How do you calm the chatter in your mind?

It’s always with music. Here is the latest calming influence.

@Fred Settle down buddy – I said calming influence, not terrible emo shit.

If it says My Chemical Romance, don’t click play.

“EVERYONE SHUT UPPPP”

Music is one; as are other sounds like the ocean or purring cats.
Yoga and meditation have been helpful, and I find that swimming laps is meditative, as well.

Whenever you catch yourself indulging in negative self-talk, stop and ask yourself why you are having that thought—is it a bad habit? where did you first hear that message and why has it become integrated into your thought process? getting to the roots of your negativity and debunking the myths will help you change those thoughts.

Learn to meditate. The function of meditation is to calm your thoughts.

@hearkat and PerryDolia – is there a best time of day to meditate? How long?

Honestly, don’t call me crazy, but I make up a face for each negative thought and then in my mind punch the face (in the face). I told you not to call me crazy!!

Ritalin.

@Krazykat: I like to meditate in the morning, when I am physically awake, but not mentally running at full steam. I also like to meditate after yoga… the yoga helps shut your mind out by focusing on the body and breath, and afterward, you feel all wrung-out and loose, which is great for meditating.

Bikram yoga

I use various techniques, such as think about something more pleasant, confront the thought, and follow it all the way through, go for a nice walk, work on my current needlework project, read a book.

I yell at all of the people in there, and if they don’t listen I bash my head onto the wall over and over and over again. Then when I wake up if they’re still not quiet I stab in my ears with Q-tips to kill them. I know I’ve gotten one when blood cones out.

@rebbel – are you serious? Is the chatter a symptom of ADD/ADHD?

@Serendipitous: People with ADD/ADHD have mental chatter, as do people with other mental health concerns, like OCD, ODD, Anxiety, Bipolar, Depression, etc. But also most people have self-talk in their minds that may carry negative messages from childhood or just from being stressed out.

You might want to write in a journal to further explore and “confront” these thoughts (to use @YARNLADY‘s excellent phrasing). And if you do feel overwhelmed, or otherwise concerned about your mental/emotional well-being, consider therapy.

A) Don’t apply effort directly toward quieting the chatter. This is always counterproductive. Just let it be, without resenting it or trying to stifle it.

B) Instead, direct your attention as fully as possible toward the present moment—your current activity, the sounds, sights and smells of your immediate environment. Let these occupy your attention completely. Open your awareness to encompass as much of this time and place as it can.

C) Move your awareness from up in your head to down into your body; absorb its sensations, move attentively, feel the breathing.

Don’t have as a goal to stop the chatter; have as your goal to experience the present moment as fully as you can. Just treat the chatter as you would the noise of a TV going on in the background while you’re doing something very important; you hear it babbling on, but you pay no attention to its content. It can only have power over you if you feed it with your attention.

@Serendipitous Yes, what hearkat said.
I have it.

Unlike @Harp, I have set a goal of stopping negative chatter and self-talk. I’ve had to learned to be nicer to myself.

I work hard on talking back to the negative thoughts. I used to have a lot of it, and I do partially blame depression and ADD. It sounds really cheesy, but if my mind tells me something negative like “could you be a more disgusting fattie?” I re-phrase it in my head as something like “that huge slice of cheesecake was awesome. Tomorrow I’ll make healthier choices.” Or I turn “you’ll never get this paper written, dumbass” into “I have some hard work ahead of me, but I can do it.” I actually have to tell myself to be nice to me. I wouldn’t let a friend talk to me like that, what the hell am I doing talking to me like that? It’s a technique I learned in therapy, and it works pretty well for me.

Also, Prozac.

Travelling usually fills it up with something else that’s at least enjoyable.
A nice chill beach or mountain vacation is the best, just lean back and listen to the sounds around you.

@jeffgoldblumsprivatefacilities My Chemical Romance is not emo, it’s punk/rock :)

Well I drown those voices with music. A little scremo helps. Telling them to shut up does not work. It just makes them louder and they start talking about gossip and you just have to listen.

I sing positive songs.

I smoke pot. It works.

I find that when I’m focused on something intently (normally tv, a game, etc.) there’s no chatter going on

The chatter is useful, just listen to it and make a decision after weighing the alternatives.

Meditation is the only thing I have discovered. It sends a message to my thoughts that I’m serious about stillness. It’s like a bratty child that must be shown who’s the boss.

The voices seem to get along with each other so I can usually tune them out. They hardly give me orders any more.

Good cheap wine, and I go for a drive, blare my music and sing as loud as possible.

Music, xanax, and something to keep my hands busy.

load music and copious quantities of liquor

loud i ment….bah stupid fingers

A lot of good sex usually cancels out any chatter or distractions going on in my mind.

part of this book is about mind chatter

horse sedatives.

Is that possible?

Dancing, making music, yoga, meditating, drawing, painting, reading…

Anything that really absorbs you can calm the chatter. Things having to do with words generally bring up chatter, but it is possible to do them without. It’s probably more difficult that using the other mechanisms.

However, any activity that can not be thought of with words, or where it isn’t useful to use words—pursuing those activities without judgment or without any other purpose in mind other than that activity—has the potential to still your word-thinking mind, and let your non-word-thinking mind take the lead. When the parts of your mind that think without words takes the lead, it appears as if the chatter has stopped. And it has stopped. But that doesn’t mean you aren’t thinking. You are just thinking in a different way. A way that is difficult to “think” about, since, generally, we use words to communicate our thoughts, and words kind of get in the way of doing those other things.

I have a SERIOUS chatter issue. I have pretty bad ADHD, I’ve been on Ritalin, Adderal, Celexa for depression, you name it. I have been to at least 10 therapists in my life and all they’ve really done for me is told me what’s wrong with me (as mentioned above, also including PTSD and anxiety) and gave me meds to hide the symptoms, but they never really helped. The ADHD meds made me want to kill myself and the depression meds made me want to run a lot, but into traffic.

In the end, I’ve found one thing that helps to ease my constant clusterfuck of thoughts running around in my head, weed. Lots and lots of weed and as much music as I can get my hands on. Its tried and true, it literally slows the thoughts down and allows me to sort of “dive in” to them and really think deeply into things. I also don’t want to run into traffic anymore. Yay pot!

Close your eyes and imagine all of the voices shutting up. Now open your eyes.

by caring for others

Wait you here the voices too? I thought they only talked to me..