Anxiety and mind chatter (+Why it happens and how to deal)
By
OptimistMinds
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Author bio
The Optimistminds editorial team is made up of psychologists, psychiatrists and mental health professionals. Each article is written by a team member with exposure to and experience in the subject matter. The article then gets reviewed by a more senior editorial member. This is someone with extensive knowledge of the subject matter and highly cited published material.
This article will explain how anxiety can cause mind chatter, and how people can deal with it. For that, the article will explain what anxiety is, its symptoms, and its possible causes.
Why does anxiety cause mind chatter?
Anxiety can make you extremely nervous. It can make you scared the worst will happen, and this causes your mind to be in constant working. You may establish long discussions with yourself about various things. It can be about locking the door of the house or not once you left.
Or even more serious things, like what should you do to prepare for a test, or what are things you need to do at work the following day. Sometimes it feels like you will never get a moment of silence in your mind, and this can be overwhelming, generate intense suffering, and be prejudicial to your life and relationships.
You can be so caught up in all the chatter in your mind, you might not be able to turn the thoughts into reality, and being around people can become hard. But to explain what are ways you can deal with mind chatter, let’s first explain what anxiety is.
What is anxiety?
Anxiety is your body and mind’s way of answering a stressful situation. It can be a job interview, a first date, or even a dangerous situation. But everyone will experience anxiety sometimes. But when it becomes constant, extreme, and affects your ability to do something, causing you to avoid it, you might be experiencing an anxiety disorder.
When anxiety becomes a disorder, you will worry most of the time. You can be afraid of impending doom and will make your thoughts race, always considering a negative outcome of things. The most common symptoms of anxiety are:
- Heart beating fast
- Fast breathing or inability to breath
- Difficulty relaxing
- Difficulty concentrating
- Insomnia
- Dizziness
- Dry mouth
- Sweating
- Chills
- Fear
- Numbness or tingling of the hand and feet
- Racing thoughts
Although those are the most common symptoms, not everyone will experience all of them. But if you start to feel some of them, you might want to look for professional help. The causes of anxiety are still up for debate. It seems there is a genetic reason for it, but environmental factors and brain chemistry can be related to it as well.
If you are experiencing anxiety, and intense mind chatter as a symptom of it, you might want to know some ways you can deal with that never-ending conversation in your mind. Let’s discuss ways to deal with mind chatter.
How can I deal with mind chatter?
If you are experiencing mind chatter, there are many ways you can deal with it so it doesn’t take control over you. Here are some ways you can handle the mind chatter anxiety brings you.
Meditation is a good way to go
Meditation, and mindfulness, are great ways for you to silence your mind. Those techniques will allow you to look over your thoughts in a caring way, acknowledge them, and let them go. By breathing you can center yourself, and focus more on the moment than what your mind is telling you.
Meditation and mindfulness are known to be ways to deactivate the area of the brain that is responsible for mind chatter, called the default mode network (DMN). Not only that, those techniques can change your brain that will improve your ability to turn it off.
Therapy can help
Therapy, including cognitive behavior therapy, can help with mind chatter. It will help you recognize your negative thought patterns, and how you can create a new thought, that is based mostly on facts, and not the fears anxiety causes you to feel.
With time, the change in your line of thought will be easier.
Find distractions
Doing things that engage you besides your mind chatter can be extremely important. It can be through running, being in nature, saying mantras, or even doing one of those coloring books. But you need to understand how distractions work for you.
Some people may feel like doing a distraction can make you happier, bring some positive perspective to your otherwise negative thoughts. But to others, it can be just a momentary technique that will make the chattering start again as soon as you are done.
Talk to friends
Talking to friends, and people that might be going through similar things can give you a new perspective on the matters going on in your mind. It can give you a reality check on your fears and anxieties that can help you think things over clearly.
If there is no one around, write
If you don’t have anyone to talk to, you can write. It is known that writing your thoughts is as effective as talking to someone. It gives you the possibility to look over your thoughts and separate what is based on the unreal fear of anxiety, and what is something you should consider.
