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The neuroscience of intrusive thoughts - How to manage them and what they mean · Do You F*cking Mind?

0:11
Speaker 1: Hello, beautiful beans, and welcome to the podcast episode of today.
0:15
Speaker 1: My name is Alexis Fernandez, and this is Do You
0:18
Speaker 1: Fucking Mind? The podcast that helps change your relationship with yourself,
0:22
Speaker 1: with your brain, and with your life. Before we get
0:27
Speaker 1: into anything. For those of you that have not yet
0:30
Speaker 1: stumbled across or gone directly to because I've told you
0:33
Speaker 1: to my substack, please go check it out because I'm
0:36
Speaker 1: absolutely loving it. I've got a new article coming out today,
0:39
Speaker 1: but I'm kind of like recording this in events, so
0:43
Speaker 1: it doesn't really it's not relevant, but anyway, go check
0:45
Speaker 1: it out. It's called Notes on theMIND dot substack dot com.
0:48
Speaker 1: That's where all my written work lives. And if you
0:50
Speaker 1: are a fan of all my other stuff on Hotel Mindset,
0:53
Speaker 1: which is my membership app, you automatically get the Hotel
0:57
Speaker 1: Mindset membership with your substack subscription. But than ever before,
1:00
Speaker 1: you get meditations, affirmations, walking guided statements, so you're literally
1:04
Speaker 1: strolling while I'm telling you what you're fucking doing with
1:07
Speaker 1: your life. We've got everything there, sleep stories, soundscapes, fucking challenges,
1:16
Speaker 1: twenty one days to form a habit, challenges on their
1:18
Speaker 1: absolutely everything, So go check it out notes on the
1:21
Speaker 1: Mine dot substack dot com. Now, this episode today is
1:25
Speaker 1: all about the neuroscience of intrusive thoughts. So by the
1:29
Speaker 1: end of this episode, you're gonna understand exactly what intrusive
1:32
Speaker 1: thoughts are and why they are happening. I'm going to
1:34
Speaker 1: tell you the difference between intrusive thoughts for like the
1:38
Speaker 1: everyday person versus OCD where it becomes something that feels
1:42
Speaker 1: extremely uncontrollable, and I'm going to explain what that difference is,
1:47
Speaker 1: and then I'm going to be giving you actual tools
1:49
Speaker 1: on how to deal with intrusive thoughts so it doesn't
1:53
Speaker 1: feel like it's taking over your life or your days,
1:55
Speaker 1: so it doesn't feel really uncomfortable, and so you don't
1:59
Speaker 1: feel a lot of people do feel shame around these
2:01
Speaker 1: intrusive thoughts because it feels so kind of out of
2:03
Speaker 1: character to be thinking these things, and then it makes
2:05
Speaker 1: them question their fucking existence. Okay, so we're going to
2:09
Speaker 1: be talking about that. I do have a brain fact
2:10
Speaker 1: today on Brockers area, which is a specific part of
2:13
Speaker 1: the brain. I'm going to be talking about brockers aphasia
2:15
Speaker 1: and how that also is related to the starter as well.
2:18
Speaker 1: But before we do that. Two things. I've got a
2:21
Speaker 1: little takeaway slash recommendation and a life update. So my
2:25
Speaker 1: takeaway slash recommendation I'm going to start. I'm really trying
2:29
Speaker 1: to do this every single episode. I think I brought
2:31
Speaker 1: this in probably two years ago, and after two episodes
2:34
Speaker 1: I forgot, but we're back stronger than ever. And my
2:37
Speaker 1: recommendation is the podcast maintenance phase. This podcast has been
2:40
Speaker 1: going on for years and I'm sure many of you
2:42
Speaker 1: hopefully already listen to it, but it is so good.
2:45
Speaker 1: It is basically the two hosts, which is Aubrey Gordon
2:48
Speaker 1: and Mike Hobbs. They are hilarious the way they articulate themselves.
2:54
Speaker 1: They're so witty and funny. They're great hosts of a podcast,
2:58
Speaker 1: and they discuss kind of fad diets and anything around
3:04
Speaker 1: kind of the weight loss industry that's taken the world
3:07
Speaker 1: by storm, and then they discuss why it's so fucking
3:10
Speaker 1: unhinged in the funniest way possible. So definitely go check
3:12
Speaker 1: it out if you haven't already. I love them. Unfortunately
3:15
Speaker 1: they only release probably one episode a month if that,
3:18
Speaker 1: but I hang out for each episode and then my
3:21
Speaker 1: life update, my mental health can finally restabilize because the
3:26
Speaker 1: World Cup has finished, and it was just the biggest
3:29
Speaker 1: rollercoaster of emotions for me. If you guys know, I
3:33
Speaker 1: am Argentinian. My father is Argentinian, so I'm half Arjo,
3:36
Speaker 1: but I'm also Uruguayan and Spanish, so I had a
3:40
Speaker 1: bit of a conflict in the final, but I always do,
3:43
Speaker 1: even like I love Spain so much. I'm a Spanish
3:45
Speaker 1: citizen love Spain. But when it comes to football specifically,
3:49
Speaker 1: I am a die hard Argentina supporter. And the reason
3:52
Speaker 1: for that is because growing up my father was always
3:56
Speaker 1: such a big fan and he really instilled this love
3:59
Speaker 1: for the Argentinan for ball side, and my sister and
4:01
Speaker 1: I am for whatever reason, we just get severe anxiety
4:03
Speaker 1: every time we watch Argentina play. Anyway, I wanted to
4:06
Speaker 1: quickly brush on something called type two fun, and I
4:09
Speaker 1: think it's a whole episode that needs to happen. But
4:10
Speaker 1: type two fun is basically where when you're doing something,
4:14
Speaker 1: you feel like, oh this is really painful, or this
4:16
Speaker 1: is like I'm getting up so early, or I can't
4:18
Speaker 1: believe this fucking thing happened, but then in hindsight, it
4:20
Speaker 1: actually was really fun. So that whole World Cup experience.
4:24
Speaker 1: We're waking up at two thirty in the morning to
4:26
Speaker 1: get in the line to go to this Argentinian venue.
4:29
Speaker 1: We have to be lining up at three am. The
4:31
Speaker 1: venue opens at four. I'm buying fedinet and Coca Cola
4:34
Speaker 1: at five o'clock in the morning, drinking like alcohol at
4:36
Speaker 1: five am, and I'm like, this is so stressful and
4:39
Speaker 1: so fucked, but in hindsight it was beautiful. So now
4:41
Speaker 1: I need to have something to replace the adrenaline rush
4:44
Speaker 1: of the World Cup. Anyway, that's my life updates. So
4:48
Speaker 1: let's just watch me re stabilize my life. Okay, let's
4:51
Speaker 1: get into the brain fact. The brain fact, like I said,
4:54
Speaker 1: is on Brockers area slash brockers aphasia. So what is it.
