Shut Off the 'Thought Washing Machine': 5 Ways to Find Peace
On certain nights, I either ruminate over pessimistic nihilism or some stupid thing I did X years ago, that I literally didn’t care or made to be that important until this very night.
In a podcast, Dr. Julie Smith describes this overthinking during stress and anxiety. It feels like nonsense thoughts, but your nervous system is just stuck “on.” She coins it the "Thought Washing Machine," which I'll abbreviate as "TWM." This is a perfect imagery of what it feels like. My mind will hit every wall of my skull to try and find some thought to wash around and perpetuate that anxiety. It almost feels like self-flagellation.
After having to deal with these cases, here is what I have found doing one or a combination of these often help.
1. Name It, Don't Argue With It
This technique is called affective labelling, and the goal is to process the emotion rather than letting it fester.
In Feel Good Productivity, Ali Abdaal notes that labelling emotions:
"increases our self-awareness... [and] reduces our rumination. Cyclical thoughts about our fears can make us even more convinced the fear is justified. When we label our emotions, we become better able to process and release them – and so escape the cyclical thoughts that make us put things off."
To put it in my own words, labelling is a way of actually processing the emotion rather than letting it rot us from the inside out. You can just say or describe it out loud, on paper, or in your head by saying something like, "I think that feeling I have is anxiety, the feeling is coming from the pit of my stomach and extending to the left side of my chest."
In the book What Color is Your Parachute, Richard N. Bolles also shares a powerful tip:
When you are feeling anxious, for example, instead of berating yourself or fighting your feelings of anxiety, try a suggestion from Dr. Chris Germer... Tell yourself, “Just afraid.” Maybe shrug your shoulders when you say this, to emphasize, “No big deal.” Because that’s what anxiety is: fear."
Brush it off; it's not worth more than the label.
2. Decide Between Having Your Thoughts and Having Your Peace
In The Almanack of Naval Ravikant, Naval talks about how he combats anxiety:
“I don’t try and fight it, I just notice I’m anxious because of all these thoughts. I try to figure out, ‘Would I rather be having this thought right now, or would I rather have my peace?’ Because as long as I have my thoughts, I can’t have my peace."
Use that as a tiny fork in the road when you notice rumination. If you choose peace, gently switch attention to something neutral (breath, body, sounds). Actually, this entire technique can be summarized as simply "practice mindfulness."
3. Give Your Brain a Different Job: Breathing
There are several ways to do this, and you'll probably have to pick the one that works best for you.
One of the ways is through a method mentioned in The 3 Alarms by Eric Partaker:
[...] take three [deep] breaths to relax. Then take three breaths to let go of the past, and another three to let go of the future. Lastly, take three breaths to remind yourself how easy it is to take a vacation in the present.
The second method more or less circles back to using breathing in a mindfulness kind of way as mentioned in the previous point:
"Relax. Use progressive muscle relaxation exercises, deep breathing, or simply count sheep. By concentrating on such efforts, you block troublesome thoughts, which can keep you awake." (Nick Hall PhD, I Know What to Do So Why Don't I Do It?)
The third, and probably most common version you've probably heard is: Inhale through nose 4 seconds, exhale through mouth 6–8 seconds.
The slowness and chest expansion and contraction itself probably gives some sensation of catharsis from the otherwise heart-wrenching feeling of anxiety, kind of like taking off tight shoes after a long day. You can literally find hundreds of variations, so test-drive whatever until you find something that works.
4. Stop Using Bed as a Worry Office (Sleep Hygiene)
In Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams, Matthew Walker mentions a few critical points.
The first one is about the obvious methods:
The obvious methods involve reducing caffeine and alcohol intake, removing screen technology from the bedroom, and having a cool bedroom. In addition, patients must (1) establish a regular bedtime and wake-up time, even on weekends, (2) go to bed only when sleepy... (3) never lie awake in bed for a significant time period; rather, get out of bed and do something quiet and relaxing until the urge to sleep returns... (5) reduce anxiety-provoking thoughts and worries by learning to mentally decelerate before bed, and (6) remove visible clockfaces from view in the bedroom, preventing clock-watching anxiety at night.
The second one is about sunlight exposure at appropriate times and for the appropriate lengths of time:
"Have the right sunlight exposure. Daylight is key to regulating daily sleep patterns. Try to get outside in natural sunlight for at least thirty minutes each day. If possible, wake up with the sun or use very bright lights in the morning."
Don't lie awake for a significant period. Get up and do something that eases you into sleep, because the anxiety induced from forcing yourself to sleep is counterproductive.
5. Schedule Worry and Offload Your Day
Nick Hall suggests setting aside “worry time” before bed outside the bedroom so worry doesn’t get conditioned to your bed, i.e., schedule your worrying.
"Worry... Set aside time to worry before bedtime and get it out of your system. And don’t do your worrying in bed or in your favorite chair or else they may acquire the ability to trigger worrying, just as Pavlov’s bell triggered salivation in dogs."
It's not that we should ignore the emotions, it's that we should let them run their course as we observe them and then externalize them.
Austin Kleon, from the book Keep Going, offers this final act of self-kindness:
"When the sun goes down and you look back on the day, go easy on yourself. A little self-forgiveness goes a long way. Before you go to bed, make a list of anything you did accomplish, and write down a list of what you want to get done tomorrow. Then forget about it. Hit the pillow with a clear mind. Let your subconscious work on stuff while you’re sleeping."
The act of externalizing the thoughts onto paper to offload the pressure is the main theme here.
🌟 Final Thought: Choose Your Peace
You now have a toolkit for tackling the "Thought Washing Machine," ranging from the simple act of affective labeling to the behavioral changes of worry scheduling. Remember the key insight from Naval Ravikant: you always have a choice between having your anxious thoughts and choosing your peace. Be gentle with yourself, externalize thoughts, and design your way towards a calm, restorative sleep.
Check out my related post below:
Soroush Torkian
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