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Defuse Thoughts & Live Well
00:02:23 Action and Commitment Therapy (or ACT)
00:04:50 A study in the journal Behaviour Change
00:13:53 What ACT offers here is well supported.
Stop Thinking About It: Why Your Brain Won’t Shut Up – And How To Finally Quiet It (The Path to Calm Book 25)
By Nick Trenton
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GRZB3657
Your mind won’t stop spinning. Conversations replay. Tiny problems feel enormous. And no matter how hard you try to “think your way out,” the mental noise only gets louder.
Stop Thinking About It is a practical guide to escaping the exhausting loop of overanalysis, worry, and mental rumination. Instead of fighting your thoughts or trying to force positivity, this book shows you how to step out of the cycle entirely.
Overthinking isn’t a personality trait. It’s a pattern. And like any pattern, it can be retrained.
Drawing on proven psychological tools and behavioral strategies, this book helps you calm the anxious brain, rethink uncertainty, and build healthier mental habits so your mind finally works for you instead of against you.
Inside you’ll learn how to:
• Dial down the anxious brain and stop spiraling into worst-case scenarios
• Let go of the need to control everything and become more comfortable with uncertainty
• Rewrite the stories your mind tells you when it automatically assumes the worst
• Defuse from intrusive thoughts instead of arguing with them all day
• Switch your thinking style from reactive rumination to grounded clarity
• Use written exposure and CBT techniques to retrain how your brain handles worry
You’ll also discover why trying to “fix” anxiety often makes it worse, and how acceptance, mindfulness, and smarter thinking patterns can dramatically reduce mental noise.
This book isn’t about becoming perfectly calm or eliminating thoughts entirely. That’s impossible.
Instead, you’ll learn how to change your relationship with your thoughts so they stop controlling your mood, decisions, and energy.
Because the goal isn’t to think more.
It’s to finally think less about the things that don’t matter.
If you’re tired of mental loops, second-guessing, and worrying about everything, Stop Thinking About It will show you how to quiet the noise and reclaim your focus, clarity, and peace of mind.
Transcript
There's a belief that runs through almost every anxiety-related struggle in the clinical literature, the belief that you have to get your thinking under control before you can really live your life.
Speaker:Act, acceptance, and commitment therapy challenges that directly, not by offering a better way to control your thoughts, but by questioning whether control is the right goal at all.
Speaker:Shamash Aladina puts it simply, you don't need to eliminate your negative thoughts.
Speaker:You take them with you and do what matters anyway.
Speaker:Today we're looking at how.
Speaker:Defuse from thoughts and do what matters anyway
Speaker:"You don't need to eliminate your negative thoughts.
Speaker:Take them with you and do what matters.
Speaker:What a relief!"
Speaker:• Shamash Alidina
Big idea:Sometimes we tell ourselves that we can only be happy once we get on top of our faulty thinking, once and for all.
Big idea:However, real liberation comes from knowing that we can experience anxiety, uncertainty, and discomfort, and still live a rich, meaningful life anyway-right now.
Big idea:Overthinkers can be hard on themselves-really hard on themselves!
Big idea:They can turn everything (including their own anxious rumination) into something to beat themselves up with.
Big idea:They can feel like they’re broken, crazy, irredeemable.
Big idea:Without knowing it, they develop the belief that anxiety is standing between them and the good life.
Big idea:In other words, as long as they experience negative thought patterns, then they cannot live well, accept themselves, succeed, or be happy.
Big idea:But what if this belief is part of the problem?
Big idea:Action and Commitment Therapy (or ACT) is not about finding that magical solution to get rid of anxiety once and for all.
Big idea:Instead, it’s about “living well anyway.”
Big idea:• You can be present.
Big idea:• You can do what matters.
Big idea:• You can live according to your values.
Big idea:• You can have a meaningful and full life.
Big idea:• And you can do it even though you experience anxiety.
Big idea:How?
Big idea:We do it not by changing our thoughts.
Big idea:We do it by changing our relationship to our thoughts.
Big idea:Thoughts are passing electrochemical events in our brains.
Big idea:They’re words and symbols.
Big idea:That’s all.
Big idea:They don’t have the power to define who we are, and they don’t control us.
