the store, or scheduling an oil change. Things that you will forget or have been putting off.

If it’s something you need to act on, an issue you need to address, a conversation you need to have with someone, or a what if scenario, create an action plan. But only create a plan A and B and write it down. If your brain starts to bring up more what ifs about the same situation, take charge. Tell it “I have a plan Susan. Refer to the meeting minutes I just wrote down and stop wasting time repeating yourself. No one wants to hear you anymore.”

Anything you can’t change or create an action plan for, extreme what if’s, past actions or conversations, regrets, random shit like if there’s going to be another season of the show you’re watching, delete it. Physically cross it off to create a solid visual and physical experience of telling your brain you’re done with it. It’s off the agenda and won’t be discussed further. Let it go.

This is the basic 10 minute brain drain process I recommend doing at the end of every day until your mental staff learn you’re the director and you determine what’s on the agenda so they can stop wasting time. You will get to the point where before you even get to your evening brain drain you’ll be able to let things go or quickly jot things on a to do list to free up mental space.

Stubborn Staff

Sometimes there’s that one staff member who just can’t read the room and know when to wrap it up so you can all go home. They think they know more than everyone, so they argue their points, repeat themselves, and drain the oxygen from the room. Here’s a few more techniques to handle those thoughts.

#2 Create Meaning

If thoughts are focused on a story of events, then create meaning by asking what did I learn? How did this challenge serve a purpose in my life? Would I handle it differently in the future? What did I do well?

#3 EAT the Positive

If the thoughts are in a negative loop, doom and gloom, or berating yourself with criticism and judgment, you need to EAT the positive, which stands for Equal Air Time. Meaning, give Equal Air Time to the opposite story, the possible positives of the situation or self-assessment. Ask yourself, if this isn’t true, what could be?

Say you messed up at work and you can’t stop thinking about how people are going to make fun of you, reject you, call you names, or the supervisor is going to rip you a new one and you’ll be punished to a shitty position for years to come.

You don’t actually know what’s going to happen until it does and in the meantime your thoughts are just making you miserable. So EAT the opposite. If that’s not true, what could be?

Maybe some coworkers will share their stories of messing up to normalize the learning process and bond over the fact that we’re all human and make mistakes. Maybe your supervisor pulls you aside and uses this as a teaching moment to help you be a better officer because they see the potential in you and know your mistake wasn’t on purpose.

Your mind is going to think something, you might as well tell it what to think about.

#4 Use a Mantra

Positive affirmations are like mantras you can repeat to help get the brain focused on the empowering energy of a positive thought. Try these or come up with your own: This is my job, not my life. I am appreciated by the people who really matter. Negativity can’t fuck with me. I do my best, and that shit is enough.

#5 Give the dog a bone.

If you don’t give a dog a bone it’ll find something else to chew on. So give your brain something to think about before it eats your favorite slippers.

Give your brain something very left brain mundane to focus on with the alphabet list. Pick a topic like cities, boys names, food, and go through the alphabet thinking of something that starts with each letter, A, B, C, and so forth.

#6 Activate both sides of the brain.

When the left-brain thoughts are taking control and don’t shut up, it helps to bring the right brain onto the stage, so they have to share the space and work together, not one more overpowering than the other. You can do this by using both sides of the brain by using both sides of the body. The easiest way to do this is to go for a walk. You can also play a sport, work on a project with your hands, garden, cook, exercise, golf, do woodworking, dance.

#7 Replicate REM

During the REM stage of sleep, the brain takes data from the left and the emotions from the right brings them together for some weird ass dreams but then files the information or deletes it. You can do this while awake when you replicate the REM stage of sleep by moving your eyes side to side like when going for a walk or reading. Even better, walk and read at the same time–treadmill, elliptical, pacing up and down the hallway with your e-book in your hand (my preferred method as long as my cat doesn’t trip me).

For more information on the benefits of walking for your mental and emotional health, check out my blog Walk It Off.

#8 Use your breath.

Using your breath can help you get out of your thinking brain and into the physical experience of the present moment. With racing thoughts it’s helpful to keep that left brain busy with counting the breath. Square breathing is breathing in for the count of 4, holding for 4, breathing out for 4, and holding for 4. Another one is breathing in for 4, holding for 7 and breathing out for 8. Or just counting that the out breath is twice as long as the in breath which activates the calming nervous system like breathing in for 3 and out for 6 or 4 and 8.

#9 Use your imagination.

Visualizations also help keep the brain busy and tell it what to do with the thoughts. Imagine a container and as the thoughts come in you put those thoughts in a container and put a lid on it. Set that container in a closet or on a shelf so your brain knows you can access these thoughts later during your nightly brain dump or while processing and sharing with a friend or therapist.

If you know your thoughts belong in the delete category, negative, angry, fear based, nothing you can change or have control over, things you know you need to let go, then allow that container to be a dumpster. Visualize those negative thoughts being thrown into the dumpster then by all means, light that bitch on fire.

#10 Keep thoughts separate from identity.

To decrease the emotional reactions to the thoughts you’re having, detach your identity from the thoughts. Instead of saying “I am a worthless father because I’m always working and never see my kids,” you’d say, “I am having the thought that I don’t spend enough time with my kids.” Focus on the behavior, which you may have control to change, rather than who you are as a person which feels unchangeable when it’s your identity.

Next Steps

To help take the emotional intensity out of any racing thoughts so they are easier to release, check out my free pdf guide on EFT acupoints.