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Speaker 1: It's a particular area in the brain first identified by
5:01
Speaker 1: a French physician back in the eighteen hundreds. His name
5:04
Speaker 1: was Paul Brocker. Some people pronounce it Broker, but I
5:07
Speaker 1: think it's Brocker. And he studied patients who could understand
5:12
Speaker 1: language but who really struggled with producing speech. So this
5:16
Speaker 1: part of the brain is involved in planning speech, producing language,
5:20
Speaker 1: and organizing grammar and sentence structure. It's also involved in
5:25
Speaker 1: coordinating that mouth, tongue, larynx movements required for speaking, because
5:30
Speaker 1: there's like literally over one hundred muscles involved in the
5:34
Speaker 1: production of speech, which is unhinged. Then there's more modern
5:40
Speaker 1: research that suggests that this area contributes to working memory,
5:44
Speaker 1: language sequencing parts of your cognitive control because it is
5:47
Speaker 1: located in the frontal cortex and it basically helps organize
5:53
Speaker 1: language more so than just producing speech. Now, it sits
5:57
Speaker 1: in the left side of the frontal lobe, in a
6:00
Speaker 1: part called the left inferior frontal gyrus. Okay, Now, if
6:04
Speaker 1: you're someone that has studied neuroanatomy before, you would know
6:08
Speaker 1: about Brodman's areas. This is Brodman's area forty four and
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Speaker 1: forty five. Very brief over you for those of you
6:14
Speaker 1: that are interested. Basically, Broadman's area is back in like
6:19
Speaker 1: nineteen h nine. Specifically, this German neurologist Brodman, he examined
6:23
Speaker 1: the brain under microscopes. This is mind you, before we
6:26
Speaker 1: had all these different kinds of brain imaging techniques, so
6:29
Speaker 1: it's pretty amazing. But he looked at the cito architecture
6:31
Speaker 1: of like the brain and he divided it into fifty
6:34
Speaker 1: two numbered regions. I'm not going to go into the
6:38
Speaker 1: details off it, but basically, like Brodman's area four is
6:41
Speaker 1: the primary motor cortex, Area seventeen is the visual cortex,
6:44
Speaker 1: and so on. So this is located in areas forty
6:46
Speaker 1: four and forty five. It's not ever used in isolation.
6:49
Speaker 1: You're always going to talk about Broadman's areas and then
6:51
Speaker 1: talk about the connectivity between structures because the brain doesn't
6:54
Speaker 1: work with like chunks in isolation, but it is nice
6:57
Speaker 1: to understand where kind of on the surface of the
7:00
Speaker 1: brain something is. Now let's talk about Brokers area and
7:06
Speaker 1: when you have a stroke victim, because this is really interesting.
7:10
Speaker 1: So if you have a stroke within the left side
7:14
Speaker 1: of the brain, especially in the left frontal lobe, you're
7:17
Speaker 1: going to see somewhat of a paralysis through the right
7:21
Speaker 1: side of the body. Because if you've listened to my
7:23
Speaker 1: podcast for a long time, you understand that decusation that
7:25
Speaker 1: occurs in the spinal cord, and that's where basically the
7:27
Speaker 1: nerves cross over to the other side at some point
7:30
Speaker 1: in the spinal cord depending on where these nerves are
7:34
Speaker 1: located in the body, and then it's controlled by the
7:36
Speaker 1: opposite side of the brain. Okay, So the left hemisphere
7:39
Speaker 1: controls movement on the right side of the body and
7:40
Speaker 1: the right controls movement on the left side of the body.
7:42
Speaker 1: So if you have this hemorrhaging or a clot in
7:49
Speaker 1: the left side of the brain, you're going to see
7:51
Speaker 1: somewhat paralysis on the right side of the body. But
7:53
Speaker 1: because it occurs on the left side, you're also going
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Speaker 1: to see problems in producing speech because that's where Brockers
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Speaker 1: area is of see, it depends where the cloud is,
8:01
Speaker 1: but if it's in that rough area, so someone with
8:06
Speaker 1: Brockers aphasia a phasia is where we've got damage to
8:10
Speaker 1: the area, also known as expressive aphasia. It's this this
8:14
Speaker 1: individual knows what they want to say. They understand pretty
8:18
Speaker 1: much all of what everyone else is saying, but they
8:20
Speaker 1: struggle to get the words out. And when they do,
8:22
Speaker 1: and when they can talk, it's like short, really effortful sentences,
8:26
Speaker 1: and they're leaving out connecting words like is to the
8:30
Speaker 1: things like that. So instead of saying I went to
8:33
Speaker 1: the supermarket this morning, they're probably going to say go
8:37
Speaker 1: or went supermarket morning, okay, And it requires a lot
8:41
Speaker 1: of effort and it's really frustrating for these people because
8:43
Speaker 1: their thoughts are very much intact. They just can't translate
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Speaker 1: these thoughts into fluence speech, so it's infuriating, it would
8:49
Speaker 1: be awful. And it's also involved in the in stuttering.
8:55
Speaker 1: In the stutter because the current evidence suggests that's uttering
9:00
Speaker 1: isn't caused by a one damaged brain region, but instead
9:03
Speaker 1: it's more like abnormal communications across the networks that are
9:06
Speaker 1: involved in the production of speech. So this includes Brockers area,
9:09
Speaker 1: basil ganglia, the motor cortex, and other areas of the
9:12
Speaker 1: brain like connecting white matter pathways and stuff. So because
9:16
Speaker 1: this area helps plan speech, it has to also work
9:19
Speaker 1: in synchronicity with these other regions of the brain, and
9:22
Speaker 1: if it's not synchronized well, or if the timing is disrupted,
9:25
Speaker 1: speech can become nonfluent or that's what creates the starter.
9:31
Speaker 1: That's why when a lot of people find that when
9:34
Speaker 1: they're really calm and relaxed they have less of a
9:37
Speaker 1: stutter than when they're in a stressful environment, then that
9:41
Speaker 1: starter is going to come up more because it might
9:42
Speaker 1: kind of throw these regions of the brain out of sync. Cool,
9:45
Speaker 1: So that's pretty much Brockers Area if you're interested in
9:48
Speaker 1: knowing about it. Now, I want to dive straight into
9:50
Speaker 1: the actual episode of today's podcast, which is the Neuroscience
9:54
Speaker 1: of Intrusive Thoughts. And I really am pumped for this
9:57
Speaker 1: episode because I think that so many people, I don't
10:00
Speaker 1: think we realize how much we can all fucking relate
10:03
Speaker 1: because everybody, well i'd say ninety nine point whatever percentage
10:06
Speaker 1: of the population has experienced or does every so oft an
10:10
Speaker 1: experience an intrusive thought. So it is something that most
10:13
Speaker 1: people experience. You are not on your own, you are
10:15
Speaker 1: not a freak of nature. So an example of an
10:23
Speaker 1: intrusive thought, there's many. But it could be you're standing
10:27
Speaker 1: on the balcony and you think, what would happen if
10:29
Speaker 1: I jumped? No, you're not tapped. No you're not suicidal.