Big idea:Negative thoughts are normal.
Big idea:The grounded attitude is: Don't fight thoughts, defuse from them.
Big idea:Cognitive defusion is simple: It’s when we create distance between us and our thoughts, and remind ourselves that thoughts are just that-thoughts.
Big idea:Not commands.
Big idea:Not absolute truths.
Big idea:Not permanent realities about who we are.
Big idea:When we are defused from thoughts, we stop over-identifying with them.
Big idea:We look at them more objectively.
Big idea:They do not control us; we consciously decide what we want to do with them.
Big idea:And this is the big relief of ACT: You don’t have to control your thoughts.
Big idea:Instead, take control of what you do.
Big idea:Of how you live.
Big idea:Of the kind of person you want to be.
Big idea:Instead of believing that we have to reach some lofty standard of mental health, a state of enlightenment, or an unrealistic degree of control, we can shift our attention to living by our values and principles.
Big idea:That means asking what matters to us more than anything, then acting in that direction.
Big idea:Yes, you may feel anxious.
Big idea:Yes, all sorts of experiences and perceptions may enter and leave your conscious awareness.
Big idea:And through it all, you can still be there-constant in yourself, and present in the moment.
Big idea:A study in the journal Behaviour Change found that ACT was at least as effective as CBT at reducing generalized anxiety symptoms-and that in many cases it might work more quickly than CBT (Avdagic et.
Big idea:al., 2014).
Big idea:The authors concluded that the reason both CBT and ACT work is because they both support psychological flexibility.
Big idea:Psychological flexibility is not really a single skill but an attitude encompassing a range of skills:
Big idea:• The ability to be present (not always trying to escape or avoid discomfort).
Big idea:• The ability to stay open to experiences (not getting trapped in rigid thought patterns).
Big idea:• The ability to adjust behavior so that it aligns with values-even when emotions are running high (not fusing with thoughts or being reactive).
Big idea:From the ACT point of view, the goal of a healthy human life is not to find a way to permanently run away from pain.
Big idea:Instead, it’s to actively cultivate a state of mind where we can be open, present, and values-driven-whether pain is there or not.
Big idea:How to build more psychological flexibility
Big idea:The good news is that psychological flexibility is something we can learn.
Big idea:It doesn’t matter where you start from or how easy or difficult you find it at first, because every experience is grist for the mill.
Big idea:No matter what is going on for you right now, you can pause, become aware, accept where you are, and choose to take just one tiny step towards the things that you believe in deep down.
Big idea:The next time you feel an overthinking storm coming on, consider running through the following three steps:
Big idea:1.
Big idea:Bring accepting awareness to the moment you’re in.
Big idea:2.
Big idea:Defuse and stay open to other possibilities.
Big idea:3.
Big idea:Commit to one small values-driven action.
:Awareness and acceptance
:Many of us feel a kneejerk resistance to the suggestion that we accept our bad feelings.
:It’s important to understand, though, what we are doing when we accept the reality in which we find ourselves:
:• We are not saying we approve of what is happening.
:• We are not forcing ourselves to pretend we like it.
:• We are not claiming to be responsible or saying that we chose this experience.
:• We are not giving up on the possibility of changing for the better.
:• We are not saying we deserve how we feel or that want to continue feeling that way.
:All we are saying is that the reality we are in right now is… the reality we are in right now.
:No resistance, but no clinging either.
:Acceptance simply means acknowledging reality for what it is, without attaching to it, judging it, clinging to it, or telling convoluted stories about what it means.
:• Non-acceptance: “I’m anxious and that’s a problem.
:There’s something wrong and it needs to be put right.
:This isn’t fair.
:I judge myself for feeling this way.
:I wrestle with it and want it to go away.
:I feel bad that I feel bad.
:I’m going to analyze it.
:I’m going to tell myself what I think should happen…”
:• Acceptance: “I’m anxious.
:OK.”
:Overthinkers can mistake acceptance for resolution.
:We think we can only accept a situation once we’ve internally processed it somehow, made it better, made it make sense.
:But we can accept ambiguity and the unknown.
:We can accept a situation that is confusing and unfinished and unresolved.
:We can even accept our own impatience, overwhelm or confusion.
