Intrusive thoughts are involuntary and unpleasant thoughts, images, or ideas that pop into our mind.

They are a common symptom in those with anxiety, depression, OCD, and PTSD; however, the truth is most people experience intrusive thoughts from time to time.

Common intrusive thoughts are usually associated with aggression, impulsive urges, and sexual fantasies. And although intrusive thoughts are rarely acted upon, they are often considered “inappropriate” by the person thinking the thoughts.

As a result, many intrusive thoughts can lead to strong feelings of guilt and shame, even when the person never physically did anything wrong. Fortunately, there are ways we can accept these thoughts without letting them have too much influence on our mental health.

Some intrusive thoughts you may have are:

• Thoughts or impulses to harm or kill ourselves.
• Thoughts or impulses to harm or kill a person, small child, or animal.
• Thoughts or impulses to shout out or verbally abuse someone by saying something rude, inappropriate, nasty, or violent.
• Thoughts or impulses to do something very risky or dangerous.
• Thoughts or impulses regarding inappropriate sexual behavior.
• Thoughts or impulses to do something we find morally wrong.

There are many different examples of intrusive thoughts, but these are some of the thoughts most commonly associated with the term. For the remainder of this post, I’m going to share 3 steps we can follow to let go of these types of thoughts and limit the power they have over us.

The first step toward letting go of our thoughts is by accepting them. It is pointless and unhealthy to pretend that we don’t have intrusive or negative thoughts every now and then. And by trying to run away from these thoughts we are only deluding ourselves.

In fact, we invest more energy in these thoughts when we try to avoid and suppress them, rather than just acknowledging that they are there. And by running away from intrusive thoughts, we actually give them more power over our well-being.

The purpose of thinking is for our minds to produce new and better ways to respond to our environment. Some of this thinking is conscious, but a lot of it is unconscious. Our brains are constantly working “behind the scenes” to think of new and better ways to behave.

Sometimes, as a byproduct of this creativity, our brains think of some really bizarre and inappropriate ideas – intrusive thoughts. Thoughts that surprise us and make us ask ourselves, “Did I really just think that?” because they seem so out-of-character.

The answer is, “Yes, you really did just think that, and that’s okay.” Intrusive thoughts can often be a side effect of a healthy mind. And just because you have intrusive thoughts from time to time doesn’t mean you have lost your sanity. It means your brain is being active and creative – although maybe sometimes a little too creative.

Remember, just because you accept the thought doesn’t mean you need to act on it.

As explained above, intrusive thoughts are a natural occurrence. Therefore we shouldn’t be too hard on ourselves for thinking bizarre and spontaneous things once and awhile.

It’s common for intrusive thoughts to be followed by feelings of guilt and shame, but try to understand that there is nothing to feel guilty over. After you accept your thoughts, try to watch them in a non-judgmental awareness. Don’t necessarily react to them or judge them as “good” or “bad.” Just sit back and passively watch them as if you were watching a movie.

If you watch your thoughts long enough in a non-judgmental state of awareness, you’ll notice that they eventually “ride themselves out” without much effort.

This is because our thoughts are always changing. Our mind is always going in new directions. So if we can be patient and wait long enough, intrusive thoughts will often go away all on their own.

In mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, there is a technique known as urge surfing that operates on this same principle. The main idea is that our thoughts and emotions are impermanent – they are in a constant state of flux. Therefore, even negative thoughts and emotions will eventually subside when we allow them too.

Through urge surfing we can remain non-reactive to our intrusive thoughts until they eventually become less intense and disappear. It’s analogous toward “riding out” a wave in the ocean. If we can remain balanced within the ebbs and flows, we can more easily navigate safely through the waves. In the same way, if we can remain patient and calm in the midst of intrusive thoughts, we can better overcome them.

It’s not always easy to disengage from intrusive thoughts, but with practice we can learn how to more easily let go of them. Once we learn how to do this, it doesn’t mean we won’t ever have intrusive thoughts anymore, but they will at least have a lot less influence over our mental well-being.

Stay updated on new articles on psychology and self-improvement here.

