Thoughts
In the same way that it’s difficult to change our emotions, we have very little power over our thoughts. They reflect how we feel, and our brain produces thousands of thoughts every day.
If we have a lot of negative thoughts that affect our emotions and our concentration, it may be good to practice becoming more aware of rushing thoughts. This makes it easier to direct our focus to where we want it to be. It’s something we can practice and get better at.
1) Make yourself aware
To make yourself more aware, you can pause for a moment and ask yourself “Where is my attention right now?” and “How is my attention right now?” Is it neutral or is it focused on monitoring different threats/dangers? An example of a situation where you are studying for an exam: "My attention is on the future, I imagine failing the exam and how that would feel. My attention isn’t very neutral, it’s focused on different negative scenarios."
2) Change what you can
After that, you can try to redirect your attention to something perceived as more appropriate, for example something you want to read or write. An example of a situation where you are studying for an exam: "I want to try to do some of what I have planned for the day. Right now I want to read 5 pages in a book. In order to do that, I need to shift my attention from potentially negative things in the future to what is actually going on right now."
3) Do an exercise
To help focus your attention if your thoughts feel very intrusive or distracting, you can do a short exercise that directs your attention to something going on outside your head at the moment – for example, taking 5-10 breaths where you focus entirely on how this feels in different parts of your body every time you breathe in or out, or focusing entirely on three different sounds that you can hear where you are sitting right now, one sound at a time, for about 10 seconds per sound. Click on "Guided exercises" for more.
An example of a situation where you are studying for an exam: Doing a breathing exercise usually makes it easier for me to let go of stubborn thoughts. Then I can try to read what I want. I may need to do the exercise several times.
Although these thoughts can be perceived as impossible to resist, the feeling of actually being able to control your attention can increase if you practice this even if it isn’t easy. The goal is not to never be interrupted by thoughts. The goal is to become more aware of when this happens, that this is an unhelpful strategy, and to be able to more often influence what we focus on.