Thought verse Thinking

In a time where people are suffering from anxiety are at the highest levels ever seen, it might be wise to look at the difference between thought and thinking.

Thought is a random idea or concept that seems to just pop into one’s head. While thinking is the meaning or judgement we place on that thought. Then for many the meaning or judgment they place on this random thought is often negative. This often then leads to them ruminating or overthinking on said random thought.

The negative overthinking then stimulates negative feelings of sadness, guilt, fear, anger, self loathing etc which triggers the survival side of the brain to launch the fight of flight response and flood the body with stress hormones.

And so the cycle has begun where an innocent random thought popped into one’s head that led to anxiousness or depression.

Now a solution may sound simple, don’t begin judging the thought in the first place but the practicality of this takes repetition of action in the moment meaning is placed on the random thought.
As I have said in these blogs many times your brain is neuroplastic which means it re-wires due to what it is repeatedly exposed to. This is the two edged sword in action. Allowing negative thinking to go unchecked leads to the re-wiring of the brain in a heightened alert state. No real threat needs to exist but just the thinking of something that makes you slightly nervous sends the brain into the emergency pathway of fight or flight. This leads to strengthening the high alert emergency pathways in the brain.

Allowing yourself the freedom to not place judgement on the random thoughts that pop into your head is an initial step to not go down the rabbit hole of overthinking and building up the negative emotions that when repeated to often re-pattern the brain to be in survival mode to often.