How to Silence Thought Chatter and Find Peace of Mind
Five science-backed ways to restore well-being.
We all have a voice inside our heads that is our constant companion. For the majority of us, this voice doesn’t mean that we’re suffering from schizophrenia. It is a natural part of being human called “thought chatter.” We often aren’t aware that we’re chattering to ourselves, but whether we are aware of it or not, it affects how we feel about ourselves, our lives, our work, and just about everything else. It can bring us up or tear us down unless we learn how to monitor and control it. This starts with our understanding that our brains never stop thinking.
The brain evolved to be alert at all times. This ensured our survival and allowed us to evolve into the remarkable beings we are today. All day, all night, our powerhouse brain processes information and makes sense of data. According to Barry Gordon, professor of neurology and cognitive science at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, in an interview with Scientific American:
“Even in the modern world, our mind always churns to find hazards and opportunities in the data we derive from our surroundings, somewhat like a search engine server. Our brain goes one step further, however, by also thinking proactively, a task that takes even more mental processing.”
Thought chatter is generally harmless and totally random; it jumps from thought to thought for no obvious reason. Some of this seemingly random chatter helps us make connections to solve problems, create art, make discoveries, and so on. We feel good when it conjures up happy memories, the anticipation of future events, the image of loved ones, and so on, but it also has a darker side. It can turn into a monster that spews a stream of negativity, self-criticism, and doubt. It may judge our every action and decision, and keep us up at night. It can become a harpy, digging its claws into us and stealing all joy.
Sometimes we just want to shout, “Shut up!” as if someone else is in control of our thoughts.
“Our mind is filled with the chaos of swirling thoughts that we have little or no control over. We feel unsettled and uneasy, in the same way that we do when there’s a loud disturbance outside us. It creates what the psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi calls psychic entropy — a lack of control over our own minds.” Steve Taylor Ph.D.
We Can Control Thought Chatter
While thought chatter may seem out of our control, we have the power to shut it off on demand. The challenge is noticing when it has plunged us into darkness. We do this by monitoring our moods. Like thought chatter, our moods range from positive to negative, and they can change in an instant. We’re elated because we’re off to Greece for a vacation; we’re immediately despondent when our flight is canceled. Our moods go up and down like a perpetual-motion yo-yo, which makes them the perfect tools for noticing that negative thought chatter has taken over. So, how does this work?
Early people couldn’t stop to thoughtfully consider if the saber-toothed tiger lurking in the brush was safe or not. Our brain today makes the same type of instant evaluations. Our mood then matches our thoughts about something. When we deem it as good, our mood is positive, and vice versa. So, if we monitor our mood, we can backtrack to the thought chatter that created it. If our mood is up, the chatter is focused on thoughts that generate positive emotions, and vice versa. Once we become aware of this, we can feed our positive chattering thoughts to keep our mood up, and we can stop negative chatter to improve our mood.
What is your mood right now? Is it up or down? If it’s up, keep thinking those happy thoughts. If it’s down, here are five actions you can take to stop the negative chatter and feel better.
1. Embrace Distractions
While distractions are bad for productivity, they provide fast relief for a bad mood. Shelley H. Carson, psychology researcher and author of Your Creative Brain: Seven Steps to Maximize Imagination, Productivity, and Innovation in Your Life, suggests a simple way of distracting your thought chatter: Focus on your physical sensations and surroundings. Notice how the light bounces off surfaces. Touch everything on your desk, pick it up, turn it over, pay attention to every detail as if you have never seen it before. Feel your feet on the floor, your bottom on the chair, the temperature in the room, the airflow. After a few minutes of this focused activity, notice your mood. It probably has improved; sometimes, you won’t be able to remember what thoughts triggered it, which is good. You don’t want to conjure them up again.
Video games are another powerful type of distraction. Researchers have discovered that games can distract patients suffering from pain and anxiety due to illness. Some games are designed to produce specific, positive, clinical responses. If a game can diminish pain, it can turn off negative thought chatter.
“Distraction works because it interrupts your mood and forces you to ‘shift gears.’ Many negative moods contain an element of rumination to them. When you ruminate, you go over your problem or worry again and again in your mind. Each time you go over your problem or worry, you reinforce its grip on you. Distraction breaks this grip by forcing you to think about other things. If the thing you distract yourself with is sufficiently compelling or demanding of your attention, you will temporarily stop ruminating and start to feel better.” MentalHealth.net
Turn on the television; get absorbed in a book or video game; play chess, word games, or Sudoku with your phone; do something that will grab and hold your attention and quiet thought chatter.
2. Breathe the Chatter Into Silence
When you recognize your mood is low, just start breathing slowly and deliberately. Focus on the feeling of the air as you inhale, notice the slight pause at the top of the inhale, then sigh as you exhale, and notice the slight pause before the next inhale. Once you’re in the groove, start counting each inhalation and exhalation. You might find that the chatter grows louder and more insistent before it starts to fade. Here’s advice from MindValley on what to do when this happens:
“In the beginning as you’re learning this practice, it will be hard to stop thoughts from intruding and interrupting your count. That’s okay! Just make it part of the meditation by being a silent witness to your thoughts.
“Just as you’re watching your breath, momentarily watch your thoughts. Notice them, acknowledge them, and return to your breathing exercise. Continue the exercise by starting over at the count of one whenever you notice that a thought has intruded.”