10:32
Speaker 1: If you just have this thought out of the blue, No,
10:34
Speaker 1: it doesn't mean anything deep. That is an intrusive thought. Okay.
10:37
Speaker 1: Another one would be if you're holding a newborn and
10:39
Speaker 1: you're like, what happened? What would happen if I dropped it?
10:41
Speaker 1: Or if you were mean when I just had the babies,
10:43
Speaker 1: you're like, oh my god, walking through a doorframe oh
10:45
Speaker 1: my god, what would happen if I knocked its head
10:47
Speaker 1: on the side of the door. Or if you're driving
10:51
Speaker 1: and you think, what would happen if I swerved into
10:52
Speaker 1: oncoming traffic? Or this is a personal one, and I
10:55
Speaker 1: might be giving too much away and I might sound unhinged,
10:58
Speaker 1: But if I'm at train station, I think like I
11:01
Speaker 1: could just very easily jump on the train tracks, or
11:04
Speaker 1: what if someone shoved someone else onto the train tracks?
11:06
Speaker 1: It's so easy you could just easily do it, right, So,
11:09
Speaker 1: I mean I sound like a psychopath, But that's an
11:12
Speaker 1: intrusive thought, okay. And for most people, they're thinking, well,
11:16
Speaker 1: if I don't actually want this thing to happen, why
11:19
Speaker 1: is my brain coming up with this thought? Like why
11:21
Speaker 1: would I have thought about it? So there's certain people
11:23
Speaker 1: that think more and more and more about it, and
11:25
Speaker 1: it's really hard to let go of that thought because
11:27
Speaker 1: they're like, why the fuck would I be thinking this
11:29
Speaker 1: thought if consciously I don't want to do it or
11:31
Speaker 1: I don't want that to happen. But an intrusive thought
11:34
Speaker 1: specifically is unwanted, involuntary, and it's an image or an
11:39
Speaker 1: urge that suddenly enters your consciousness. It feels sudden, even
11:43
Speaker 1: though it's not actually, but it feels sudden. The key
11:45
Speaker 1: features are unexpected, They are distressing, somewhat like it's something
11:51
Speaker 1: that's not pleasant. They are unwanted, you don't want to
11:54
Speaker 1: keep thinking about it, and they are inconsistent with your values.
11:58
Speaker 1: And that's that life point is probably the most important.
12:01
Speaker 1: It is inconsistent with your values. Like I would not
12:03
Speaker 1: want to push someone off the train tracks. I would
12:05
Speaker 1: not want to jump off a balcony. I don't want
12:07
Speaker 1: to swerve onto oncoming traffic or bump my baby's head
12:09
Speaker 1: on the side of the door. Okay, so the fact
12:11
Speaker 1: that it is distressing is evidence that it does go
12:15
Speaker 1: against your values. Now, like I said, almost everybody gets them.
12:21
Speaker 1: And by almost everyone, it's like the vast, vast, vast
12:23
Speaker 1: majority of the population experience intrusive thoughts. And the difference
12:28
Speaker 1: between individuals is not who has them and who doesn't
12:31
Speaker 1: have them. It's more so who's attaching meaning to these
12:35
Speaker 1: intrusive thoughts and who isn't And when you attach meaning,
12:40
Speaker 1: that's the first key to understanding how we're actually going
12:43
Speaker 1: to unravel this and learn how to deal with an
12:46
Speaker 1: intrusive thought. Because when we put meaning we attach. When
12:51
Speaker 1: we remove meaning we detach, we become more separate. It's
12:55
Speaker 1: less of an invasion of who we are. And so
13:00
Speaker 1: I'm going to talk about how we can stop that
13:03
Speaker 1: a little bit later on. But a lot of the
13:05
Speaker 1: information that we know from intrusive thoughts actually comes from
13:08
Speaker 1: decades of research in OCD. So it's really really interesting.
13:13
Speaker 1: Now why does the brain do this? Like we're all
13:16
Speaker 1: here fucking having these really traumatic thoughts just pop into
13:19
Speaker 1: our mind for no good reason, and you're thinking, why
13:21
Speaker 1: would my brain do this to me? I was actually
13:23
Speaker 1: having a lovely afternoon. Now my brain's gone and fucking
13:25
Speaker 1: shatten the pool and ruined my day. So the reason
13:29
Speaker 1: it happens is because your brain is always running simulations.
13:34
Speaker 1: It always is predicting and mitigating, trying to mitigate risk. Okay,
13:40
Speaker 1: it's preparing for potentially the worst. And that's because your
13:45
Speaker 1: brain is obviously built to keep you alive. So one
13:47
Speaker 1: theory is that intrusive thoughts are an unintended consequence of
13:51
Speaker 1: your brain just trying to adapt to what could be happening.
13:53
Speaker 1: That's one of the theories, Like this idea of like
13:55
Speaker 1: if I've got a newborn baby, and I'm holding my baby,
13:57
Speaker 1: I have to be hyper aware of the risk. Don't
14:00
Speaker 1: walk too close to the doorframe, pay attention to where
14:02
Speaker 1: I'm walking, hold it properly, hold its head, hold this,
14:05
Speaker 1: hold that. And because I'm thinking of You've got to
14:07
Speaker 1: make sure you're doing all these things. Then of course
14:10
Speaker 1: my brain is actually at at least at a subconscious level,
14:13
Speaker 1: aware of what would happen if I didn't do those things.
14:16
Speaker 1: And then sometimes those images arise. Because the brain is
14:19
Speaker 1: so good at running this simulation to protect me or
14:23
Speaker 1: to make me do a behavior that protects the baby,
14:26
Speaker 1: then sometimes that simulation crops up into my head, or
14:29
Speaker 1: that idea crops up. The same is like if I'm
14:31
Speaker 1: at the train station and I'm walking down and I
14:34
Speaker 1: think there's no barrier between me and that, like I
14:36
Speaker 1: could literally just trip and fall onto the train tracks.
14:39
Speaker 1: I'm not thinking about falling onto train tracks when I'm
14:41
Speaker 1: not at the train station. So while it feels completely disjointed,
14:44
Speaker 1: there is some kind of, you know, reason to this
14:49
Speaker 1: madness that we think we're having. It is somehow relevant
14:52
Speaker 1: to the situation you're in. This intrusive thought there's almost
14:56
Speaker 1: always a hook and it's relevant to the environment you're
14:58
Speaker 1: in at the time. You might be able to find
15:01
Speaker 1: that hook immediately. For the most part, you can. And yes,
15:06
Speaker 1: so your brain is predicting, predicting, predicting, predicting, predicting to
15:09
Speaker 1: make you better at controlling the risks and minimizing risks
15:14
Speaker 1: like what could go wrong and what am I going
15:18
Speaker 1: to do about it? And interestingly, most of these predictions,
15:21
Speaker 1: the belief is that most of these predictions never really
15:24
Speaker 1: reach your consciousness. They're they're kind of playing in the
15:26
Speaker 1: background at a subconscious level, and then some of them
15:29
Speaker 1: reach your consciousness. And then that's what feels like an
15:31
Speaker 1: intrusive thought. It feels like you've stumbled across it, or
15:34
Speaker 1: better yet, it feels like the thoughts stumbled across you.
