What are some ways to block out constant negative thinking?

Hi Charlie,

Thank you for posting this question.  You are definitely not alone in this unfortunate circumstance and this will hopefully not only help you, but others struggling as well.  It is great you can come forward and ask for help and admit there is an issue, awareness is a great first step, so I applaud you.  

Overthinking in itself is a struggle, but especially if riddled with negativity.  I'm sure this is consuming and overwhelming and it's good you are making efforts to work through this, but it does take time and consistency to get a healthy pattern going to undo the pattern that has already formulated.  No need to blame yourself, our brains seem pre-wired to look for the bad and sense issues.  

Record your current thought patterns and the tendencies you may have.  We have a very powerful impact on our emotions and our patterns can be unhelpful to us.  But sometimes our thoughts can be helpful to us and they should be realistic, though often we are inaccurate.  We all make errors with our thinking, so not something personal.  Sometimes they are irrational, distorted, or biased and we have to put our thoughts on trial so to speak.  

If you could write your thoughts down (i.e. work will be disappointed in me, I'm a terrible parent, etc) then try to write down the evidence you have against these negative thoughts (i.e. My manager says I'm doing well, I get raises, no write-ups, my kids are happy most of the day and are doing well in school, etc).  This can help a lot if we evaluate our thoughts with reality checks.  

We can go further and break this down even more to combat negative thoughts by recording the 

• Event:
• Thought:
• Emotion:
• Evidence for my thoughts:
• Evidence against my thoughts: 

Then decide if your thought is accurate after putting your thought(s) on trial.  Next, it's best to reformulate your thought to fit the reality.  Example: "I do well at work most days but sometimes I make mistakes, but everyone does, it's just being human."  We acknowledge we all have faults, but we just need to see the reality more clearly.  Hopefully this will help you value yourself more.  Sometimes our thoughts swarm and keep us from living in the present.  Jot down upsetting thoughts that are circling, keep a notebook around and make an entry to later dissect so you can enjoy life or get some good sleep.  Good luck to you!