A New Study Uncovered The Most Effective Way To Battle Unwanted Thoughts
Have you ever been triggered by a bad experience or upsetting memory? Afterward, you might have struggled with warding off unwanted thoughts.
Unwanted thoughts are harmful to our mental health because they are often negative and can spiral out of control– growing stronger and stronger over time.
When most people deal with unwanted thoughts, they will reactively reject and attempt to replace the thought after it happens.
But, a new research study conducted by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has found a more efficient strategy– ridding your mind of unwanted associations beforehand.
The study conducted by Isaac Fradkin and Eran Eldar included eighty English-speaking adults. The participants were shown common words on a screen and asked to come up with new associations.
Additionally, the researchers told one group that they would not receive any cash bonuses for repeatedly using the same associations.
In turn, the group worked even harder to suppress any previous associations.
Afterward, the team analyzed the reaction times of each participant as well as how effective they were at creating new associations.
These stats were then used by the researchers to computationally model how people actually avoid repeating associations.
Syda Productions – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purpose only, not the actual person
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It turned out to be reactive control– or rejecting the unwanted associations after you have already thought of them.
“This type of reactive control can be particularly problematic because, as our findings suggest, thoughts are self-reinforcing,” the authors explained.
In other words, the more often you think a thought, the greater its memory strength and the greater chance it will reoccur.
“Every time we have to reactively reject an unwanted association, it has the potential to become even stronger,” the authors continued.
“Critically, however, we also found that people can partially preempt this process if they want to ensure that this thought comes to mind as little as possible.”
Thus, tackling negative memories, experiences, or triggers head-on and attempting to create new associations may be the most effective route to mitigating unwanted thoughts from randomly resurfacing.
To read the study’s complete findings published in PLOS Computational Biology, visit the link here.
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