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