15:36
Speaker 1: It's like I didn't choose to bring this thought into
15:38
Speaker 1: it, It just emerged out of thin air. Now, the areas
15:42
Speaker 1: of the brain that are involved is the amigdala set
15:44
Speaker 1: at a thousand times is fucking brain part I myself
15:46
Speaker 1: and sick of talking about the amigdala, But it's just
15:49
Speaker 1: a crucial part of the brain that we can't avoid.
15:51
Speaker 1: This is the threat detection part of the brain, so
15:53
Speaker 1: it adds Think about the amign delight as something that
15:56
Speaker 1: adds emotional significance to an event. If the event had
16:01
Speaker 1: no emotion to it, not only would it not matter,
16:05
Speaker 1: but it would probably not be remembered either. So this
16:07
Speaker 1: is why interestive thoughts are so frustrating, because the amigndali
16:11
Speaker 1: is getting fired up. It's about threat, threat detection, fear
16:13
Speaker 1: responding to fear. It's then adding emotional importance to that thing.
16:17
Speaker 1: And when something is tagged with kind of an emotional
16:20
Speaker 1: importance in the brain, it is a lot harder to
16:22
Speaker 1: forget it in the short term and in the long term.
16:25
Speaker 1: So it makes that thing important. Emotion's equal importance when
16:29
Speaker 1: it comes to the brain. Then we've got the anterior
16:31
Speaker 1: singular cortex. This is part of the brain that's monitoring
16:35
Speaker 1: conflict in the brain, so conflict with thoughts and feelings.
16:39
Speaker 1: So you're noticing this thing doesn't fit who I am,
16:43
Speaker 1: this doesn't align with my values. I don't want to
16:45
Speaker 1: think this thing. This is shocking, this is horrible, this
16:47
Speaker 1: is a distressing thought. I don't want to think this.
16:48
Speaker 1: So that part of the brain is like woken up.
16:51
Speaker 1: I don't want to think this so, and frustratingly, the
16:55
Speaker 1: more conflict it detects, the more attention and resources it's
16:59
Speaker 1: pulling to this conflict or to this thought. So the
17:01
Speaker 1: more you're like, wow, that's not me. Why am I
17:03
Speaker 1: thinking this ConfL conflict? More attention, more attention, more attention.
17:06
Speaker 1: You start going round and around reminding, think if that
17:08
Speaker 1: thought again, think of that thought again, thinking of that thought. Then,
17:11
Speaker 1: of course the prefrontal cortex, which is attempting to suppress
17:14
Speaker 1: that thought. You're like, I don't want to think this.
17:16
Speaker 1: Stop thinking about that. It's suppressing. Sometimes your brain's really
17:19
Speaker 1: good at suppressing. Other times does a terrible job at suppressing.
17:22
Speaker 1: And I'm going to explain why in a moment. And
17:24
Speaker 1: then you've got default mode network, of course, And that's
17:27
Speaker 1: kind of the network up done whole. I think an episode,
17:30
Speaker 1: but that's the network of your brain that becomes super
17:31
Speaker 1: active when your mind is wondering. Some people love their
17:34
Speaker 1: default mode network. It's that background player that's quite pleasant
17:36
Speaker 1: in day dreams. Some people don't like the default mode
17:39
Speaker 1: network because it's those anxious thoughts that go around around around.
17:43
Speaker 1: Now let's talk about I just mentioned before that sometimes
17:46
Speaker 1: the prefrontal cortex does a really good job of suppressing
17:48
Speaker 1: and sometimes it doesn't. And why is that? How many
17:51
Speaker 1: times have we not wanted to think about something And
17:53
Speaker 1: the moment you say to yourself, don't think about that thing,
17:56
Speaker 1: it is blaring as a fuck an elephant in the room.
17:58
Speaker 1: It is staring you down, and you're like, how do
18:01
Speaker 1: I get this thought out of my head? Because it's
18:03
Speaker 1: ruining my day. There's a famous experiment it's called the
18:08
Speaker 1: white Bear study, and it's from nineteen eighty seven and
18:12
Speaker 1: Daniel Wagner or Wagner anyway, you demonstrated this. It's called
18:19
Speaker 1: the ironic process theory. So it basically shows that when
18:22
Speaker 1: you are trying to actively suppress a thought, an unwanted thought,
18:26
Speaker 1: it actually makes you think about it more so. In
18:29
Speaker 1: this experiment, this Harvard psychologist Daniel Wagner. He asked all
18:33
Speaker 1: the participants in the group to verbalize their stream of
18:37
Speaker 1: consciousness and they had to do this for about five minutes,
18:40
Speaker 1: and at the same time he said, don't think about
18:43
Speaker 1: a white bear. But if the thought popped into their heads,
18:46
Speaker 1: they had to wear a verbalize at a ring a
18:47
Speaker 1: bell and it showed this. It's called a paradoxical rebound effect.
18:52
Speaker 1: So participants thought of that white bear more than once
18:56
Speaker 1: per minute on average. And then when they were asked
18:59
Speaker 1: to purposely think about the white bear immediately after the
19:02
Speaker 1: suppression task, so it's not suppress it, now, actually think
19:06
Speaker 1: about it, they thought about it even more than people
19:10
Speaker 1: that were just asked to think about it from the beginning.
19:12
Speaker 1: So they had this control group of saying you can
19:14
Speaker 1: think about the white bear, a group where they're saying,
19:17
Speaker 1: don't think about the white bread bear. They had to
19:19
Speaker 1: record their stream of consciousness, and the ones that had
19:22
Speaker 1: to suppress the white bear thought about it more than
19:26
Speaker 1: the ones that asked to think about the white bear. Okay, Now,
19:30
Speaker 1: Wegner attributed this conflict between to a few mechanisms in
19:34
Speaker 1: the brain. So one of it is this conscious operating process.
19:38
Speaker 1: It's always searching for distractions. It's looking for distractions, and
19:41
Speaker 1: it's trying to filter out distractions. So if you've brought
19:44
Speaker 1: the attention to this white bear and don't think about
19:47
Speaker 1: the white bear, then you're obviously thinking about that and
19:51
Speaker 1: not thinking about distractions. And then you've got this other
19:54
Speaker 1: monitoring process that's always checking if you're successfully doing the
19:57
Speaker 1: task you set out to do. So if the task
19:59
Speaker 1: is something in the negative, you're still checking to see
20:02
Speaker 1: if you've done it right. Have I not thought about it?
