Unwanted Thoughts? Toss Them Out

Troubled by negative, unwanted thoughts? A surprisingly simple strategy may help clear them from your mind, based on a new study in Psychological Science.

Getting rid of unwelcome thoughts is notoriously difficult. Researchers from Universidad Autonoma de Madrid in Spain and Ohio State University wondered: Wouldn’t it be great if you could just throw away those nagging thoughts, the same way you do the trash?

Of course it would. So the researchers came up with a strategy designed to help people do precisely that: writing down their negative thoughts on a sheet of paper and then tossing it out. Although the strategy might sound simplistic, it seemed to work quite well.

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Throw Away Negative Thoughts

In one experiment, high school students first spent a few minutes writing down either positive or negative thoughts about their own bodies. Then one group was told to throw their papers in the wastepaper basket, while another group was told to check their papers for grammar and spelling mistakes. Finally, all the students were asked to rate their bodies.

Students who kept their papers seemed to hold onto the thoughts scribbled there. Those who had written negative things about their bodies rated them lower than those who had written positive things. However, this association wasn’t found in students who had tossed their papers away. By pitching the papers, they seemed to have discarded the thoughts as well.

The power of this strategy lies in how much significance people attach to their thoughts. Labeling thoughts as trash seems to tell the brain to disregard them.

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Hold Onto Positive Thoughts

Incidentally, the opposite approach can work, too. In a second, similar experiment, the researchers asked students to throw away their papers, keep them on their desks, or fold them up and put them in a pocket, wallet, or purse. Those in the latter group, who tucked away their thoughts for safekeeping, were most heavily influenced by them.

Once again, it’s all about the symbolism. Protecting thoughts seems to tell the brain to pay more attention to them, because they must be important.

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Give It a Try

Want to try discarding some negative thoughts? Here are a few guidelines to keep in mind:

• Do it; don’t just imagine it. Write your thoughts by hand, and throw the paper away. Or type your thoughts, and drag the word processing file to the virtual recycle bin. But just imagining yourself tossing out the thoughts doesn’t seem to be effective, based on a third experiment by the researchers.
• Rip up or shred the paper. Bruce Rabin, MD, PhD, director of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Healthy Lifestyle Program, advocates a similar writing exercise for getting rid of thoughts that cause stress. Dr. Rabin suggests destroying the paper before chucking it so you don’t have to worry about anyone else reading it. That way, you may feel freer to write down your true thoughts without self-censoring.
• Don’t worry about grammar, spelling, or deathless prose. Remember: You’re jotting down your thoughts, not writing your novel—and those self-sabotaging thoughts are headed straight for the round file.

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