How do I stop thinking?

[AndyC]

I came here because INTPs are renowned for their ability to think with a perpetual motion.
Because my thoughts cannot be sequenced linearly, I will take the liberty of creating a small list of my troubles as follows:
Boredom...
The onslaught of depressive or dispassionate thought.
The onslaught of thought.
The sporadic nature of thought and its abundance in complex analogies.
The abilities that coincide and create separate problems.
Indecisiveness with EVERYTHING

There are more, but it isn't necessary to list any more. Obviously there are other things going on which contribute, but it would still be appreciated if you could share your experiences.

 

[Black Rose]

any action is a breaking of symmetry

inspect the volume of the head and body

look at the web

where does it break symmetry

clue: boundaries

 

[onesteptwostep]

Well to start, an agile projectile through the temple is guaranteed to put to rest any thought.

 

[Turnevies]

Have you tried alcohol?

 

[Nebulous]

Mindfulness meditation is gold.
Look into it.

 

[PumpkinHead]

Doing something slows down my thoughts. Anything that forces you to interact with the physical world. It forces my focus on things.

 

[beautifulies]

As someone else stated, mindfulness meditation. Meditation, in general, has been noted as an effective tool to increase focus.

As for indecisiveness, there are a couple reasons to pinpoint for its manifestation-- The first being not knowing the self well enough in regards to what you want, and the second that there is not enough information to reach a conclusion. Once identification of the issue has been made, a plan of attack to address concerns would naturally lead towards a conclusion. Nonetheless, a variable of pressure is limited time, and increased stress can lead to indecisiveness, especially if it spurs procrastination.

 

[Patch]

Sex's not bad either, unless you are the type who keeps pondering the nature of dark matter while thrusting.

 

[YoungGuns]

Have you tried alcohol?

Honestly, this worked for me last week better than it ever has. I was just drinking while watching a movie with my fiance. My mind shut off so I could enjoy the simple movie. It feels like a reset, honestly.

I seldomly drink and hate the taste of alcohol, though. Your results may vary.

 

[AndyC]

Honestly, this worked for me last week better than it ever has. I was just drinking while watching a movie with my fiance. My mind shut off so I could enjoy the simple movie. It feels like a reset, honestly.

I seldomly drink and hate the taste of alcohol, though. Your results may vary.

Yeah, I'm too young for that.

 

[Hadoblado]

Meditation as previously mentioned.

It trains your mind to adhere more to the will of your central executive, meaning you're more able to focus on what you're doing or what you want to be thinking about, or even think about nothing at all.

Try to know yourself. If you experience anxiety, try to know what causes it. If you have depressive thoughts, try to understand what causes them too.

Identify what thoughts are divergent in nature. What I mean by that is, what thoughts lead to more thoughts? Which ones have a finishing point? A common practice in meditation is focusing on the moment that your breathing inward becomes breathing outward. It takes your attention, but doesn't allow you to go anywhere from there. I use divergent thoughts to give me the pep to get out of bed, and closed ones to get myself back into bed.

I don't recommend alcohol, it can prevent development in the brain. Using it for medicinal purposes also encourages a habit-forming approach, which could be disastrous for your growth. You seem quite clever, it'd be a shame to waste such a brain.

Personally I listen to music. It filters out all the things that would take my attention from what I want to be thinking about. Mostly instrumental or heavy metal, where you can't understand the words which are also a source of distraction.

 

[Urakro]

For no reason, I'll sometimes just balance things on my head because I'm bored. Though it's rare I'll have a problem with uncontrollable thinking, I'm wondering if my boredom-activity would help. It does serve as a distraction, and also forces some focus and concentration. I get a little meditative buzz from the long periods of time I can keep things in balance.

 

[AndyC]

Thanks for all the suggestions guys, the alcohol one seems a little risky though. From what I've gathered, meditation and distractions are the best methods. The only problem is I'm too lazy to do anything like that (which is probably why I think so much), but I guess it's my only option.

 

[Crux_Cheetah]

If you actually want to stop thinking, meditate or sleep.
I'd recommend to just think about something else instead of trying to stop thinking.

 

[317]

I find it really impressive how many INTPs here can meditate.. My mind just won't let it go... unless I'm veryyyyy tired in which case I sleep in the first 5 minutes.

 

[Rixus]

Meditation takes a lot of practice. The first ten minutes it's hard to keep focus; but eventually it all quietens.

 

[Intolerable]

There is no such thing as stop thinking. Rather there is such a thing as changing your train of thought to something else from time to time.

The more invested in a thought you are the more cycles are dedicated to that thought. So it's more difficult to find free cycles to think about something else. This is tunnel vision / the zone in layman's terms. It can be a good thing and a bad thing.

Typically when you're focused on bad things you need to start freeing up cycles for other things. For that to happen you have to convince yourself that one is preferable to another. Easy enough in most cases. Devalue the thought by belittling it, making fun of it and pushing it off (procrastination) usually helps. Once devalued a comparison can be drawn to another thought and that thought will now take more cycles.