20:04
Speaker 1: Have I not thought it? But then by default, you're
20:06
Speaker 1: of course thinking about that thing because your brain doesn't
20:08
Speaker 1: think in negatives. It's focusing on this thing, or it's
20:11
Speaker 1: focusing on that thing, but it can't focus on the
20:13
Speaker 1: absence of something. Okay, it's either diverted its focus or
20:19
Speaker 1: it's focusing on something now. Because the unconscious mind is
20:23
Speaker 1: always scanning for these forbidden thoughts and whatever to see
20:27
Speaker 1: if it's a threat, it's going to keep this alive
20:32
Speaker 1: in your working memory. If you're saying, don't think about
20:34
Speaker 1: the white beer, it's in your working memory. Whether you
20:36
Speaker 1: like it or not, it's going to stay there, and
20:38
Speaker 1: then it's going to keep bringing it to the forefront.
20:41
Speaker 1: And this effect is referred to as something called the
20:43
Speaker 1: pink elephant paradox. So it's also a really good way
20:47
Speaker 1: of explaining why when you're trying to suppress a craving
20:52
Speaker 1: for like cigarettes or junk food things like that, or
20:57
Speaker 1: when you're trying to suppress an anxious thought or a try,
21:00
Speaker 1: it sometimes actually makes those thoughts or feelings or cravings
21:04
Speaker 1: way stronger instead of just diverting your attention into something else. Sense.
21:13
Speaker 1: So to summarize that, you are told not to think
21:17
Speaker 1: about this thing, Let's say you have the intrusive thought.
21:19
Speaker 1: You're like, I don't want to think about the intrusive thoughts.
21:21
Speaker 1: So now that you've given your brain a task, stop
21:23
Speaker 1: thinking about it? You keep checking? Am I thinking about it? No?
21:25
Speaker 1: I'm not, Yes, I am? I keep thinking about it.
21:27
Speaker 1: So suppression creates monitoring. When I suppress, I now have
21:30
Speaker 1: to monitor have I suppressed it? And then because you're monitoring,
21:34
Speaker 1: it keeps that thought alive, and then it's a negative
21:36
Speaker 1: cycle that keeps feeding itself. So if you're someone that
21:38
Speaker 1: stumbles across a an intrusive thought and you're like, stop
21:42
Speaker 1: thinking about that. I don't want to think about it.
21:43
Speaker 1: Have I thought about it? Oh? I thought about it.
21:44
Speaker 1: Oh I didn't like that image of order? And then
21:46
Speaker 1: that's why that thought stays alive in your mind. That's
21:49
Speaker 1: why it's so frustrating. Because some people interessive thoughts affect
21:52
Speaker 1: them so much more than for other people. Now, let's
21:54
Speaker 1: quickly divert this episode into OCD very quick, so you
22:00
Speaker 1: understand what happens when intrusive thoughts kind of have a
22:04
Speaker 1: life of their own and really blow up into something
22:06
Speaker 1: that it feels like you absolutely cannot control. So, in
22:08
Speaker 1: obsessive compulsive disorder OCD, intrusive thoughts are distressing, unwanted images
22:14
Speaker 1: or ideas that repeat in your mind, similar to how
22:16
Speaker 1: everyone else experiences intrusive thoughts, but it is specifically with
22:24
Speaker 1: people with OCD they cause extreme and intense anxiety. It
22:27
Speaker 1: is borderline debilitating for these individuals. Okay, Now, the hallmark
22:32
Speaker 1: of OCD is that you are trapped in this cycle
22:36
Speaker 1: that become obsessions. Okay, So, for example, the reason it
22:39
Speaker 1: becomes an obsession is this intrusive thought is so debilitating
22:43
Speaker 1: that you then believe that in order to overcome that
22:46
Speaker 1: intrusive thought, you have to have these compulsions, whether they're
22:50
Speaker 1: mental or physical, to neutralize that thought. So, for example,
22:55
Speaker 1: let's say your OCD intrusive thought that you can't stop
22:59
Speaker 1: thinking about is about sickness, bacteria or viruses or whatever,
23:04
Speaker 1: and it's about cleanliness and hygiene, and you're obsessing, obsessing, obsessing.
23:08
Speaker 1: You can't suppress that thought. You just so intense, so
23:10
Speaker 1: the only way that you can neutralize that extreme anxiety
23:13
Speaker 1: is to wash your hands. But then you've got to
23:15
Speaker 1: wash your hands again and again, and every time you
23:17
Speaker 1: check it provides relief. So then you want that feeling
23:19
Speaker 1: of relief, so you wash your hands again and then relief, relief, relief, relief,
23:22
Speaker 1: And it's that cycle of severe anxiety, behavior obsessive behavior relief, anxiety,
23:29
Speaker 1: obsessive behavior relief. So it goes around around around. Normally,
23:33
Speaker 1: for the general population, your brain's going to dismiss it
23:35
Speaker 1: as like meaningless noise. But in people with OCD, the
23:37
Speaker 1: brain is misinterpreting this as something deeply meaningful. It's attaching
23:42
Speaker 1: meaning to it, and it's really difficult to detach that meaning.
23:45
Speaker 1: So you're getting this fight or flight response, and then
23:49
Speaker 1: because of that, it feels so real that then you
23:51
Speaker 1: have to perform this compulsion like checking, mental reviewing, reassurance, seeking,
23:58
Speaker 1: anything that's going to immediate alleviate that anxiety. Now, when
24:02
Speaker 1: I was in my master's doing my masters, we had
24:05
Speaker 1: a brilliant psychiatrist come in and he works a lot
24:07
Speaker 1: with patients with OCD, and he had we were very
24:11
Speaker 1: lucky enough that he had one of his patients who
24:13
Speaker 1: was willing to come to the class and actually talk
24:15
Speaker 1: about her experiences with OCD. And she had really, really,
24:19
Speaker 1: really real experiences of things like where she'd be driving
24:21
Speaker 1: her car and she was certain that she had run
24:23
Speaker 1: over someone, absolutely certain, and the only way that she
24:26
Speaker 1: could keep driving is she pulled her car over to
24:28
Speaker 1: the side of the road, even if she was on
24:29
Speaker 1: a highway. She'd have to check that there'd be no
24:32
Speaker 1: damage on her car, which would prove to her that
24:33
Speaker 1: she in fact had not run over someone, and she
24:36
Speaker 1: could get back in her card. It'd be fine. She'd
24:38
Speaker 1: even be on the phone too, maybe her dad, and
24:40
Speaker 1: he would say no, no, no, but I didn't hear anything.
24:42
Speaker 1: It's okay, you can keep because he obviously understood what
24:43
Speaker 1: she was going through. But she'd be like, no, no, no,
24:45
Speaker 1: I have to pull over. Another thing she would have,
24:47
Speaker 1: as if she's walking through a shopping center, she would
24:49
Speaker 1: be sure that she'd punched someone in the face, and
24:51
Speaker 1: then until she'd stopped and turned around and make sure
24:53
Speaker 1: that the audience wasn't audience, that the general public wasn't reacting,
24:57
Speaker 1: that someone wasn't killed over in pain, she'd be like, oh,
24:59
Speaker 1: obviously I didn't do it, and then should keep going.