And the truth is there is a lot of scientific evidence showing the physical and mental benefits of mindfulness and why we should aim to be more present in our everyday lives.

The purpose of this article isn’t to diminish the importance of mindfulness or “living in the moment,” but to remind you that it’s just one mode of awareness. At times, it is just as important that we “step outside of the moment,” and interpret our world from a broader viewpoint.

The benefits of reflecting on the past.

One benefit we don’t get from only living in the moment is reflecting on our past and learning from our mistakes.

If we never look backward at the scope of our life, the choices we’ve made, and where they have led us, then it’s incredibly difficult to identify what we’ve done right and what we’ve done wrong.

Research indicates that reflection is key to learning.

The benefits of planning for the future.

Living a happy, healthy, and successful life often requires adequate planning and foresight. It rarely happens by accident.

Therefore, looking forward into the future is often just as important as reflecting backwards on our past, or living in the moment.

If we never think about the direction we want to go in our life, it is very unlikely we will get there. This is why it is so important to make our values and goals clear to ourselves.

Try creating a rough timeline to better envision your goals.

The benefits of mind-wandering.

When “living in the moment” we often try to fix our attention toward something in the present – like our breathing.

And any time we deviate from this fixed awareness – or get distracted by something else that catches our attention – we beat ourselves up because we are no longer living in the present. Instead, we have what is sometimes called “monkey mind.”

However, some research suggests that mind-wandering and daydreaming can actually come with some valuable benefits.

Of course, daydreaming can be counterproductive (especially when it leads to procrastination), but other times letting our minds wander can aid in creativity and problem-solving.

This is because sometimes things distract our attention because we find them new and interesting. And keeping our minds open to different thoughts and sensations can help increase our opportunity to discover new ideas.

In this way, the occasional daydreaming and mind-wandering should be thought of as healthy.

“Living in the moment” – a common excuse to be impulsive and reckless?

This isn’t always true, but sometimes I see people use the “living in the moment” excuse as a way to justify their impulsivity and recklessness.

Say you’re at a party, solely living in the moment, without any concerns for the past or future.

With such a mindset, you may find yourself drinking lots of alcohol, taking drugs, and engaging in unsafe sex with strangers. And why not? You’re just reacting to your immediate surroundings, you’re not seeing the bigger picture of your actions, so you act in ways that only bring immediate satisfaction.

In this example, “living in the moment” becomes an excuse to find short-term gratification, but ignore long-term consequences. This is a misapplication of living in the present.

When to “live in the moment” – and when not to.

Developing mindfulness and “living in the moment” are valuable skills to learn. I can’t stress that enough, I just don’t think they are the only skills to learn.

The ability to “step outside your immediate senses” – and also reflect on the past, and plan for the future – are often just as important to your happiness and health.

In fact, reflection and foresight are valuable adaptations of the human mind that have greatly helped our evolution over time. They are also what distinguish us from more primitive minds, which can only react to information they receive on a momentary basis, and therefore can’t form memories or project into the future.

Trying to live in the moment, while completely ignoring the past and future, can be dangerous. There needs to be a balance between these different modes of awareness in order to have a healthy, functioning mind.

When I look at the current state of our economy – especially growing personal debt and low credit scores among consumers – I often wonder what psychological factors are driving this behavior.

A recent study published in Psychological Science discovered a key predictor of low credit – impatience. Researchers from Stanford University recruited 437 individuals from low-to-moderate income families; after conducting a questionnaire, and getting permission to access the participants’ credit scores, they found that individuals with low credit also tended to be more impatient and impulsive.

Impatience is our tendency to choose immediate rewards rather than wait for a larger reward in the future. It reflects a need for short-term gratification, as well as an inability to see and plan for the future.

For example, would you rather have a million dollars right now or a penny doubled everyday for 30 days? At first, the million dollars seems like the most tempting choice. However, when you do the math, a penny doubled everyday for 30 days actually totals $5,368,709.12 – over five times more the first option.

As long as you don’t have an immediate need for cash, the best option is to go with the penny doubling everyday for 30 days. However, to correctly make this choice, you would need to be able to delay your need for short-term gratification – a million dollars right now sounds very tempting, but holding out a bit longer will lead to a much larger reward in the end.

