How to Pull Out of the Mental Spiral
When stressful thoughts and feelings arise, people often report that they spiral, or spiral out.
Have you ever found yourself saying or thinking:
My thoughts get going so fast, I can’t keep up.
My thoughts go ‘round and ‘round but keep coming back to the same thing.
My thoughts get darker and darker, taking me to a bad/dark/scary place.
“My thoughts get going so fast, I can’t keep up.”
Thought patterns like these can activate the sympathetic nervous system triggering dizziness, sweating, chest tightness, or shortness of breath. Or, going the other way, a person may lose contact with their body, get fuzzy, floaty, or feel unreal.
These physiological responses are reactions—not so much to the thoughts themselves—but to the way the thoughts are showing up. The thoughts themselves may be uncomfortable, but alone they’re, well, just thoughts. It’s when we become focussed on them repeating, intensifying, or speeding up that our sympathetic nervous system reacts with a stress response and we feel anxiety. The anxious body response may—in turn—trigger more worried thoughts,… which may cause more body sensations,… and we have a feedback loop. People call it “spiraling.”
This body response may trigger more worried thoughts, which can cause more body sensations, and we have a feedback loop.
Naming this phenomena as “spiraling” is a way to make sense of this process and to give it context in our lives. The name we give it makes it a part of our story and helps us make decisions about how we should feel and what we should do.
Fine! So how do I stop spiraling already?
Before we start coming up with ways to “stop spiraling,” let’s consider that maybe the task to “stop spiraling” is a fool’s errand. I mean, haven’t we tried a lot of things already?
Take a moment to think about all the ways you’ve tried to interrupt the spiral pattern. Talking to yourself? Distractions? Drinking or drugs? Sex? Shopping? Exercise? More…? And what happens? It always comes back, and sometimes worse than before. Let’s consider the possibility that attempting to “stop the spiral” is a wild goose chase.
Let’s consider the possibility that attempting to “stop the spiral” is a wild goose chase.
Our brain tells us the “spiral” story because the racing thought pattern shares qualities of a spiral— or more accurately, how we think about spirals. Here are the associations that my clients often speak of: Spirals are repetitive. Spirals come around the same turn again and again. They lead downward (to somewhere dark). In our culture, spirals come with associations like going down the drain, getting flushed down the toilet, and the wild destruction of tornados or hurricanes. Staring into a spiral pattern drawing makes us uneasy. Spirals are used on TV and in movies to show people “losing their minds” or “going mad.” We’ve chosen the image of “spiral” to represent this thought pattern, but it’s not just a random metaphor. It carries weight. It implies that if we don’t stop this thinking, then we are going to get washed away, destroyed, or go crazy!
Remember, your brain’s #1 job is to keep us safe. And it will try to keep us safe by predicting the worst possible outcome, the scariest possibilities. Everyone’s brain does this. Evolution has proven that imagining the worst possible scenario is an effective way of keeping us alive. The “spiral story” fits that bill. The “spiral story” warns us of impending destruction, ruin, loss, chaos, and madness. Thanks again, Brain!
The “spiral story” warns us of impending destruction, ruin, loss, chaos, and madness.
Yes, with good intentions the brain tells us “the spiral story.” But is it helpful? The pattern of repetitive, aggressive thoughts is already unpleasant. Could calling it “a spiral” be making it worse? Scientists who study language, learning, and the human brain say yes. Relational frame theory, or RFT, suggests that the way our brains make connections through language is instrumental in the way we view the world and ourselves. It’s all about the associations. If the metaphor we use connects our experience to doom and destruction, it makes sense that this thought process will bring us more anxious thoughts and feelings.
‘A rose by any other name’ might smell better.
Would we relate differently to this difficult thought pattern if we used a different story to describe it? Let’s try it as an experiment. Let’s picture these repetitive, unpleasant thoughts in different way. Then we’ll ask ourselves if we notice a shift in the way we relate to them.
What if we thought of thoughts like we think about our breaths? In and out, all day long we’re breathing. Whether we are aware of it or not, we’re always breathing. Sometimes slow & deep, other times quick & shallow, breathes come and go as they will, automatically, with no need for us to anything about them at all. We don’t usually even notice our breath changing. It gets faster as we play, slower as we rest, and the only time we really become aware of our breath is when it’s doing something we find uncomfortable,… like the hiccups.
Ever get a real bad case of hiccups? One that won’t go away no matter what you do? You drink a glass of water, hold your breath, and even stand on your head—maybe all at once! And just when you think they are finally gone,… hicCUP!
What if we looked at these fast-paced and repeating dark thoughts as “thought hiccups.” Just like the hiccups, they come unwanted and unannounced. And just like the hiccups they really annoy the crap out of you. And just like hiccups, we don’t have to do anything about them because they’re a normal function of the body. Diaphragm’s gonna spasm, and Brain’s gonna think awful stuff over and over.
What if we looked at these fast paced, repeating dark thoughts as “thought hiccups.”
The idea here is: your brain is like the rest of the human brains. It’s going amplify things that it thinks are important, and it’s not going to quit until it feels like it’s made a difference. Since that’s the case, let’s not add panic by sounding the tornado siren. Instead, let’s call it the hiccups. Next time your thoughts start repeating and seem to be getting more aggressive or dark, try saying to yourself, “there go my thought hiccups again.” (Or some other less threatening story that you come up with.)
After a few times, see if you notice a shift— even a small one— in the way you’re relating to this really uncomfortable pattern of thoughts. And see if you are a little more able to get on with the business at hand, the important things in your life, even as your thoughts come and go as they will.
Then drop me a line, and let me know how it’s going.
Flatten the spiral. Give it a different shape.