I automatically turn to a breathing meditation when negative thought chatter becomes unruly and threatens my peace of mind. I just close my eyes, hold my hands over my face, and breathe as if there was no other activity in the world.
3. Starve the Monster
Negative moods are the product of negative thinking about something. When the emotional response to negative thought chatter ramps up, the neurotransmitters associated with stress are released.
- Adrenaline is the fight-or-flight hormone, and it fuels your immediate reaction. Even if a saber-toothed tiger isn’t pouncing on you, your body acts as if it is.
- Norepinephrine is similar to adrenaline, and it enhances adrenaline arousal. Now, you have a double dose coursing through your system. It’s no surprise that your hands start shaking, and you want to run away.
- Cortisol is the stress hormone. It arrives later but serves to keep the arousal going by releasing a new soup of different chemicals.
For example, your thought chatter starts targeting your lack of preparation for an important interview and conjures up memories of past failures. The harder you try to turn it off, the louder the chatter becomes. Your stress mounts, and as it goes higher, a larger and larger surge of this chemical soup floods your body. Your heart is pounding, your muscles are tense, your breathing is short and fast — even though nothing is happening except thought chatter about your interview. So what can you do to short-circuit this assault on your body and mind?
Stop feeding the thoughts.
According to Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, a neuroanatomist, in her book, My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist’s Personal Journey, the neurochemicals leave your body in 90 seconds as long as you stop the thought chatter that is triggering them. Set a 90-second timer and consciously breathe or distract yourself until the timer goes off. If you are diligent, at the end of 90 seconds, the chemical soup is gone and so are the symptoms of stress.
4. Control Thought Chatter With Meditation
Research on the benefits of meditation is filled with its calming effects and its ability to quiet thought chatter. People unfamiliar with meditation often picture a yogi, sitting cross-legged on a mat, and immediately decide that’s not for them. But meditation comes with a wide variety of options that don’t require agility, mats, or anything other than your attention.
While you can learn a specific meditation practice, all you need to do is focus on what you are doing as you do it because mindfulness is a form of meditation. The object is to become present and avoid following your thought chatter. A regular meditation practice can be nothing more than sitting quietly in your favorite chair and focusing your attention on one thing — your breathing, the sounds you hear, a meditation object like a worry stone or beads. You can do it while washing dishes, raking leaves, sweeping the floor, riding the train, or preparing dinner.
Don’t expect stellar results right away, and don’t become discouraged if your thoughts steal you away. One minute you’re focused on your breathing, a mantra, or the potato you’re pealing, and the next, you realize that you’ve lost 5 minutes in thought chatter. Most meditators, even long-term ones, admit that their thoughts distract them during meditation. The solution is to not follow them; instead, just refocus your attention on your practice.
Meditation apps are booming these days. My favorites are Calm and Insight Timer. Limited access is free, so if you’re new to meditation, you might want to start there. The for-fee versions are worth it for the variety of meditations from guided to music only, courses on different types of meditations, how to apply it to specific challenges, and more.
5. Try Cognitive Behavior Therapy
I discovered cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) several years ago when my thought chatter was threatening more than my well-being. I started with the seminal book about it by Dr. David Burns, Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy, and it saved my sanity and, probably, my life. I still struggle with thought chatter, but I have CBT tools to shut it down.
You can work with a CBT therapist, or you can learn CBT techniques to use on your own. One of the most valuable ones I used was to snap a rubber band on my wrist when I caught myself running down the rabbit hole of negative chatter. I would stop, snap, and grimace. It hurt. One day when I did this, I had an epiphany: As much as this was hurting my wrist, it was doing much more damage to my self-confidence, self-esteem, and peace of mind. I no longer have to snap a rubber band to know when my chatter needs to be stilled.
The other CBT tool that I still use is cognitive restructuring — identifying cognitive distortions in your thoughts and changing them. Many of us have “always/never” distortions: “You always mess this up.” “You’ll never learn.” Other distortions are black-and-white thinking, jumping to conclusions, and catastrophizing. When you discover these distortions in your chatter, you want to call them out and challenge them by reframing them.
- Nothing is always or never. Things change.
- There is no black-and-white. Look for and accept the grays.
- Conclusions often are wrong and based on biases. What are the objective facts?
- Why stress over what hasn’t happened and may not happen? Focus on what you can control. That’s where your power is.
Mind Your Mind for Peace of Mind
When negative thought chatter digs its harpy claws into your shoulder, choose one of these science-based tools and practice it. Sometimes it takes more than one tool to regain control. I’m a regular meditator, so I often start with breathing or the meditation suggested by Alex Garrett, and I then move on to distraction, if necessary.
Peace of mind can be elusive for many of us; it’s easy to become overwhelmed with life’s challenges, especially if our thought chatter spews a constant stream of negative messaging. We can stop our thoughts from stealing our peace of mind by monitoring our moods and recognizing when they have sent us down a dark path. When this happens, we must stop everything and take assertive action to control them and stop the downward trajectory. If left unaddressed, negative thought chatter can lead to serious physical and mental problems that need professional help.
“Your mind, emotions, and body are instruments and the way you align and tune them determines how well you play life.” — Harbhajan Singh Yogi
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