We make similar decisions in everyday life. In the economic world, we often need to save up and wait for “large rewards” – a new car, home, TV, college tuition, etc. But instead of taking the time and patience to save our money, we end up making short-term, more immediate decisions – especially risky loans, which we may not be able to pay for in the future.

It’s natural to strive for immediate satisfaction of our wants and needs – in many ways, this drive has helped us survive as a species. The problem is when these short-term gains actually end up leading to higher costs in the long-term. Psychologists say that this kind of cost-benefit analysis is at the root of low credit scores and high personal debt.

Here are three key tips for improving your mental battle against low credit:

1. Imagine yourself in the future.

One study published in The Journal of Consumer Research has suggested that by imaging our future self we can curb present spending and save more for the future.

“The willingness to forego money now and wait for future benefits is strongly affected by how connected we feel to our future self, who will ultimately benefit from the resources we save,” writes Daniel M. Bartels (Columbia Business School) and Oleg Urminsky (University of Chicago).

If we can place ourselves in a bird’s eye view of the future (especially when making financial decisions), we can often become better planners for our future retirement by seeing the “bigger picture” of our habits, and not just focusing on the “heat of the moment.”

2. Avoid common spending biases.

Many of us hold cognitive biases that hurt our wallets. Hopefully by being more aware of some of these irrational tendencies we can avoid making these mistakes in the future:

Status quo: We stick to buying what we know instead of pursuing alternatives.

Relativity trap: We notice a product is on sale 20% so we feel more compelled to buy it even though we never really needed the product in the first place.

Sunk cost effect: Instead of cutting our losses short, we often hold onto poor investments hoping that they will bounce back (except they don’t).

FREE!: We can be very allured to anything that is “FREE!” and we often make irrational spending decisions to get something for free (even if we end up buying something we could otherwise live without).

Restraint bias: Humans tend to overestimate their self-control regarding spending. One thing we can do is avoid getting ourselves in tempting situations or environments that encourage us to buy something new. Going to the mall every weekend, even just to “look around,” can end up becoming a spending spree.

Post-purchase rationalization: This bias describes our tendency to backwards rationalize our decisions after we’ve committed to them. Sometimes marketers use “Money Back Guarantees” knowing that instead of regretting a purchase we will usually find a way to justify it to ourselves. Don’t be afraid to return things that don’t meet your expectations.

3. Practice meditation to help “disengage” from impulsive spending.

Impulsive spending is often automatic and unconscious, but practicing meditation on a regular basis can be a great way to infuse more consciousness into our daily decision-making.

The STOP technique is particularly useful with spending because it can be applied to a wide-range of different settings.

It works by “stopping” what you are doing (whatever it may be, such as buying an expensive pair of jeans at a store), and then doing some “brief reflection” by asking yourself questions like “What am I thinking? What am I feeling? What am I doing?” After answering these simple questions, you will often have an easier time determining if you really want to purchase what you are thinking about purchasing.

The main assumption behind the technique is that an urge never lasts forever – usually, no more than 20-30 minutes. Individuals can therefore “ride out” these urges simply by becoming more aware of their transient nature.

While reflecting on an urge, such as smoking a cigarette or eating junk food or engaging in promiscuous sex, we should first make note of all the physical and mental sensations that create that craving experience – these craving experiences will often vary depending on the person and the object of desire.

For example, you may identify a twisting sensation in your stomach whenever you crave another piece of cake. Learn how to tune into that feeling – step back and observe it – but don’t act on the impulse. Just watch your desires almost as if you are passively watching a movie.

At first, urge surfing can often make the craving become more and more intense. It’s kind of like this video of kids trying not to eat marshmallows.

Despite the kids’ temptation to eat the marshmallow right away, they try to hold out in hopes of receiving a larger reward in the future (two marshmallows). But as the experience drags on, many of the kids become more and more stressed out, and the craving continues to amplify.

This is a common occurence for most desires. It is analogous to a wave in an ocean growing larger and larger, as the craving builds and builds.

