Do you know about intrusive thoughts?

During a 24-hour day, even more so on a tiring day, our mind tends to process a lot of information, thus generating various thoughts throughout the day, whether they are classified as good or bad.

These are thoughts that seem to get stuck in your mind, so intense and present that they are. Some thoughts are harmless and follow the mind's automatic mode, while others can be unusual and frightening, causing your mental health to suffer.

In this article you'll find out more about intrusive thoughts, how you can deal with them and understand ways of treating them if they're having a serious effect on your mental health. Check out the following topics.

Understanding more about intrusive thoughts

A person's brain works frequently, creating new and different thoughts. Most of the time we don't even notice all this intensity of thought. In the following topics you'll find out in more detail what intrusive thoughts are, their causes and how they can affect your life.

What are intrusive thoughts?

Intrusive thoughts are, as the name implies, thoughts that suddenly appear for no reason. Everyone is subject to them. They appear with a little more force than the average automatic thought.

Some people can get too caught up in these thoughts, causing discomfort and suffering and making it difficult to get rid of them. Usually, intrusive thoughts are related to anxiety disorder, but anxiety is not a determining factor for these thoughts to appear.

For most people, intrusive thoughts are just inappropriate thoughts that they can then easily ignore.

Signs and symptoms of intrusive thoughts

Anyone can experience intrusive thoughts. They can appear as violent or disturbing intrusive thoughts, thoughts of a sexual nature, including fantasies. They can also be thoughts that relate to behaviors that you find unacceptable and abhorrent.

They appear seemingly out of nowhere, causing a great deal of anxiety, but they have no meaning in your life. They are not considered reality but just thoughts that have appeared in your mind. The feeling of anguish can also be present when you encounter intrusive thoughts on a more constant basis.

Origins and causes of intrusive thoughts

The origin of these intrusive thoughts is often related to fear, even though fear is a natural feeling of every human being and is related to the survival instinct. They can appear at any time of the day. Every human being can come across this type of thought.

The fear or bad feelings caused by these types of thoughts can be seen as something normal, thus presenting an erroneous assessment that the person makes of the situation experienced, coming to believe that there is a real chance that something bad will happen. In order to cope, it is interesting to assess that the fear is not real and that there is no possibility of bad things happening.

How do intrusive thoughts affect health and life?

When intrusive thoughts become more frequent, and they are negative thoughts, the tendency is for them to affect both a person's mental health and their life.

Becoming frequent in a person's life, intrusive thoughts have the great capacity to cause anguish, pain, suffering, constant fear, not only of different situations, but also of interaction with other people.

The emergence of mental illnesses, such as depression, can also be considered one of the problems that intrusive thoughts can generate in a person's life. Thus, the person ends up losing interest in life, in the situations that arise in their daily lives and in the people around them. As a result, they end up distancing themselves from everything and everyone.

Who is most at risk of developing intrusive thoughts?

Although intrusive thoughts are more common than we imagine, there are some people who are more at risk of developing them, even though they can be experienced by all of us, through everyday life and the contact we have with various activities throughout the day.

That's why you should be aware when these thoughts are appearing uncontrollably or too often, generating a lot of discomfort and bad feelings. However, for some people, intrusive thoughts can present themselves as a symptom and a mental health condition.

This is the case for people diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder or depression. Check out the following topics to find out more about how intrusive thoughts present themselves in these cases.

Post-traumatic stress disorder

People living with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) often experience intrusive thoughts that can be linked to a traumatic event, triggering some physical symptoms such as increased heart rate and sweating. In some cases, these thoughts can bring back traumatic memories causing psychological distress.

Obsessive compulsive disorder

Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) occurs when intrusive thoughts become increasingly uncontrollable. These thoughts can cause you to repeat behaviors in the hope of stopping the thoughts and preventing them from occurring in the future. Thoughts such as worrying about locking the door several times, turning off the oven or fearing bacteria on surfaces are examples.

Depression

Depression is a well-known illness that affects many people. Clinically depressed people can have more intrusive thoughts, end up distorting reality and seeing themselves as worthless or useless, thus messing with their self-esteem and connection with life itself.

Main types of intrusive thoughts

Now, to understand even more about intrusive thoughts, it's interesting to know what the main types of these thoughts are. Check out what they are and their main characteristics below.

Self-esteem

You know those thoughts like, "wow, I look really ugly today", "I don't look good in any clothes", "my body isn't really pleasing me, I'm too fat". You may have already come across some of these words and thoughts.

These are some examples of thoughts that are related to self-esteem - which is fundamental for every human being. It's possible to say that this kind of thinking can be related to some kind of anxiety, for example.

This kind of intrusive thinking can often be associated with a case of unidentified depression, greatly affecting the person's relationship with their own body, its qualities and how they lead their life.

Relationships

When we receive a hug, a cuddle or a compliment from someone, we feel that we don't deserve it. And this is the kind of intrusive thought that is related to aspects of relationships.