25:01
Speaker 1: But the issue is that the only way that you
25:04
Speaker 1: can feel better is if you do this reassuring practice,
25:06
Speaker 1: which is like the checking, like I said, getting out
25:09
Speaker 1: of the car, or turning around see if you had
25:10
Speaker 1: actually had hit that person, or like the washing of
25:14
Speaker 1: the hands, or the switching on and off of the lines,
25:16
Speaker 1: like anything that's going to calm you down. But the issue,
25:20
Speaker 1: of course, is that if the only thing that calms
25:22
Speaker 1: you down is the behavior, then that behavior becomes super
25:26
Speaker 1: addictive because it is like I link that behavior with
25:28
Speaker 1: feeling calm, and then you're going to need to do
25:30
Speaker 1: behavior more and more and more and more and more,
25:32
Speaker 1: and then that becomes obsessive compulsive disorder. Other really common
25:36
Speaker 1: things in OSAD is like I said, harm, like thinking
25:39
Speaker 1: that you might harm yourself or others like this in
25:42
Speaker 1: this lady that I was talking about, contamination. This is
25:45
Speaker 1: fear of germs, diseases, hazards, things like that. Really common
25:48
Speaker 1: is taboo or forbidden thoughts, things that are disturbing, violent
25:52
Speaker 1: or sexually inappropriate, and it feels completely out of characters,
25:55
Speaker 1: and then it's extremely disturbing. Things of religion or morality,
25:59
Speaker 1: This is like a session about committing a sin or
26:02
Speaker 1: behaving immorally, or you're not following the rules properly. Perfection
26:09
Speaker 1: this feeling that you are incomplete and less everything's perfectly
26:12
Speaker 1: in order, and if things are in order, then you
26:14
Speaker 1: are complete, and if they're not in order, then there's
26:16
Speaker 1: something missing or wrong with you. And then relationships as well,
26:20
Speaker 1: like constant doubt whether you love or are attracted to
26:23
Speaker 1: your partner or vice versa. Now, something super super super
26:26
Speaker 1: common is postpartum intrusive thoughts. So I wanted to touch
26:29
Speaker 1: on that because when I was in my postpartum phase,
26:33
Speaker 1: I had interessive thoughts constantly, specifically about dropping the babies,
26:37
Speaker 1: knocking their head on the doorframe, or crushing them in
26:40
Speaker 1: my sleep. That's literally I would always feed them and
26:44
Speaker 1: I'd be playing solitaire or something to keep me awake
26:46
Speaker 1: of in the middle of the night, and I was
26:47
Speaker 1: put them down in the bassinet after i'd feed them.
26:50
Speaker 1: But I would then wake up maybe ten twenty minutes later,
26:53
Speaker 1: like in a frantic sweat, thinking where are they? Where
26:55
Speaker 1: are they? Searching because I would like in my dreams
26:58
Speaker 1: and woke up and I'd convince myself that I'm holding
27:00
Speaker 1: the baby, and I'm like, have I crushed it? Oh
27:02
Speaker 1: my god, I didn't put it back only to look,
27:04
Speaker 1: And of course they're both back in the bassinet, and
27:05
Speaker 1: that would come up all the time for me, And
27:07
Speaker 1: so I started looking it up, and many, many, many
27:10
Speaker 1: many women have that shared experience in their postpartum time,
27:14
Speaker 1: and a lot of articles were saying, this is a
27:18
Speaker 1: key sign of postpartum depression. But I'm like, but I
27:22
Speaker 1: feel fine apart from these thoughts. I don't feel like
27:25
Speaker 1: I have this depression. So I'm going to go in
27:26
Speaker 1: and kind of So then of course I did my
27:28
Speaker 1: research and I looked into it, and that's not the case. Yes,
27:31
Speaker 1: people with postpartum depression absolutely have intrusive thoughts, for sure,
27:34
Speaker 1: not always, but that's one of the one of the features.
27:38
Speaker 1: But having intrusive thoughts in the postpartum stage does not
27:41
Speaker 1: mean that you have postpartum depression. So it's very different, okay.
27:46
Speaker 1: And the reason for this, especially in this time off
27:49
Speaker 1: your life, is of course, your heightened responsibility. All of
27:52
Speaker 1: a sudden, You've got crazy responsibilities. So your threat detection
27:55
Speaker 1: alarm is going off way more than it normally would.
27:58
Speaker 1: You're trying to keep this completely helpless being alive. Your
28:02
Speaker 1: hormonal changes. That's going to change how you perceive threat
28:06
Speaker 1: and your and how much you care, because you know,
28:08
Speaker 1: women go through crazy rewiring of the brain to why
28:12
Speaker 1: you to keep something alive and to be a provider
28:15
Speaker 1: and to be understand emotions, and that you become way
28:18
Speaker 1: more heightened with your ability to understand others. It's pretty cool.
28:23
Speaker 1: And then obviously your vigilance goes up. But then you're
28:26
Speaker 1: sleep deprived like crazy. So to layer on top of
28:29
Speaker 1: all of like the hormonal changes, the massive responsibility, everything
28:32
Speaker 1: that's changing in your brain, the rewiring, you're also sleep deprived.
28:35
Speaker 1: So anytime you are under stress, physical or mental, the
28:40
Speaker 1: likelihood of these intrusive thoughts are going to go up.
28:43
Speaker 1: And the reason for that is because stress increases cortisol,
28:46
Speaker 1: it increases your amygdala activity. So threat detection and putting
28:49
Speaker 1: meaning on things and putting emotional meaning on things that
28:52
Speaker 1: maybe don't actually mean anything, and then your brain starts
28:55
Speaker 1: looking out harder for danger, like attracts like if I'm
28:57
Speaker 1: stressed and this and that, then I'm going to be
28:59
Speaker 1: seeking out is this the threat? Is this a threat?
29:01
Speaker 1: You're on high alert the whole time. It doesn't feel good,
29:04
Speaker 1: but that's kind of where we are now. The reason
29:09
Speaker 1: why some people get stuck and why other people don't
29:12
Speaker 1: is not because they necessarily have more intrusive thoughts. It's
29:16
Speaker 1: not because they don't care that they're having this intrusive
29:20
Speaker 1: thought or not. It all comes down to what they
29:23
Speaker 1: respond to themselves when they say, what does this mean? So?
29:27
Speaker 1: And like, this might be subconscious for you, so you
29:29
Speaker 1: might not think, well, I don't go through that thought process,
29:31
Speaker 1: and my interestive thoughts don't affect me that much, but
29:33
Speaker 1: deep down there's something in us that when we have
29:36
Speaker 1: this thought, we of course ask ourselves what does this mean?
29:40
Speaker 1: And if you're someone that thinks, oh my god, does
29:42
Speaker 1: that mean that deep down I want to do this thing?
