Twenty-four: Doorways

            A major cause of stress and episodic depression is rumination, the continuous review of negative thoughts. We all need thought suppressants at times like these. It’s best to keep an available collection of methods to reference, and to keep adding to this list. Some methods like problem solving are work intensive. I like mental tricks that can provide a quick fix whenever possible. This is not a disrespect to my mind, nor a cavalier attitude to truly terrible worries. It’s a way to take the edge off the daily stress load.

            How many times do we leave the room for a purpose and forget what we set out to do? This is the ‘doorway effect’, which is not linked with forgetfulness from aging or disease. The scientific take on it is that our short term memory is processing what we are focusing on at the moment. When we walk through a doorway, the memory resets or purges that information to be ready to process new data. This phenomenon is hard-wired into every brain.

            As annoying as this is, I see a practical use for it. Try it as a means to empty your short term memory of distressing thoughts that are happening right then and there. Experiment. Do you need an actual task as well as a ruse to leaving the room? (This may be where the mental ‘trick’ comes in.) Get up from your computer screen, or sofa, or desk with some minor intention. Walk through a doorway. Studies say more doorways is best. And, that when you go back to your starting point it doesn’t help you remember what you forgot to do. Already erased.

 I believe from my own testing that the original negative thoughts are at least weakened if not banished. It’s breaking a train of thought. Your concentration is disturbed. New stimuli are present. It’s a change of scene, always a stress reliever. Dare I say micro vacation?

            To stretch the concept even further, why not take a stab at doing a little Pavlov’s dog training. The dog (Trezor, one of 40 dogs he had!) learned to salivate when Pavlov rang a bell because his dinner was usually served with a bell ringing. Why can’t we train ourselves to look at a picture of a doorway, see the word doorway, or even say it mentally or out loud to accomplish a conditioned response, to drop the thoughts we were engaged in torturing ourselves with?

            In this way we won’t need an actual doorway at all. Which relates to my puzzlement over why it doesn’t work just getting up or walking to another part of a room. I suppose some instinctive view of a portal with walls, an enclosure, entraps our thoughts. We leave them there when we travel outside of them.

            Stress relief is as necessary as food and shelter. In this theme, food for thought and doorways.

As we think, so it shall be.

Happiness

Twenty-three: Rewrite the Past

            The burden of a distressing experience that comes to mind often can be very destructive. A negative memory is often used as the basis of a distorted view of one’s abilities, or what one deserves in life. Review of the details of the event may become so close to reliving the occurrence that the trauma gets to do its damage again and again. But how to put a stop to it?

            Thought stopping, a technique used by therapists, seeks to suppress negative thoughts. However, research finds that thought stopping backfires. Trying to halt the thought causes it to linger in memory and come up later, having a rebound effect. And attempting to restrain your thoughts is very difficult.

            Problem solving, and accepting what you cannot change are two strategies preferred by the psychiatric community. All well and good if there is a possible solution, and of course you can’t erase history. This third method is a lot more creative.

            You can rewrite the event. Recreate what transpired. We’re not talking about denial, or delusion. The event exists as a constant; it cannot be changed or erased. However, another version of it can be constructed to repair, redirect, and redesign the experience. By doing this, you sooth yourself when you review the new construct. To use a metaphor, the original memory is a garment that hangs on the back of your closet door. Every time you glance at it you are confronted with all it implies and represents. The rewrite is like a chiffon overlay that is sewn onto the garment. It shows the first version because it is sheer enough to do so, but it is a newer, better improvement to the first.

            Let’s say your bad experience was in the social arena. Perhaps you ended a relationship badly and have many regrets about the pain both of you felt. Reimagine the scene as a conversation rather than a conflict. Imagine that the decision to part was mutual. See both of you refreshed and strong.

            Another example: what if you struggle with a childhood memory in which you lost a contest of some kind that crushed your spirit. Now that a lot of time has passed, it’s OK to win. See yourself in triumph.

            The past event is translated into what might have been, another possibility. When you think about the new story you’ve made to overlay the old one, you engender different emotions, positive ones that are preferable. Instead of stressing over the reality of what once happened, you achieve calm instead. What can’t be changed can be redirected into softer thoughts.

            I suppose this is a form of distraction, a potent way to handle anxiety. But also this is especially interesting because it is a method distinctively different from the gold standard: use of logic to rule difficult emotion. Where logic is powerful, a rewrite is playful.

            Instead of thought stopping it is thought control, not what you should have done, but what you could have. It is active thought redirection: you have helped yourself.

As you think, so it shall be.

Happiness