The simple shower hack that could finally stop your brain from spiralling.
Name it. Say to yourself, “I’m overthinking.” “Neuroscience shows that naming an emotion lessens its intensity: you’re asserting control,” says Ali Walker, behavioural scientist and author of. Walker is herself an erstwhile overthinker, a state she describes as “not being able to switch off or relax.
You can’t get your brain into neutral; you feel stuck in a loop of persistent, insistent, unhelpful thoughts.”Train it. Most overthinking comes with a self-soothing behaviour attached, which becomes associated with the overthinking and makes it worse. “I used to call someone and spend three hours in a total overanalysis conversational spiral,” says Walker. Other unhelpful behaviours include doom-scrolling, watching hours of TV or attacking a bottle of wine. Try to replace these habits with more positive ones. Do something physical: take a walk, have a lie-down, go for a run. Things connected to water – swimming, having a bath, taking a shower – are also effective because “you literally can’t experience a change in temperature and keep overthinking”. Even washing your hands or splashing your face with unusually hot or cold water can help. So can listening to music.A daily mindfulness practice can encourage your brain into more peaceful, productive pathways. Spend five minutes keying into your senses with the question: “What can I see, hear, feel, smell?” Then progress to a body scan, deliberately moving each part as you focus on it, from your head to your toes. Getting phones out of bedrooms and practising good technology hygiene also gives you a chance to remember what alpha brain waves feel like. These are the neurological opposite of overthinking: alpha waves are produced when our minds are coasting along in neutral; they help promote relaxation, creativity and sleep. Above all, be kind to yourself. Remember, we’re living in a world that promotes a level of “infobesity” unprecedented in human history. “We’re now bombarded with as much information in a single day as a person 600 years ago would be exposed to in an entire lifetime,” says Walker. “It’s incredibly tough – I just want to give everyone who’s dealing with this a hug! But it’s important to know, amid so much that we can’t control, that we can take control of our thoughts. We can choose how to think, feel, act.”The ‘Bermuda’ comeback: Why your dad’s favourite shorts are suddenly cool again While micro shorts continue to be the popular choice of body-confident wearers everywhere, high-waisted styles bring a 1950s freshness to proceedings.The Emmy-winning TV personality, 38, best known for his work on the Netflix series, Queer Eye, is also, simultaneously, an author, podcaster, comedian, hairstylist and founder of JVN Hair.
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