29:44
Speaker 1: Does that mean that deep down and violent? Like? What
29:45
Speaker 1: is this saying about me? Is some like latent thing
29:48
Speaker 1: in me that I can versus someone being like crazy?
29:52
Speaker 1: That's a crazy fucking thought. Wow that my brain just
29:54
Speaker 1: came up with that and not attach so much meaning
29:57
Speaker 1: to it. Okay, if you start interpreting the thought as
30:02
Speaker 1: meaning something dangerous about who you are, then you're going
30:05
Speaker 1: to have more distress and then you're going to try
30:08
Speaker 1: and suppress it because you don't want that thought. You're like,
30:10
Speaker 1: that's no, no, no, that can't be made, that can't
30:11
Speaker 1: be me. Suppress, suppress, suppress, and like that whole pink
30:14
Speaker 1: elephant paradox and the white bear experiment is going to
30:17
Speaker 1: be more obvious for us, whereas with other people it's
30:21
Speaker 1: this idea of not attaching meaning to it. So one
30:26
Speaker 1: of the main ways of overcoming, not even overcoming, I
30:29
Speaker 1: don't like using the word overcoming, of dealing with intrusive
30:33
Speaker 1: thoughts is through cognitive behavior therapy. This is what I
30:35
Speaker 1: want you guys to do when we're talking about CBT
30:38
Speaker 1: and intrusive thoughts. The aim is never to eliminate that
30:41
Speaker 1: thought altogether, because, like I said, it's something that normally
30:44
Speaker 1: happens in the background player of the mind, but sometimes
30:47
Speaker 1: it crops up into your conscious awareness. We're not trying
30:49
Speaker 1: to eliminate all intrusive thoughts because that's not actually possible,
30:52
Speaker 1: because we're talking about something that's happening at the subconscious
30:55
Speaker 1: process as a threat detection system. So to try and
31:00
Speaker 1: tackle that, and to try that would mean that you'd
31:02
Speaker 1: have to live a life where there's zero possibility of threats,
31:05
Speaker 1: and we have no creative ideas of what a threat
31:07
Speaker 1: could look like. And that's not really possible, is it? So? Instead,
31:10
Speaker 1: and this is what I look at with most emotions.
31:12
Speaker 1: The aim in life is to not control and not
31:15
Speaker 1: have this emotion and not ever feel anxious, and not
31:17
Speaker 1: ever be angry or not. No, we want to experience
31:20
Speaker 1: the full spectrum of emotions of what our brain has
31:24
Speaker 1: to offer us emotion wise and thought wise. It is
31:27
Speaker 1: what do we do when that thought or emotion comes up?
31:31
Speaker 1: And that's when people have a regulated emotion system versus
31:35
Speaker 1: when they or nervous system I should say emotional or
31:37
Speaker 1: nervous system versus when they don't. So what you're gonna do,
31:40
Speaker 1: and this is the cognitive behavior therapy kind of coming
31:42
Speaker 1: into it is these few steps. Number One, you acknowledge it,
31:47
Speaker 1: You name it. If you've heard of my other episodes
31:49
Speaker 1: where I talk about name it, totain it for fears,
31:51
Speaker 1: this is the same thing. It's an unwanted thought, so
31:54
Speaker 1: our intuition is to suppress it, but we're going to
31:56
Speaker 1: name it. We say, wow, that's an intrusive thought. Me
31:59
Speaker 1: thinking about pushing a random on the train tracks. That
32:01
Speaker 1: is an intrusive thought. So crazy. Then you have to
32:06
Speaker 1: say the thought is not a fact, there is no
32:08
Speaker 1: meaning behind this. Instead, it's my brain's threat detection system
32:13
Speaker 1: getting a little bit creative. There's no meaning behind it.
32:15
Speaker 1: It's my brain's threat detection system getting a bit creative. Okay,
32:19
Speaker 1: it does it for a reason, and we understand the
32:21
Speaker 1: reason why now, so now we don't have to feel
32:23
Speaker 1: so shameful. It's not a desire, it's not a fact.
32:27
Speaker 1: It's a thought that stumbled across me and I've happened
32:30
Speaker 1: to like unravel it. Okay, And then you learn to
32:35
Speaker 1: notice them instead of engage with the thought, So you
32:39
Speaker 1: name it. You say a thought is not necessarily a fact,
32:42
Speaker 1: it's my brain's detection system. And then you are just
32:46
Speaker 1: noticing it. Engaging with it would be like what, oh
32:49
Speaker 1: my god, what does this mean about me? Oh my god,
32:51
Speaker 1: I'm violent? I must deep down be violent? Was I
32:53
Speaker 1: violent in a past life? Am I be punished? What
32:54
Speaker 1: is this happening? Is this? So then you start spiraling? Okay,
32:57
Speaker 1: and that's obviously an exaggerated version of a spiral. But
33:00
Speaker 1: some people think, fuck, that's a really dark thought. Why
33:02
Speaker 1: would I have thought that dark thought, like, what does
33:03
Speaker 1: this mean? Is? Because I'm highly stressed? Is so whatever
33:07
Speaker 1: that background narrative player is, there's a difference between that
33:12
Speaker 1: and then spiraling and then difficulties suppressing versus Yeah, okay,
33:15
Speaker 1: this is what it is. You talk yourself down off
33:16
Speaker 1: the ledge. You're bringing the prefrontal cortex reasoning in to
33:20
Speaker 1: talk the imigial down off the ledge, saying there is
33:22
Speaker 1: no meaning. Let's not attach meaning to this because there
33:24
Speaker 1: is none, and I've acknowledged it, and my brain's just
33:26
Speaker 1: doing what it's trying to do best. And then only
33:29
Speaker 1: then will I redirect my attention to something else if
33:33
Speaker 1: I try and be like, think of something else, quick,
33:35
Speaker 1: think of something else, quick, cook alick. While it's bringing
33:38
Speaker 1: up awful feelings, that's the same as suppressing. So we
33:42
Speaker 1: name it entertain it. We acknowledge that a thought is
33:46
Speaker 1: not a fact. We remind ourselves what is actually happening
33:50
Speaker 1: in the brain. It's a threat detection system and it's
33:52
Speaker 1: gone a little bit creative. And they were like, okay, cool,
33:55
Speaker 1: now let's look at something else that I can now,
33:57
Speaker 1: let's pull out a book that I really like or now,
33:59
Speaker 1: but only after you've done those things, and that is
34:02
Speaker 1: the best way to tackle intrusive thoughts. Now, of course,
34:05
Speaker 1: if you're someone that has OCD, that's not gonna work.
