Does anything sap energy more than a brain that won’t stop thinking? That endless stream of thoughts that trigger other thoughts which trigger other thoughts….especially last thing at night. If there is one thing that separates those who live a meaningful and relatively happy life from others, it’s being in control of what and how we think, rather than us being controlled by an endless stream of uncontrollable thoughts. Overthinking is not only draining, it stops us focusing on what really matters. We often let the little things get in the way of the big things. It affects more intelligent people generally because they tend to over-analyse. It also seems that women generally tend to be more prone to overthink than men. For those with an interest in neuroscience, overthinking — also known as rumination — is a sign of an overactive amygdala, which evolved to help us be alert to danger (lacking as we do sharp claws and long canines!) It’s a self-preservation mechanism that puts us on high alert to threats. Having grabbed our attention, we need to diminish our perception of the threat. Because negative feelings are much stronger than positive ones, they’re more resistant because, unless we make an effort to stop them, negative thoughts can feed each other. And much of what goes on inside our heads is wired to operate the way it does. Anxiety almost always precedes panic and persistent worry may lead to a feeling of helplessness, which then disempowers us. During the day it’s relatively easy to turn to a distraction to get your mind off things, such as taking a walk, listening to music, or watching funny clips on YouTube. But when overthinking happens at night — as it often does — distractions aren’t always available. That doesn’t stop you getting up, of course, and a soothing caffeine drink often helps. The following tips may help minimise the problem. Many of these are proven to work if they are practised regularly. It’s not feasible to try and change long-established behaviour overnight. 1. Step back and see the bigger picture. When we’re anxious we zoom into a problem by focusing intently we get tunnel vision. So we lose the wider perspective. Postponing the issue until tomorrow may help, particularly we step back: “I have a problem that needs to be sorted; I’ll sort it tomorrow after breakfast.” This has the added advantage of taking you yourself out of the problem and rescheduling it. You can also take a longer term view: will this problem really matter next week/next month/in five years? This can help to remove the urgency and helps widen perspective. 2. Some things are under your control, and somethings aren’t. Don’t get anxious about what you can’t change. Recognise this, and we remove so many potential sources of stress. It's a good way to assess things throughout the day. Ask yourself what is under your control and what’s not. And, of course, it it IS under your control then you can do something about it. If it's NOT under your control, you can't -- no matter how much you WANT to. 3. The Past has gone and the future hasn't happened yet, so stay focused on now. That really is all we have. If the pain of the past is in the present, it’s probably you keeping it there. Because overthinking often keeps the pain of the past in the present, it's often useful to spend a few minutes at bed time just reviewing things that were enjoyable in the day, and things for which you were grateful. This helps to calm the mind and focus on positive things, 4. Don’t worry about what sort of day it’s going to be. Just decide you’re going to have a great day and you’ve set the tone which will help you decide what to focus on and what to ignore. 5. If it needs doing, then just do it. Don’t think about it beforehand: remember the advice from Nike and Just Do It and then decide how you feel. If that’s hard -- and inertia can hold us back --pick on something simple to do, and do that, and get in the habit of finding things you can you do. Become a person of action. 6. STOP! Do you, or your parents, remember yelling, “Stop! Just Stop, I don’t care who started it…I’ve just about had enough!!” ? That works for us too. Try it! 7. What’s the worst that can happen? How many times do we imagine a deluge of angst and misery that never .... actually appears? Michel Montaigne famously said. "My life has been full of misfortune, most of which never ever happened." 8. Ensure you prepare for sleep. Put your devices away at least 30 minutes before bedtime. A 20 minute spell of light reading is better than vegging in front of the TV. Your bedroom should be used only for two things, and one of those is sleep! Try to get up at the same time each morning. These will not of themselves stop you overthinking overnight, but when practised they are proven techniques for minimising rumination.

