This Is How Intrusive Thoughts Give Way To Anxiety
Poor anxiety management is one of the most common problems both among those who go to psychotherapy and in the general population. This psychological phenomenon degenerates into psychopathologies quite frequently, but even when it does not constitute a disorder, it can cause a significant amount of discomfort on a daily basis.
One of the reasons why these psychological imbalances are associated with anxiety is that it can be triggered by various factors that occur a lot in all types of people: insecurities and self-esteem problems when faced with a project or a social context, work overload, relationship problems, drug use, etc. In this article we will see what one of those anxiety-causing elements consists of: rumination based on intrusive thoughts.
Psychological rumination is a vicious circle in which our mind is subject to an almost constant coming and going of intrusive thoughts that disturb us and generate discomfort.
It is a very common phenomenon that happens to practically everyone at various times in life.: that annoying feeling of not being able to get a **** thought or image out of your head, this mental content being something that makes us feel bad: a memory about something we did and of which we are ashamed, an assumption about what how bad we are in front of someone, a prediction about how badly an important exam will go, etc.
So, psychological rumination works cyclically based on intrusive thoughts (so called because they intrude into our consciousness even though we do not want to attract them to it) and it makes us increasingly vulnerable to them, because we become more and more desperate when we see that we are not able to get rid of them.
Through a paradoxical effect, the very fear of suffering again due to intrusive thoughts attracts them to our consciousness, and that leaves us with the feeling that whatever we do we will feel bad and we will be distracted by our own thoughts, whose unpleasant emotional charge will make it difficult for us to concentrate on doing things to improve our situation.
How do you go from intrusive thoughts to anxiety problems?
Given what we’ve seen so far about intrusive thoughts and psychological rumination, it’s no surprise that these are a cause of anxiety. This cycle of feelings and mental images that bother us or even hurt us emotionally deteriorate our mood and predispose us to enter a state of alert to try to take control of what enters and leaves our own consciousness, without success.
However, it is also true that rumination and intrusive thoughts They are both causes of anxiety and consequences of this. When we start to feel anxious, it is easier for us to interpret everything from a pessimistic point of view, and to direct our memory towards what may give us reason to worry.
On the other hand, there are several aspects of intrusive thoughts that link them to anxiety. They are the following.
Rumination is closely related to worry, but Being a cyclical phenomenon, it paralyzes us. This happens because it directs our attention towards our own mind, and not so much towards the search for solutions.
That is why it is often said that it has an avoidant component: directing attention towards those intrusive thoughts is a way of self-sabotaging.
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2. They lead us to look for distractions
To try to dispel the discomfort generated by intrusive thoughts, It is common for us to give in to impulses that promise us instant pleasant sensations with the capacity to distract us.: eating despite not being hungry, browsing updates on our social networks, watching videos on the Internet, etc.
These types of supposed remedies only provide very short-term solutions, and over time, we learn to associate them with anxiety, so that the very act of doing them or thinking about them can bring intrusive thoughts to our mind.
3. Loss of time makes us feel more anxious
Due to the above, we waste time and notice that we are increasingly in a worse situation when it comes to doing something to solve what worries us or what makes us feel bad (for example, we let the days go by without studying to an exam, because always thinking about it and the problem it represents exhausts us emotionally and we have no strength left to dedicate more time to it).
4. Sustained discomfort throughout that time damages our mental health
Finally, we cannot forget that the simple fact of having spent a considerable amount of time thinking about things that make us feel bad is something that in itself causes our nervous system to be activated, since we notice that we have a problem that we must solve as soon as possible. . This means having even more anxiety, produced by anxiety itself..
Are you interested in having psychotherapeutic help for anxiety?
Luckily, anxiety problems and everything that comes with them can be overcome through psychological therapy. If you are suffering from anxiety problems or any other type of emotional disturbance that causes you discomfort, Get in touch with me. I am a psychologist and neuropsychologist dedicated to caring for patients of all ages, and I offer in-person and online sessions by video call. On this page you will find more information about my services, as well as my contact information.