34:07
Speaker 1: You want the next level of care, and this is
34:09
Speaker 1: where you need to work with the therapist through it
34:11
Speaker 1: because it's obviously way more debilitating. It's not so simple
34:14
Speaker 1: as that. The wiring in your brain is kind of
34:16
Speaker 1: taking you down a completely different path. And this is
34:19
Speaker 1: where someone with OCD would do something called Exposure and
34:22
Speaker 1: responsive prevention ERP. This is the gold standard of treatment
34:26
Speaker 1: for people with OCD, and it's basically saying it's teaching
34:30
Speaker 1: them how to back off from these reassuring behaviors like
34:34
Speaker 1: the washing of the hands or the checking if I've
34:36
Speaker 1: punched someone, or pulling over and checking the car. This
34:39
Speaker 1: checking avoiding reassuring behavior. You're trying to avoid that because
34:44
Speaker 1: even though you think, oh, but I have to check
34:46
Speaker 1: because what if I did punch, those behaviors are what's
34:49
Speaker 1: keeping you in that loop. It's about breaking the loop.
34:52
Speaker 1: So in the moment it feels I can't do this,
34:55
Speaker 1: I have to check, or I can't survive, it is
34:57
Speaker 1: breaking the loop. And once you can break out of
35:00
Speaker 1: that cycle, which is much easier said than done. Then
35:03
Speaker 1: those cycles get less and less intense. They still exist,
35:07
Speaker 1: and for some people it's just something they manage their
35:09
Speaker 1: whole life. For other people, they can't come out of
35:10
Speaker 1: it a lot better. Every individual case is different. But
35:14
Speaker 1: for example, in that case that I was talking about,
35:16
Speaker 1: my lecturer and his patient that was kind enough to
35:20
Speaker 1: share her story with us, she said that they would
35:22
Speaker 1: go through shopping centers together. She would go with her therapist,
35:26
Speaker 1: with the psychiatrist, and he would basically be saying, don't
35:29
Speaker 1: look behind you, keep walking forward, don't look behind you,
35:32
Speaker 1: keep walking forward. He wouldn't reassure her though. He wouldn't
35:34
Speaker 1: say no, no, no, you haven't punched someone, no, no. He would
35:37
Speaker 1: just be basically telling her what she needs to be
35:39
Speaker 1: telling herself moving forward, and then using kind of evidence
35:43
Speaker 1: from the past, like in the past, you know, this
35:46
Speaker 1: doesn't mean something that you would do. You're not a
35:47
Speaker 1: violent person. You were not this, You're not that. You
35:49
Speaker 1: were watching the road, you were watching where you were going,
35:51
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff, but not saying no, no, no, no,
35:54
Speaker 1: I'm looking for you. No one's killed her, like he
35:55
Speaker 1: wouldn't do that, so it's all about holding back from this,
36:00
Speaker 1: like exposing yourself from that without doing the response of
36:04
Speaker 1: checking or washing your hands or doing all of that.
36:07
Speaker 1: And then when you do that, you start to realize
36:09
Speaker 1: there actually wasn't a danger, something horrible didn't actually happen,
36:13
Speaker 1: And because of that, anxiety slowly starts to drop and
36:16
Speaker 1: drop and drop and drop, and it takes less and
36:17
Speaker 1: less control over your life. But that's like a process
36:20
Speaker 1: that these people have to go through. It's a lot
36:22
Speaker 1: easier said than done. Like I said, so, like I
36:24
Speaker 1: said in summary, the goal is not to stop intrusive thoughts.
36:31
Speaker 1: It is to stop acting like as if they mean something.
36:36
Speaker 1: They don't mean anything. It is just your brain thinking
36:39
Speaker 1: of hypotheticals. I talk about hypothetical situations all the time.
36:44
Speaker 1: I go on ramp pages with my sister, my best friend,
36:48
Speaker 1: my cousin will like you, imagine if this happened, and
36:50
Speaker 1: then imagine my whole life is talking about hypothetical, outrageous
36:53
Speaker 1: situations all the time. I get very creative. I should
36:56
Speaker 1: literally have a book about all the hypothetical scenarios. So
36:58
Speaker 1: you just say, oh, that's my brain just doing that
37:00
Speaker 1: on its own. It's coming up with hypothetical scenarios, So
37:03
Speaker 1: that's what you want to think about it. Attention reinforces importance.
37:08
Speaker 1: When we place a lot of attention on something, it's
37:10
Speaker 1: going to reinforce how important that thing is. And then
37:13
Speaker 1: that's going to determine if there's going to be a
37:15
Speaker 1: loop or not. Just like algorithms on social media, if
37:18
Speaker 1: we give attention to it, your social media is like,
37:21
Speaker 1: that's important to this individual, I'm going to feed you
37:22
Speaker 1: more of the same same as the thought. If you
37:24
Speaker 1: want a different thought, instead of adding attention to it
37:27
Speaker 1: by trying to suppress it or by trying to attach
37:29
Speaker 1: meaning to it or creating it, avoid altogether about like
37:32
Speaker 1: don't think, don't think, don't think. You can acknowledge and
37:35
Speaker 1: then you redirect. If I wanted to change my algorithm
37:38
Speaker 1: on social media, I would acknowledge like, yeah, cool, this
37:40
Speaker 1: is kind of not what I want to say anymore.
37:42
Speaker 1: So I will like say not interested, not whatever, and
37:45
Speaker 1: then I would search other things that I'd be interested in.
37:47
Speaker 1: I wouldn't be like no, no, no, no, no, don't
37:49
Speaker 1: don't don't. I would actually actively do something to change it.
37:52
Speaker 1: And obviously it's a terrible analogy. Social media versus the brain.
37:54
Speaker 1: But just to put it very very broadly, energy goes,
37:58
Speaker 1: where energy flows is the saying where attention goes. So
38:02
Speaker 1: that is all. Also the research if you want to
38:06
Speaker 1: check it out Daniel Wegner, nineteen eighty seven White Bear
38:09
Speaker 1: Suppression experiment. That's a good one. And then there's also
38:16
Speaker 1: if you want to look into more work on OCD
38:19
Speaker 1: Salkovski's nineteen eighty five cognitive Model of OSAD, look that
38:24
Speaker 1: up and there should be some articles that come up
38:26
Speaker 1: that are quite interesting on that. So awesome, that is
38:30
Speaker 1: the episode of today. I hope you enjoyed that. I
38:32
Speaker 1: hope you got something out of it. I hope it
38:35
Speaker 1: talked you down off the ledge of your own intrusive
38:38
Speaker 1: thoughts and made you feel a whole lot more comfortable
38:40
Speaker 1: because it doesn't mean anything about deep your deep desires,
38:43
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that you're morbid or violent or horrible or
38:46
Speaker 1: you really want to do these things. It's just your
38:49
Speaker 1: brain's threat detection system that should be kind of going
38:53
Speaker 1: unoticed and sometimes it comes into your conscious awareness. That
38:56
Speaker 1: is all it is. Thank you so much for listening
38:58
Speaker 1: to today's episode. As always, remember be kind to yourself,
39:02
Speaker 1: be kind to your brain. Don't take shit from anyone,
39:04
Speaker 1: and especially don't take shit from yourself. Duncan