A question for you. What separates those living happy lives from everyone else? Invariably it’s simply clarity. They’re clear on what life is generally all about, and they’re also clear how they fit in. They’re not perfectionists — getting 80% is pretty good for most assessments. But they have a good idea. OK — that’s them — we all know there are people happy with their lot in life. What would you settle for? Just a 50% improvement? You may well be happier if things were 25% better. So what would you score the quality of your life — on a scale from 1 to 10? Yes, some might say -1. And even though the score you give yourself is low, you’re not stupid. You’re not going to change from -1 to 5/10 overnight. But you do know one thing. You’re not happy with your current score! So how can things improve? It’s not as though you haven’t tried. You know you tried so many times to get fit, lose weight, manage personal finances better, find a loving relationship — and everything just fell apart. That’s because we get into the habit of doing what we’ve always done. Doing what we've always done is guaranteed we get what we always got. If you do know what didn’t work before … why not make that your starting point? You know you want changes in your life. And if that change is to bring about a better quality of life, it has to be a change that lasts. Everyone who wants to lose weight can lose weight. Keeping it off is the key. Anyone who wants to be more secure financially can save some money. But can they do that consistently? So how to make that new start? One of the best ways to start to bring about a change for the better is to start by asking a better question. If you’re not happy with your life, why is that? If you lost something or someone, what do you take from that? If you’re overwhelmed, what can you do to get clarity? If you are fearful, how can you stop your fears paralysing you? If you’re worried that you worry and that you worry because you can’t stop worrying, how can you stop worry getting in the way of being happier? Once you start asking questions, you start to get answers. But here’s the thing.... If the question is not a great question, the answer won't be all that good. For example…“Why can’t I lose weight??” might elicit the answer from your inner critic: “Because you’re a slob who eats junk food!” It’s not a great answer, but it’s an ANSWER. It’s a starting point. You want to improve the quality of your life? Well, why not begin by trying to get a better quality question? Instead of “Why am I always so fat?” why not ask “how could I lose weight AND enjoy eating more healthily??” Ask a better question, and what happens? You get a much more inspirational answer! And, with a better answer, that reveals a better path to follow. Questions produce clarity. Clearly! So ask a question. But if you don’t like the answer, aim for a better question. Of course, it takes practice. But so does the quality of life. What’s the better question you could ask…?

One of the greatest ironies currently perplexing us is that we’re drowning in a sea of information, and yet we lack the answer to what it takes to be happy and feel fulfilled. Of course, people’s starting points vary. Some are seriously fed up, feeling down all the time, and would give anything to just feel OK. Others are OK and want to feel better than OK. Yet others often feel great but occasionally blip when their mood drops. Most of us can probably identify with all three. And if you have ever read anything about people in the past, you’ll know only too well that the quest for happiness has exercised us for much of human history. Thinking about the irony that all our accumulated knowledge doesn’t seem to have done us much good when it comes to determining what is needed for a sustained, happy life, it’s also probably not a coincidence that when you look at all the different branches of medicine, a fantastic set of advances have been achieved: an end to many infectious diseases, advances in surgical techniques, more effective cancer treatments, improved diagnoses, and many others have all contributed to a healthier, longer-lived population (in the western world anyway). And given the advances in neuroscience, and greater understanding of what goes inside our heads and which bits of the brain are responsible for emotions and feelings, there is an anomaly. Our mental health is declining. Not improving. And of the branches of medicine, which one is least at the forefront. Psychiatry. I have no doubt whatever that when it comes to dealing with the most severe of psychoses and other seriously debilitating mental disorders, psychiatrists are best places to help. But what about more widespread states of mind, like low mood and unhappiness? Perhaps there is no need to look to a medical professional for a ‘cure’. Particularly as the most common form of treatment is to prescribe drugs. And sometimes those drugs work, and sometimes they don’t. What happened in the past when our ancestors lacked antidepressants? Some sought help from the ‘apothecary’, or herbalist, or shaman, or physician. Others recognised that unhappiness often occurred as a result of how we think. Westerners are generally aware that Buddhists seem to have a way of calming the mind, but images of Buddhism may also invoke shaven heads, saffron robes, and years of meditation. That said, there is a growing awareness of mindfulness, and its benefits are becoming more widespread. We’ll look at why below. Also raising growing interest is a philosophy that first came into being over 2,000 years ago, before being eclipsed by other philosophies: Stoicism. Although