However, like all waves, they eventually come down and dissipate too. They don’t continue to build up forever; instead, they are impermanent, and in a constant state-of-flux. They rise, but also fall.

Our desires work in the same way when urge surfing. At first, it may seem like our temptations are only getting stronger and stronger, but eventually they weaken and subside, so long as we can “ride out” the craving long enough.

This is the main mechanism which allows urge surfing to be so effective in overcoming addictive behaviors.

A Step-by-Step Guide on Urge Surfing.

Here are the key steps for using “urge surfing” to help overcome your addictive behaviors:

• Identify the craving. The sooner you become aware of the craving the easier it will be to overcome it. You don’t want to have to fight the craving when the object of desire is already in your reach. By that point, the craving may already be too strong for you to overcome.
• Sit back and watch. The key component of urge surfing is your awareness. The goal is to sit back, watch these desires, and really become attuned to them. Don’t act, just observe – like a scientist observing something under a microscope.
• Make a mental note of the sensations. It really helps to pinpoint what it is that creates your craving experience. This includes both physical sensations and mental sensations, including certain thought patterns that may be running through your head (“One more won’t hurt me.”), or mental imagery. Often the more aware you become of your craving experience, the more you understand the anatomy of your desires.
• Be aware of environmental triggers. Often times our addictive behaviors are influenced by certain triggers in our environment. For example, hanging around at a bar makes it harder to resist the temptation to drink alcohol than if you were hanging out at a cafe instead. In the same way, associating with certain people may make you more likely to engage in an addictive behavior than if you chose a different group of friends to associate with. Being mindful of these environmental triggers can be an important part of urge surfing and better understanding your addiction. Learn to avoid these triggers in the future and you’ll have an easier time overcoming these negative habits.






• Keep in mind the lesson of “impermanence.” The takeaway lesson of urge surfing is that all of our thoughts and feelings are impermanent, including our desires. By showing a little patience, and remembering the inherent “transient nature” of our desires, we can remind ourselves that it is possible to ride out these cravings until they inevitably pass.
• Use a helpful mantra. If you want, you can also accommodate your urge surfing with a helpful mantra. Repeating an affirmation such as, “this too shall pass” or “I can ride out this desire” will help replace unhelpful thoughts with a more stable state of mind.
• Keep practicing. Like most of the techniques and tools I share on this site, “urge surfing” is something that you will get better at the more you practice. Don’t expect to try this one time and be free from your addictive habits. It’s more likely this will take a few trials and errors before you begin getting good at it.

I hope this short guide helps you in overcoming addictive behaviors in the future.

Stay updated on new articles on psychology and self-improvement here.

Mindfulness is a state of deliberate and conscious awareness directed toward the present moment. The practice is incredibly simple on paper, but with diligent practice can reap many, many benefits.

A great entry level exercise to mindfulness is the 100 Breaths Meditation. It teaches you how to use your breathing as an object of focus, by deliberately directing your awareness toward the motions of your breath. The goal is to remain fixated on your breath, while ignoring distractions and any other outside stimuli. Often the stronger and more focused your awareness becomes, the more you enter into a state of relaxation, bliss, and insight.

(If you’re serious about practicing this stuff, I also recommend reading a post I wrote awhile back called Mindfulness of Mindlessness. This one was intended to help people overcome the common problem of getting too distracted during meditation. It emphasizes how in fact acknowledging your distractions is a key first step toward cultivating greater mindfulness. This is true for both meditation, and also practicing mindfulness throughout our daily life.)

The purpose of this article, however, is to put together a list of all the ways mindfulness has been scientifically shown to improve our physical and mental health. It is a complete list of all the benefits I know that come from mindfulness. And to be honest, if this doesn’t convince you to start developing a mindfulness practice of your own, I don’t know what will.

The Benefits of Mindfulness

Research into mindfulness has really picked up over the past few decades. Here are some of the benefits we are just beginning to discover:

Improving Attention

One of the most obvious benefits from meditation is that it improves our attention. One study has shown that just 5 days of 20 minute training can show significant improvements in our ability to focus and concentrate. The fact that mindfulness meditation can improve our attention is one of the most well-documented benefits. And the practice of staying focused on our breath can build concentration that often spills over into many other activities.