:“I think this acceptance idea is BS and I don’t like it.”
:• You can even learn to accept that!
:Part of psychological flexibility means having the courage to be present with your experience right now, exactly as it is, without escaping or going into avoidance.
Analogy:Anxious overthinking is like a tug-of-war between you and your experience.
Analogy:You resist, you pull, you struggle against it.
Analogy:Acceptance is dropping the rope and choosing not to take part in that struggle anymore.
Analogy:It’s not an effort in the opposite direction-it’s the end of effort.
:Defusion and openness
:Try to gain a little psychological distance with a defusion phrase, for example:
:• “I’m having the thought that _____________.”
:• “Right now, there is __(insert emotion)__.”
:• “I am noticing that _____________.”
:• “I’ve started telling the old story I always tell myself when I’m stressed.”
:• “That’s a judgment/guess/prediction/distortion.”
:Consciously reframe your anxious experience as a discrete mental event.
:Not a command.
:Not a permanent reality.
:Not something that defines you as a person forever.
:You can make that mental shift using language alone, but there are other ways to defuse from both your thoughts and your feelings.
:• Write the thought or feeling down.
:See it there, in black and white, outside of your mind.
:Notice that you can move those words closer or further away from you.
:You can put them right in front of your eyes so that they’re all you can see… or you can set them off to the side so that you can focus on something else.
:You can scrunch it up and throw it away, fold it up until it’s small, or even burn it!
:You get the idea.
:• Use visualization.
:Imagine that your mind is the clear blue sky, and emerging perceptions, emotions, and thoughts are just weather passing over that sky.
:Temporary.
:Always changing.
:And underneath it all, you are still that blue, depthless sky.
:You can use other imagery: A thought can be a balloon, say, floating higher and higher into the sky until it’s the size of a pinprick.
:Another possibility is to see a thought as a bus stopping at a bus stop.
:Do you want to “board” this bus and have it take you to its destination?
:Or can you see that bus come… and then watch it go again without getting on?
:• Don’t take yourself too seriously.
:Repeat your thoughts out loud, but in a comical, jokey voice.
:Sing those beliefs and assumptions out loud in a silly way.
:Give your anxious thought patterns a name and character and make that character ridiculous.
:ACT therapists sometimes give the analogy of a bus filled with unruly and argumentative passengers.
:As the bus driver, you can be aware of their antics, but at the end of the day, you’re the one who decides where the bus goes.
:Take a step toward your values
:Your mind is anxiously chattering about something?
:OK. Fine.
:Let it do that.
:In the meantime, why don’t you go off and do something meaningful?
:This is the spirit of committed, values-driven action-and it’s naturally a big part of “action and commitment” therapy.
:Remind yourself, “I don’t need mental quiet to live my day.”
:The irony is that you often do find mental quiet by letting go of the struggle and getting on with living your life.
:Anxious overthinking is a rat race.
:It’s a game that doesn’t go anywhere, and there is no way to win.
:It’s a game where the more you try to fight, the more you get tangled up.
:So, stop trying.
:Drop the rope and go and find something that truly fulfils you.
:What ACT offers here is well supported.
:A 2015 study found it at least as effective as CBT for generalized anxiety and faster in some cases.
:The shared mechanism is psychological flexibility.
:Not the elimination of difficult thoughts, but the capacity to be present with them, stay open, and keep moving in the direction of what matters.
:A few things worth holding on to from today.
:Act doesn't ask you to resolve your anxiety before you live your life.
:The meaningful life is available right now, not after the overthinking stops.
:The diffusion work is practical.
:Name a thought as a thought.
:Create a little distance from it.
:It loses its grip.
:Without a fight.
:Without suppression.
:Acceptance isn't resignation, it's stepping out of a struggle that costs more energy than it returns.
:Acknowledging reality as it is without attaching a story to it, that's the whole move.
:And psychological flexibility, staying present, staying open, acting on what matters, even when emotions are running high, that's the measurable outcome of all of this.
:It's learnable.
:It compounds.
:This was from DeFuse from Thoughts and Do What Matters Anyway from Nick Trends.
:Stop thinking about it.
:Narrated by Russell Newton.
:We'll see you in the next one.