it is often stereotyped and mischaracterised as remaining aloof and dismissing all emotion, Stoicism actually has much in common with Buddhism; both fit well with what we know about how to live happier lives, and the benefits of both are being validated by modern science. Not only that, adopting core principles often brings about happier lives. Perhaps these approaches need to be looked at more closely, given their extensive heritage, scientific validity and efficacy? I strongly believe that understanding that happiness begins when we accept life is what it is, rather than trying to impose our wants and desires on life. This is why I believe that life should be the therapist, not some counsellor or psychotherapist we visit weekly to whom we look for ‘the cure’ or ‘the answer’. Let’s look at a few examples. We’re in busy traffic, complaining about the traffic. We seem to forget that we only complain about the traffic when we’re in a hurry AND we are in traffic, but seem oblivious that we are also contributing to the problem of busy roads. We get frustrated. We get annoyed with drivers in front who dawdle, and some of us honk their horns if the car in front hasn’t started to move within 0.1 seconds of the traffic light turning green. We groan at the queues ahead, at long lines of stationary traffic, and at selfish drivers who won’t give way to allow traffic in, while refusing to accord the same courtesy when WE are on the main road and refuse to yield to joining traffic. We may even note a bicycle moving up on our inside, and we drift in front of it to hold it up, even though we can’t make any forward progress. We have animated one-sided rants and tirades at other drivers, yet seem oblivious to the simple fact that they can’t hear us. We point aggressively at other drivers using their mobile phones instead of concentrating on making maximum progress, forgetting that 30 seconds ago we were on our phone to say that we’d been held up in traffic and would likely be late. We fume and our anger turns to incandescent rage... Or you’re at the airport and your flight is delayed. It’s also a full flight, there seem to more than a few crying babies and grizzling children, everyone has enough bulky bags to clothe a city, and they’re all ahead of you. It’s a hot day and it seems antiperspirants are a thing of the past... My pet version of hell is the supermarket on Christmas eve. You’ve been sent out to buy a single key ingredient, without which the family festivities will be doomed. You join the queues to the checkout. All the tills are in use and the queues stretch halfway down each aisle. Every customer seems to have two trolleys, each of which is groaning under the massive weight of a huge load of groceries and bottles, and every other customer has three uncontrolled young children incessantly picking items off the shelves to play with them. It looks as though it’s the first day on the job for most of the staff on the checkouts, and that the barcode scanners aren’t working because they’re scanning each item ten or twenty times before holding up the item while yelling, “how much are these….????” Most of us can probably identify with each of these, and similar situations. We have probably all been angry, or at least impatient and frustrated in situations like these. But a moment’s reflection -- particularly now, when far removed from the actual situations -- reveals that being angry, agitated, or anxious is a choice. That may seem hard to ‘get’ but think about it for a moment. Who MADE you angry, or anxious, or agitated? ‘The situation’ I hear you say. Really? Or is it the case that YOU made you angry, agitated and anxious. You feel this SHOULD NOT BE HAPPENING TO YOU. Sometimes you ask,”why does this ALWAYS happen to me when I am in a hurry?”, and, “God really hates me…” What we are really accepting here is our view that this SHOULD NOT BE HAPPENING, and it is this which is making us agitated, angry and anxious. We are getting angry because we think this SHOULD NOT BE HAPPENING. Think about that for a moment. What we are reacting to is our view of the situation. If pressed, we would agree that we are helpless to change the situation around us: I suspect more than a few of us have prayed for divine help to de-materialise the line of traffic in front of us. Like that really might happen! So what is the answer? Simple. Use our intelligence to recognise that things are as they are, and NOT as we wish them to be. Yes, it may be ‘uncomfortable’ to accept that things are what they are. But the benefit of acceptance, rather than irrational anger, is clear: you are not going to have the same uncomfortable reaction than holding resolutely onto YOUR belief that it SHOULD NOT be happening! So what has happened here? Simply that we have identified we’ve been unrealistic in our assessment, and it is THAT which has taken priority. Persistent worriers do this a lot; they imagine the worst possible outcome and then convince themselves that is what WILL HAPPEN. And they then get worked up and worried about what they imagine is going to happen. It’s our beliefs and interpretations that are the problem, not the situation itself. Can we change the traffic? Supermarket queues? The future? Identifying what we can change and what we cannot change is also important. It seems glib to say that we shouldn’t worry about things we cannot change. But thinking about that for a moment should show that getting worked up about things beyond our control is getting worked up and anxious about a belief we hold. So let’s revisit the airport lounge. You can’t change the fact that your flight is