Mental Health

New Study Findings May Help You Prevent Unwanted Thoughts

Have you ever had a song stuck in your head that you couldn’t get rid of? This is an example of an unwanted thought – a thought that repeats in your head no matter how you try to focus on something else. While some unwanted thoughts can be benign as a musical earworm, others can be more serious.

StudyPages

Oct 16, 2022 • 5 min read

Unwanted thoughts can range from silly to serious. Taking a proactive approach to preventing unwanted thoughts, though, may help.

Our brains process thousands of individual thoughts every day. Some of these are thoughts we consciously focus on, while others flit through our minds seemingly at their own discretion. When these uncontrolled thoughts cause a negative reaction, they can become unwanted or intrusive thoughts.

Luckily, a new study has revealed a novel approach to controlling these unwanted thoughts and preventing them from taking hold in our minds.

What Are Unwanted Thoughts?

How can a thought be unwanted? Aren’t we in control of our own brains? Well, yes and no. We are able to control our thoughts to an extent when we intentionally focus our attention, but that level of focus takes energy, so we can’t do it all day. When we allow our minds to wander, they sometimes take us to unexpected places.

Have you ever had a song stuck in your head that you couldn’t get rid of? An unwanted thought can often be like that – a thought that repeatedly appears in your head no matter how much you try to focus on something else. While some unwanted thoughts can be as benign as a musical earworm, others can take serious tolls on our mental health.

Some unwanted or “intrusive” thoughts, including thoughts about self-harm or violence,* can be associated with particular mental disorders, such as depression, schizophrenia, and PTSD. Fortunately, having unwanted thoughts doesn’t necessarily indicate a clinical problem. Everyone sometimes has thoughts they’d rather not, ranging from minor annoyances to recurring fixations. Some of these thoughts stem from negative past experiences, and they may be triggered by stress, hormonal changes, or anxiety.

What Causes Unwanted Thoughts?

When we focus on something, the electrical signals in our brains create neural pathways to help us think more efficiently. This is known as neuroplasticity – the ability of the brain to change in response to new information. While this can often be beneficial – it’s how we learn, after all – when negative or unwanted thoughts come up, the brain often creates the same kind of pathways. The more an unwanted thought goes through our mind, the more our brains strengthen the connections that thought triggers, making the thought stronger and more likely to reappear.

The brain is incredible at associating pieces of information. When we mentally connect two things, our brains physically connect them by linking together the neurons associated with them. This is what helps us to learn and to retain memories.

Have you ever smelled something that took you right back to a childhood memory or heard a song that always makes you think of a particular event? That’s those neural pathways at work. The more associations your brain creates around a piece of information, the more likely you are to remember it. That is why things like mnemonic devices work. By tying the information we want to remember to something else, even something seemingly unrelated (what does Dear Aunt Sally have to do with algebra, after all?), we strengthen the neurological pathways to that information in our brain.

Likewise, when we experience something that we associate with a negative or unwanted thought, a repeat of that associated experience can trigger those thoughts to return, just like Dear Aunt Sally helping us with math. The more we expose ourselves to those triggers, the stronger the association with the unwanted thought will get.

How well can you control your thoughts? When unwanted thoughts come up, there are proactive measures you can take to prevent their return.

How Can We Prevent Them?

It’s tempting to handle unwanted thoughts by immediately replacing them with another, preferred thought after they have already occurred. While this can be a good place to start and may help you avoid dwelling on the thought, the best way to prevent unwanted thoughts is to avoid the associations our minds create with them and proactively stop the thoughts before they even appear (for instance, if you find that the sound of fireworks can trigger unpleasant associations, wearing headphones on the 4th of July might be helpful).

A recent study on thought control published by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in PLOS Computational Biology looked at ways participants controlled thought association via proactive and reactive approaches. The study was based on a test of free association where participants were given a word and asked to associate another word with it, such as “table” and “chair.”

Each of the 60 test words was repeated five times. Participants were instructed not to repeat associated words – this mistake would be penalized with the loss of financial compensation for the task.

The idea was that each reappearance of a previously used word would be perceived as an “unwanted thought” since it momentarily distracted those taking the test from coming up with a different word they would not be penalized for using. From there, the researchers were able to study the differences between proactive and reactive approaches to preventing these automatic associations.

Proactively controlling our thoughts, of course, is far easier said than done. Due to what has been called the “ white bear problem” (named after a thought control study by Daniel M. Wegner), the more you actively try not to think about something, the more you will focus on that thing – just like if someone told you, “Don’t think about a white bear.” Focusing on avoiding a particular thought may just cause it to come up that much more.

Rather than trying to actively suppress unwanted thoughts, try to avoid giving them a grip on your consciousness at all. This doesn’t mean that you should react strongly to reject the thought when it appears. Instead, when you have such thoughts, acknowledge them briefly but lightly and simply let them pass.

It may be helpful to visualize the thought literally slipping from your mind as if coated in oil. Quickly but gently move on to another thought, perhaps by distracting yourself with another activity or focus. The less attention you give the thought, the weaker those neural pathways will become.

New medical research studies like this one seek to find new ways to improve our health and lives. At StudyPages, we want to make research like this a part of your everyday life to improve your medical knowledge and help you live healthier. For more information about recent and upcoming clinical studies, sign up for StudyPages or follow us on Facebook.

*If you are having thoughts about hurting yourself or others, please seek professional help right away. Call 988 to reach the National Crisis Hotline.