Thought injection....Telling yourself things you dont believe..

[DillJenkins]

I have been trying this technique where I will consciously tell myself things I dont believe in order to mitigate anxiety.

The basic concept of the idea is related to CBT. The idea is that because we have developed anxiety we have strengthened and reinforced negative belief systems that keep the anxiety going. We basically reinforce our negative beliefs by having the same thoughts everyday.

This creates neuronal pathways in your brain. Anytime a person thinks "I am anxious" or "I have poor social skills" they are causing neuronal pathways to fire in a specific sequence. The idea here is to disrupt these pathways by "injecting" positive thoughts in your brain.

The technique I have been trying is to "inject" positive thoughts. For instance I recently had a job interview and was very nervous beforehand. I told myself "I am confident" and it seemed to help.

I have been using this technique for several weeks now and my life has improved very much. I got a job now and im going to school this coming spring. Before this I was housebound for basically a year and a half.

 

[BlaiseBLATES]

I'm currently trying this technique, I found it really hard to get the hang of, but now I can go to school, or out with meals after over year barely able to leave my own room. You posting this has given me will to carry on trying this, thank you.

 

[Honda]

I tried it alot... Made me feel like im lying to myself...
I discovered that ignoring your anxiety and not giving it importance in your head is the way to go... Get something to occupy your mind with something else..

 

[humansrare]

I've tried this and it really doesn't work for me. I can tell myself anything, over and over but it doesn't phase me at all.
I found out the only way I can do things is to inject myself physically, like literally forcing myself! And my mind just follows. It's really scary, but it's helping.

 

[Silvox Black]

I agree with the cause of such negative thought chains. Indeed a classic cognitive behaviorist belief. However the attempt to "inject" positive thoughts is essentially impossible since the negative belief is irrational. It cannot be proved wrong since no matter what you think, the negative belief will persist since it is illogically proven. The mind will continually find ways to counter the positive belief. Or at least, that is what I have found.

 

[DillJenkins]

I agree with the cause of such negative thought chains. Indeed a classic cognitive behaviorist belief. However the attempt to "inject" positive thoughts is essentially impossible since the negative belief is irrational. It cannot be proved wrong since no matter what you think, the negative belief will persist since it is illogically proven. The mind will continually find ways to counter the positive belief. Or at least, that is what I have found.

I dont know man....the mind is a very powerful thing. I have heard of monks that can lower their body temperature just by using mental techniques. It seems like if that is true than you could likely lower anxiety using mental techniques.

One thing aboot my method is that it needs to be applied consistently everyday for many days to every have a chance of working. You cant just try it for one day or even a week and expect it to work.

I have found that instead of thinking something like "Im not going to be anxious" you tell yourself how want to feel instead and it works better.

 

[Justas]

There is ogg records of this stuff and handout... You have to listen to it everyday and read some stuff. I did it for about ~2 months. Hmm maybe it helped a bit for me, but I stopped doing it, so maybe that's the reason why I'm still anxiuos... 2 months is not enough for sure. Maybe a couple of years would help... As one guy said to me: you have to be prepared for it... Thinking to give it a try again.