delayed and that that the plane you’re going to board is still in the air, flying towards the airport. Notice some of the most agitated passengers, subtly jostling for an inch here and closing off a gap there as they try to edge forward. You all hold boarding cards with seat assignments, but there is a perception that it’s a race to board the aircraft. So what are you going to do? Join the edge-inexorably-forward the moment a 5mm gap appears? Gaze with hate-filled eyes at the passengers holding priority boarding passes? There is an announcement: the flight will board in 30 minutes. Many will groan but maintain their perceived advantage over the other five passengers on either side of them who are also psyched up to edge forward the moment a careless gap appears. What are you going to do? Those who wander back to the duty-free shop or the bar will be able to enjoy the opportunity to shop, or relax. And accept things as they are, and not what we believe them to be. None of the passengers can board the plane! But beliefs about that situation vary considerably. Some will get anxious, frustrated and agitated. Others relax and head for the bar. Same situation: differing reactions. What does this teach us? It’s not what happens. It’s our interpretation that matters. Life is what it is. What we make of that is a judgment, and that judgement is ours to control. Even if we’ve got out of the habit of thinking we can. Buddhists and Stoics would both agree that acceptance of things as they are leads to a more tranquil state of mind, in a way that road rage and agitated impatience don't.

I know I am unique. Maybe I’m the only person in the world who (a) loves Monday, or (b) accepts that Mondays are capable of being loved. Why is Monday despised? What do we have against Mondays, except that they’re a reminder that the weekend is over, and it’s the start of the working week? And yes, some people dread going to work. But why loathe an entire day … that recurs each and every week…? What do the ‘Monday Blues’ tell us? Is there a lesson here somewhere? Maybe it tells us something about habitual attitudes. And as we all know, happiness is transient: it’s ephemeral and we love it when it arrives. But it doesn’t stay with us permanently. It goes. But not for ever, though. You don’t need me to tell you that life comprises ups and downs. That’s partly what makes the weekend great – it doesn’t last forever; so we appreciate it while we can. Ok, we had a great weekend! Well, here’s the good news: we get another one in a few days. That’s five days in which to look back on great times AND anticipate, or maybe even plan, the upcoming weekend-when-you-can-do-it-all-again! Or maybe last weekend wasn’t all that great. Well, Monday marks the start of a period of five days in which you can reflect on what wasn’t enjoyable, and plan what you can do to make the next weekend especially enjoyable. That’s the weekend sorted. Now, what about Mondays? Cue Boomtown Rats. Well, they didn’t ‘hate’ Mondays, they just didn’t like Mondays. Ask 1,000 people why they don’t like Mondays, and most will say ‘it’s the start of the working week.’ If we have been harbouring a hatred of Mondays for most of our adult life, what is it about the odious nature of Mondays? Is there something particularly loathsome about Mondayness? Why do we abhor Mondays? Think back to the worst experiences of your life; did they always occur on a Monday? Can you remember a particularly detestable Monday? Were your previous Mondays always devoid of delight, gleeful mirth and merriment? Might it just be that how we think of Mondays it’s just … a habit? A habit that has become hard-wired in our thinking, and enshrined in our psyche? Now THAT is a thought to consider. We tend to fall into one of two groups. We are either (a) the generally content and mostly happy, or (b) the downcast, dejected and disconsolate. What separates us is our perspective. If our Monday mindset has always been a negative one, it represents a super opportunity to challenge our thinking. Why not rethink miserable Monday? Maybe Monday is not so bad after all, but in our habitual haste to put on the same pair of gloomy perspective specs we may simply overlook things to be grateful for. For example: knowing we’re being remunerated for what we do; being with colleagues we enjoy working with; getting to grips with a challenging problem that may be hard work, but which we know will generate a sense of achievement when it’s completed. Of course, not everyone enjoys their job. But that’s still a great opportunity to think what we DO want, rather than descend into our recurrent melancholic malaise. We don’t HAVE to remain stuck knowing what we don’t want; Mondays are a great incentive to think more deeply about what is missing in our lives, and what would be worth working toward. We can choose to have our mood plummet at the start of every week, or we instead we can choose to embrace this weekly opportunity to see Mondays differently to everyone else. If others prefer to adopt a low mood – and it is a personal choice – maybe they have also chosen not to look for things for which they can be grateful. Maybe they just got into a gloomy habit. But why not use Mondays as a great opportunity to look for the things we previously overlooked in the murky gloom of despondency? Why not get into the habit at this point in the week to regard it as an occasion to look more closely for opportunities to relish and cherish? After all, isn’t personal growth really all about learning to make the best of everything? Every day and in every way! Even on Mondays? Especially on Mondays!

