The Brain Challenge - 2 books in 1: Stop overthinking and boost your self-confidence. The practical training to master your mind, overcome indecision, ... negative thoughts, and be more confident. by O'Brien Sebastian

The Brain Challenge - 2 books in 1: Stop overthinking and boost your self-confidence. The practical training to master your mind, overcome indecision, ... negative thoughts, and be more confident. by O'Brien Sebastian

Author:O'Brien, Sebastian [O'Brien, Sebastian]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Published: 2020-08-09T16:00:00+00:00


Chapter 2

Now it’s time to refocus. If you really think about it, it becomes clear that most of our overthinking woes boil down to constantly jumping to the past and future. What happened, what could have happened, what might happen... Most of us don’t sit there ruminating over what’s right before our eyes - the color of the wall or whatever you can see out of the window. No - overthinking is a time-traveling activity. It causes us to look backward, forwards - anywhere but the present moment.

Even if the idea of focusing on the present may seem basic or obvious, it can really make a profound difference to your chronic overthinking habit. This is because living life in the present is essential for our wellbeing. However, we are wired to think continuously, both about the past - which risks triggering depression, self-resentment, and a lack of self-confidence - or to the future - which often sparks the fear of failure, performance anxiety, and unrealistic expectations.

Life must be lived in the present moment so that we are able to fully enjoy our mental and physical energies in the present and get rid of the weight of overthinking.

Although a bit of a pain at times, this ability to “time travel” with our thoughts is what makes us human. However pensive your cat may look or however quizzical your dog seems as they stare into space - scientists reiterate that it is most likely only humans - with the possible exception of some great apes and sea mammals - who are donned with this cognitive capacity to think about past events, or ponder the future. A cat most likely is thinking about that bird in the sky. A dog is most often thinking about the fun or food they are or are not having. Humans, on the other hand, lose this primitive stream of consciousness shortly after infancy.

If we clutter our brains, and thus our lives, with painful memories, feelings, and worries, there’s little room for anything more positive. To improve your state of mind, you must realize that it’s your choice whether to hold onto resentment, bitterness, or even fear. Although we often can’t choose whether we experience these feelings as they inevitably come and go, gripping onto them as many of us do, is entirely our decision - even if we often don’t see it that way.

Humans: The Mental Time-Travellers

You could say overthinking is part of the human condition, and I would agree with this sentiment to a certain extent - as I believe it is a part of the modern human condition. Let me explain: as touched upon in the first chapter, the human body’s issue with stress is linked to our ancient stress response - which evolved not only when we had a whole different lifestyle containing threats far-removed from office politics, mortgage worries, and marital quarrels - but let’s not forget that we had a more primitive brain.

Back then, our ancestors were led primarily by the hippocampus - but now our brains have evolved to have a prefrontal cortex too.



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