Stop brooding and the carousel of thoughts: 10 effective anti-stress strategies [+ checklist]

Stress and pressure are in ours Society ubiquitous. It is all the more surprising for many to realize that it is often homemade - and that everyone can do something about it themselves. An effective remedy: stop the carousel of thoughts.

Defenseless against stress and excessive demands?

An ever-increasing proportion of the working population feels downright defenseless when it comes to professional stress and pressure. Between the demands of bosses, colleagues and privacy almost worn out, many have lost a sense of self-efficacy.

As a result, many professionals think about problems around the clock, even brooding over them. At the same time, it is completely normal to worry and worry about important things from time to time: Will the project be completed on time? Will the important Meeting lead to the result? Is my Workplace for sure?

When productive thinking becomes brooding

However, if you do not think productively, but rather ponderlessly turns in a circle or if you are constantly worried about something that you cannot change anyway, thinking becomes an end in itself.

Those affected can then simply no longer stop to brood. This can even lead to what is known as thinkaholism, which can lead to problems such as increased mental stress and sleep disorders; a real vicious circle begins. In my private life, I know a person who was so stressed by a change of location that they couldn't stop thinking negatively. It is precisely in such cases that the following tips come into play.

Stop the carousel of thoughts - but how?

Because when in doubt, there are very simple ones Solutionsto stop the merry-go-round of thoughts – with simple, effective Strategieswho can support us. First of all, it is about identifying your own stressors and understanding what exactly is stressing us. Because everyone is different and stressed by different things. Everyone has to find out for themselves how they can best cope with their individual stress. It helps to get the following checklist to go through once:

• What if ... ”,“ Couldn't have… ”,“ Could I… ”- do many of your thoughts start with such sentences?
• Do you tend to worry excessively about things but not change anything?
• Rolling a thought from right to left for hours, not being able to stop is not that strange to you?
• What are the mechanisms behind your problem?
• Why do you stress yourself with your thoughts?
• What are the functions that stress does for you?
• And which thought patterns do you follow that even increase the stress - on different levels such as physically, emotionally, mentally and in behavior?

Mindfulness walks against mental stress

In Füssen I interviewed the health educator Claudia Ziegler, who also regularly conducts mindfulness walks against mental stress and stress with spa patients. Her approach to turning off the mind merry-go-round is a relatively simple one Method:

30 minutes of moderate exercise in the fresh air every evening, eg a walk. This increases the blood flow to the body, moves the muscles and reduces adrenaline. And you get, I say from my own experience, very fast notice how the stress is reduced and things that previously seemed incredibly stressful suddenly leave you relatively cold.

10 tips for reducing stress through exercise and mindfulness

In addition, everyone can do a lot themselves during the walk to reduce their personal stress level clear to reduce, as I have found in myself. 10 tips:

1. Consciously perceive nature what is on the side of the path - especially things that you come across again and again.
2. Brainwalk: Doing small brain teasers like guessing games that fit the environment
3. Awareness in nature: what is striking, what is different? It's about stopping the brooding.
4. Attention to the little things: consciously doing things on the way that give me pleasure
5. This creates positive amplifiers that signal: here I am on the right path, here I am right in what I do.
6. Use the walk as an introduction to a regular evening ritual that promotes healthy sleep.
7. Focus on the essentials: colors, animals, plants along the way. This distracts from brooding.
8. Choose a motto to start with and then consciously follow it, thereby activating perception and senses.
9. Less is more, whether with food, wine or health-promoting measures: small stimuli ignite vitality, medium stimuli strengthen them, large stimuli weaken them.
10. Living in the here and now, not in the past, not in the future. What if thoughts should be turned off. You should only take steps when they are due and not drive yourself crazy beforehand.

Conclusion: The decisive factor is increased self-efficacy

The decisive factor for me with this method is that it increases self-efficacy with simple means. It is not a question of me doing everything that day and exactly fulfilling the plan that I have set out to do. But it is good what you have achieved. If you manage to make this clear to yourself, you can undo the feeling of being at risk.

The AHA experience with Ziegler's method only came after the walk for me: A greater sense of self-efficacy. The reason: once you realize that you are under stress Control is no longer overwhelmed by the feeling of powerlessness and can also deal better with "stressful" situations. It's all about stress in the end sustained to reduce – and also Prävention for the Future to operate.

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