Have you ever replayed an awkward conversation from yesterday while brushing your teeth, only to suddenly remember something similar that happened three years ago and something even more embarrassing that happened in middle school? By the time your teeth are brushed you have branded yourself as a social loser, and anxiety about walking out the door makes it a little hard to breathe.

If something similar has happened to you, congratulations! Your brain is fully operational.

Our minds are remarkable problem-solving machines, but every once in a while they decide that the best use of their enormous computing power is to convince us we’ve ruined everything because someone ended an email with “Thanks.”

Psychologists call these thought spirals or rumination: repetitive cycles of negative thinking that replay the same worries without actually solving them. Instead of helping us find answers, they often magnify problems, increase anxiety, raise stress hormones, and make it harder to concentrate, sleep, or enjoy what’s happening right in front of us.

The good news? Thought spirals are incredibly common and they are easily interruptible with a few basic skills.

Why Our Brains Do This

Your brain didn’t evolve to make you happy. It evolved to keep you alive. For thousands of years, constantly scanning for threats was an important survival strategy. Better to worry about the rustling bushes than discover too late they contained a hungry predator.

Today, most of us aren’t running from saber-toothed cats. Instead, our brains are hunting for social mistakes, financial worries, health concerns, work stress, and tomorrow’s problems before tomorrow even arrives.

The trouble begins when that healthy self-reflection turns into what researchers call “mental chatter.” Instead of helping us solve a problem, the brain keeps replaying it from slightly different angles, convincing us that one more lap around the track will produce a breakthrough. Usually, it doesn’t. It does manage to make us more stressed.

Almost no issue, large or small, is off-limits for rumination. We might go in a mental circle if we believe we’ve made a mistake, looked foolish, said something wrong, or been responsible for a bad outcome.

Five Ways to Stop a Spiral Before It Gains Momentum

The goal isn’t to stop having negative thoughts. That’s impossible. The goal is to stop giving them the microphone.

Move your attention into your body. Amaze Mental Health expert, Joanna Luong, says, “When thoughts begin to spiral, shift your attention to sensory information from your body. Come home to your body. Grounding redirects attention from perceived threat to the present moment to help with nervous system regulation.”

Feel your feet on the floor. Notice your breathing. Stretch your shoulders. Researchers have found that reconnecting with physical sensations can help quiet the body’s fight-or-flight response and interrupt runaway thinking.

Here is an easy mental body scan grounding technique that works for almost anyone: Moving slowly up and down, from the tips of your toes to the top of your head, consider how your body feels in that moment. Is there any warmth or coolness? Is there tension or looseness? What can you feel on your skin? By the time you are finished with your mental inventory you may be able to get back to your day feeling a little steadier.

You can find other grounding techniques in our learn.amazehealth.com education center.

Zoom out. This is about gaining perspective. Some psychologists recommend imagining you’re watching your situation through a camera that slowly pulls farther away. Another helpful trick is to ask yourself, “Will this matter a year from now?” Creating psychological distance often shrinks problems back to their real size.

Talk to yourself like you’d talk to a friend. Instead of saying, “I’m such an idiot,” imagine what you’d say if someone you loved made the same mistake. Chances are you’d offer perspective instead of punishment. Some research even suggests using your own name, as in, “You’ve handled difficult things before, Sarah,” can make it easier to step back emotionally.

Engage with creativity to compete with the spiral. Laughter, music, drawing, painting, gardening, or reading can all work. Dancing around the kitchen while pretending no one is watching (even though the dog definitely is) gives you the benefit of creativity and physical activity. Creative activities occupy the same mental space your worries are trying to monopolize, giving your brain something healthier to focus on.

It turns out creative activities have proven to benefit our mental health in a variety of ways. Creative outlets play a role in long-term emotional maintenance and can teach us a lot about ourselves. Creative activities help promote gamma waves in the brain. Gamma waves are associated with high-level cognition, sensory perception, and bringing together information from different parts of the brain. They are present during moments of intense concentration, “aha!” moments of insight, and deep meditation. Imagine an activity that deescalates negative thoughts and helps you solve problems!

Experience some awe or wonder. Some people feel awe when they stare up at the stars at night or take in a spectacular view. Others might find it in a piece of art or the sight of a sleeping child. Find what instills a sense of awe in you. Feeling awe allows us to transcend our current concerns, giving us the mental space to recharge and reset.

Watch Out for Doomscrolling Spirals

Our phones are amazingly efficient spiral machines. They may not create anxious thoughts, but they can certainly feed them.

One alarming headline becomes another. Then another. Then suddenly you’re reading about a volcanic eruption on another continent, an economic forecast, a celebrity health scare, and whether your favorite snack contains something you’ve never heard of but now you absolutely need to Google it.

There is a reason this activity is called “doomscrolling.” No one finishes a scrolling session feeling better about the world, unless your feed is nothing but cute cat videos. Researchers believe doomscrolling keeps our brains in a heightened state of alert because we’re constantly consuming information that signals danger or uncertainty. Ironically, the more we search for reassurance, the more anxious we often become.

Interrupt the scroll. If you notice yourself falling into a doomscrolling rabbit hole, put the phone down for sixty seconds. Look outside. Focus on something far away. Better yet, go for a short walk. Even a brief reset can calm your nervous system and break the automatic cycle. Moving social media apps off your home screen and turning off unnecessary notifications also makes mindless scrolling less… mindless.

Take 5 minutes to go for a walk, dance, stretch, exercise, or shake your body to try and release any built-up energy. You can literally shake off the effects of doomscrolling!

Staying informed is healthy. Feeling obligated to absorb every piece of bad news the internet can produce, not so much.

One Last Thought

Everyone has an inner voice. Sometimes it’s wise. Sometimes it’s helpful.

And sometimes it insists that because your boss replied with only “OK,” your career is clearly over. Not every thought deserves a standing ovation. Your mind is a wonderful place to visit. Just don’t let it trap you there.

Learning to recognize a thought spiral, pause it, and redirect your attention isn’t denial. It’s simply refusing to let your brain turn every concern into a season finale. If you find yourself overwhelmed with a negative thought spiral, the Amaze mental health team is just a tap away.