Originally appearing in LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/existential-angst-anyone-john-castleford/. 2 May 2019 Life is hard; then you die. That was my mantra for many years: " yes, life is tough — deal with it !" And sometimes we do, and sometimes it gets the better of us. I was thinking a lot about this recently, especially how we cope when life becomes unbearable. Which got me wondering who is better off? Someone who is having a generally OK/good-ish life and who recognises that adversity will strike now and again —so is prepared for it when it happens? Or someone who has suffered greatly, but who cames out on top and now knows only too well what adversity looks like and what needed to be done? Life today seems so full of stress and pressure. Those who are buckling under the real pressures of life can be forgiven for not adopting the carefree arrogance of the self-help gurus preaching acceptance of what life throws our way. And it's by no means rare for us to see ourselves as victims. “ S/he made me feel bad ”, and " Why is life always so cruel? Why is this always happening to me?” "It’s just not fair!" It’s so easy to blame others for how we feel. And in the case of abusive parents or partners, that’s understandable, particularly when trust is broken or the abuse is prolonged. No-one can deny that life can indeed be hard and existence painful. But the reality is that life is what it is. It’s not fair and it’s not unfair. It is what it is. We often can’t control what others say or do, even though we wish we could, and often forget that we can’t. It’s so easy to lose sight of who we are, and the person who was care-free and getting high on life one moment can so easily find themselves deflated and hurt. When that happens it’s natural to depend on for support. But it may not take much for our self-confidence to diminish — and then we risk becoming dependent on others for assurance and a sense of our self-worth. And when we’re low (or even when we’re not) it’s inevitable that we compare ourselves with others. As Annie Lamott observed, we’re all a bit mixed up on the insides, but we’re always comparing ourselves to people’s outsides; when our self-esteem is low it’s so easy to feel inadequate in comparison to the picture our social media friends paint of their ‘perfect’ lives. We see youngsters checking their phones a hundred times a day (or more). More often than not they are constantly seeking feedback, especially reassurances, in the form of ‘likes’ for what they post on social media. Not only that, but they are also checking they’re not missing out from what their friends are doing, and FOMO — fear of missing out — is becoming increasingly prevalent. It can be so easy to allow our image of ourselves to degrade in comparison to others, and we can so easily feel inadequate. And then our sense of self-pity changes, and we transform from feeling victimised to becoming a victim. We all get self-absorbed, but when we become a victim we overthink, lose perspective, feel even more helpless, and soon we’re in the downward spiral. And we even feel entitled to feel this way. 2,000 years ago Marcus Aurelius, the Roman emperor and philosopher, offered some superb advice: " if we chose not to be harmed, we won’t be." That seems so easy to say, but it’s absolutely true: so much of how we feel reflects the reject beliefs we have adopted. So if we change our focus and decide we've not been harmed, we haven’t been. We usually cannot control what others do or say. But we can control our judgement of what others say or do. If we choose to. Those who have come round to this perspective confirm how effective this mind-change can be. So, although it doesn’t seem like it, it is a choice whether or not to become a victim. As Eleanor Roosevelt reminds us: No-one can make us feel inferior without our consent. There’s always someone who doesn’t appreciate your good qualities. Don’t let it be you.