Accept how you feel
When you are experiencing mind chatter, it can be overwhelming. As you feel it creeping in, you may get nervous, and start to think you won’t be able to escape this. You can try to freeze this cycle of worry, you should rather learn how to deal with things that are beyond your control.
If you practice self-acceptance, you can experience those thoughts, know that they will come, and also know that they will pass and you will be able to handle them.
If you battle the mind chatter, it can end up making your anxiety worse,
Help others
If you feel too anxious, a good way to channel your energy is by helping others. Doing some volunteer work can help you focus your attention on something other than yourself and the mind chatter.
Understand the difference between thoughts and facts
Another great way to handle mind chatter is by changing your thoughts. So if your mind chatter is telling you “I am a loser”, you can change that thought by saying “I am having a thought that I am a loser”. This will allow you to separate the thought from the reality.
Repeating this second thought over and over, you will be able to put your negative thoughts in a new perspective. Or you can change it to a positive aspect. For example, instead of saying “I am a loser”, you can say “I am a caring person”.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ): Why does anxiety cause mind chatter?
Is mind chatter normal?
Yes, mind chatter is normal. What can change is the intensity of it from one person to another, and how it can impact everyone. Some people may have a good strategy to cope with it, and it can seem less intense, or cause less trouble in their lives.
For others, it can be a challenge to turn it off, so they might need to discover the best strategies to handle it. Which can change from one person to another. All of this goes to show how self-knowledge is important in your mental health.
How do I quiet my overactive mind?
If you feel you have an overactive mind, that is constantly thinking about many matters at once or focusing too much on one single matter, there are some things you can do. The first thing is to write things down. divide the things you have control over, and the ones you don’t, and try to create moves for the things you can control.
You can also try to practice breathing exercises that can increase your relaxation, such as the 4-7-8 breathing. In this, you will breathe in for 4 seconds, hold it for 7, and breathe out for 8 seconds. Doing this a few times will calm you down for sure.
You might also want to listen to an audiobook, that soothing voice can be a great source of tranquility. Another way to stop your overactive mind is by protecting yourself from the stress that can come from other people. If you are close to some stress, it can rub off on you, try to get some distance if you can.
And finally, your overactive mind can make it hard for you to sleep sometimes. If you feel like this is what is happening, you might want to get out of bed and do something calming, such as reading, or meditating.
What is busy brain syndrome?
The busy brain syndrome is that feeling you may get that there is just too much going on in your mind. It is as if you are juggling many things at once, without being able to determine what is the most important of it. it can come as a reaction to being bored. So some people may want to do a lot, instead of feeling bored.
Having busy brain syndrome can be extremely draining, making you more irritable, and causing you to have difficulty focusing. People that experience busy brain syndrome can become easily distracted, and have a hard time relaxing.
They can lose their ability to pay attention to details, and become less accurate, having more of a black and white mindset. Along with that, they can show more risky behaviors and poor decision-making ability. Busy brain syndrome can also make it harder for you to sleep, and when you do, the quality of it might not be good.
What is the 3-3-3 rule for anxiety?
The 3-3-3- rule for anxiety is a way of trying to decrease your symptoms of anxiety. For doing it, once you feel anxious you should look around you and name three things you see. Then, you move to the next challenge, which is naming three sounds you hear.
Finally, you will move to name three parts of your body. This strategy can help you center your mind, and focus more on the present.
How do I break the anxiety cycle?
Your anxiety is caused by a trio of aspects. What you think, how you feel about what you think, and how you behave about it. To break the anxiety cycle, you might need to change the pattern you are in. For that, the first thing to do is recognize it.
You can do that by going to therapy or writing about your thoughts and feelings. This will let you know what has been causing your anxiety so you can get a better hold on it. By doing that, you will be able to think or feel something that would make you anxious, and can react differently to it.
Conclusion
This article explained how anxiety can cause mind chatter, and how people can deal with it. For that, the article showed what anxiety is, its main symptoms, and its causes.
If you have any questions or comments about this article, feel free to write it in the section below.
References
https://www.healthline.com/health/anxiety
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