Improving Cognition

Another interesting study showed that just 4 days of 20 minute training showed significant increases in cognitive functioning, especially memory and learning. Other related research indicates that meditation can help slow down Alzheimer’s and dementia. Some of this may in part be due to our increased attention, but it seems meditation also acts on other parts of the brain more directly related to learning and memory, such as increasing gray matter in the hippocampus.

Managing Stress and Anxiety

Meditation has also been shown to reduce gray matter in the amygdala, which is a part of the brain commonly associated with stress, anxiety, and emotional processing. This demonstrates why meditation does so well in relieving stress and increasing relaxation. Jon Kabat-Zinn, founder of The Stress Reduction Clinic and Center for Mindfulness in Medicine at the University of Massachusetts, is one of the leading teachers and researchers in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR). Here you can find a wonderful lecture he gave to Google summarizing a lot of the research demonstrating how effective mindfulness meditation is for reducing stress and improving medical outcomes.

Improving Heart Rate and Blood Pressure

In light of meditation’s ability to reduce stress, it has also been reported to lower your blood pressure and heart rate. This particular study followed 200 participants for 5 years who were at a “high risk” for heart attacks and strokes. They found that those who practiced meditation regularly reduced their risk for heart attacks and strokes by almost 50%.

Reducing Pain

Mindful breathing has also been discovered to reduce pain, according to a recent study in the Journal of Neuroscience. After just four 20 minute mindfulness sessions, participants did better at reducing unpleasant sensations (such as 120 degrees of heat, a temperature that most people find painful) than those who did not receive mindfulness training. Researchers theorize that mindfulness trainees have an easier time keeping their focus directed toward their breathing and thereby ignoring the discomfort caused by the heat. It’s likely that mindfulness can show similar effects on other types of pain as well.

Overcoming Depression

Surprisingly, mindfulness meditation is said to be on par with antidepressants in preventing depression relapse. According to researchers, mindfulness prevents excessive rumination (a common cause of depression) by teaching individuals how to reflect on thoughts and emotional states in a non-judgmental and non-attaching way. Instead of clinging to “negative” thoughts and feelings – and feeding into them – mindfulness teaches us to sit back and watch these emotions and thoughts without needing to overreact or feel guilty about how we feel. This makes it a lot easier to fully experience these passing thoughts and emotions, and then let them go.

Overcoming Fears of Death

Another recent study published earlier this year found that mindfulness can also ease fears and anxieties related to death. Mindful people tend to be more accepting of their limited time while alive. They also tend to be less dependent on fantasy-filled beliefs and desires for self-preservation or immortality. They understand that death is not the opposite of life, but a necessary part of it. Thus, they accept the reality of their demise, instead of being defensive.

Changing Bad Habits

There is a particular technique in mindfulness training that helps individuals overcome addictions and other bad habits. It’s called urge surfing, and it’s a popular tool in some psychotherapies to help individuals quit smoking or stop obsessive eating. The main goal of the meditation is to “ride out” your desire to do certain negative habits, but not act on them. Mindfulness teaches you that many of these desires are impermanent, and if we just sit back and watch them, it is very likely that they will subside and go away (without us necessarily needing to smoke another cigarette, or eat that slice of cake).

Changing Brain Structure

In addition to many of the benefits mentioned above, it has also been shown that 8 weeks of mindfulness training can cause long-term changes to our brain structure. While this isn’t necessarily a “benefit” in-and-of-itself, it is evidence for just how powerful mindfulness training can be. For more on this you can also check out my article Mindfulness and Neuroplasticity.

Conclusion

These are just about all of the main benefits I know of that are associated with mindfulness, but I’m sure there are countless others. Mindfulness can be such a fundamental skill to living that it truthfully affects just about all areas of our life.

If you haven’t started a mindfulness practice of your own, I highly recommend it. And if you want any help getting started, feel free to e-mail me questions at contact@theemotionmachine.com. I’d be more than happy to help you out.

You can also check out the “Mindful Awareness Training System” below if you want a great training course on how to apply mindfulness to your daily life.