These thoughts, when they arise, bring up the idea that we are not worthy of the love we are receiving, creating a feeling of not deserving when they are potentiated. All of this can contribute to a person having serious problems with relationships, whether they are romantic or simply with friends and family.

Sex

These types of thoughts are often related to erotic thoughts, with the source of the thought being the desire for relationships with people or situations that are often unthinkable.

Wanting to have sex with a family member, or a work colleague, or perhaps a close friend, can be classified as a type of sexual intrusive thought. Sometimes this type of thought is aimed at the possible infidelity of partners, or many question the sincerity of their feelings. All of this can affect the stability of a relationshiploving.

Religious

These are the ideas related to the feeling that some acts performed are against God's will, in other words, it refers to the feeling or perception of committing some kind of sin or infraction, which in God's eyes is very wrong and liable to punishment.

This type of thinking tends to judge our actions and our values according to what is right or wrong, with a more moralistic bent. It's a type of thinking that tends to limit a person, especially with their own desires and wishes, which are often pruned by religious teachings and thoughts.

Obsessive

Obsessive intrusive thoughts are the kind of unpleasant thoughts that are often constant and insistent, and a characteristic of this type is that they are unwanted every time they surface.

The person who has this type of thought feels a lot of guilt about having it because they don't agree with what is presented, and they try not to do what these thoughts suggest they should do. It's a type of thought in which the person tends to fight against their own thoughts, doing their best to control them and push them away, even though they know this is practically impossible.

After all, the more you wish you didn't have that thought, the more it sticks in your head - in other words, it's the opposite effect. It's worth remembering that people who are already depressed may have a more constant presence of these kinds of intrusive thoughts.

Violent

Intrusive thoughts, on the other hand, are thoughts that suggest acts of violence against someone you love, someone in your family or an unknown person.

Just the act of having this desire for a violent attitude can be understood as a type of violent intrusive thought. Often this type of thought arises in moments of anger and lack of control over a given situation.

Other information about intrusive thoughts

In order to get a better handle on intrusive thoughts and introduce you to identifying them, in the following topics you'll find out more about intrusive thoughts and how to get a positive result from dealing with them.

How do you deal with intrusive thoughts?

As a fundamental lesson, it's important to know first and foremost that intrusive thoughts are just thoughts, and don't correspond to reality or a definition of you. Knowing this, it's important to be able to face these thoughts, asking yourself if you would be able to do what you've imagined, or if it would have a real chance of happening.

By doing this, you yourself will be able to make these thoughts disappear, simply by not paying attention to them. It is also advisable to use meditation, especially if it is mindfulness, which tends to help you work on your attention and focus on the present, helping you to cope better with these thoughts. Finally, using conscious breathing is essential.

How to assess intrusive thoughts

The first step we've listed in order to be able to assess intrusive thoughts is extremely important: accepting that they're just thoughts and that they're not you helps you distance yourself from what's real to what your own mind is creating. Remember that it's impossible to control which intrusive thoughts appear.

When these thoughts are bad, they don't mean that they're actually going to happen. They're just ideas, so they don't present a true reality, they're just an idealization of them. However, when these repetitive thoughts don't go anywhere or cause unnecessary suffering, it's a symptom that these are intrusive thoughts.

When are intrusive thoughts good?

Generally, these are thoughts with very varied themes, but the important thing to know is that they are capable of generating feelings of joy and happiness, thus causing well-being. In order to have more contact with good intrusive thoughts, it's important to be in environments that stimulate them, whether it's traveling, meeting up with friends or simply doing activities that you enjoy, it will help toproduce them.

When are intrusive thoughts bad?

Often these thoughts can be connected to some fear or trauma from the past, which is why they deserve the attention of a specialist. This type of thinking becomes bad when it is fixed and your life starts to be organized based on what is not true.

Which professional should I go to for treatment of intrusive thoughts?

If you find that you're having a lot of intrusive thoughts and it's really bothering you, seek the help of a mental health specialist, especially a psychologist. There are several ways you can learn to deal with these thoughts and get effective treatment.

Psychotherapy or cognitive-behavioral therapy are the most suitable when the complaint is intrusive thoughts. Psychotherapy will help you find the best ways to gain more self-confidence and learn to identify your own resources to be able to deal with these types of thoughts.

Treatment for intrusive thoughts

There are various ways of dealing with intrusive thoughts, the best of which is usually to reduce your sensitivity to the thought and the content it carries. So, as well as simple things you can do in your day-to-day life, there are alternatives that you can use in conjunction with a professional to help you deal with these thoughts better.

It's very important to be able to learn to stay calm when these thoughts come up, so meditation and breathing exercises are highly recommended to achieve this result. In addition to these two means, in the following topics you'll learn about other treatment alternatives.

Therapy

Seeking therapy or psychotherapy can help you a great deal in the process of understanding the causes of these thoughts. It will help you find new ways of gaining more self-confidence, providing effective ways of dealing with these intrusive thoughts.

Medicines

In some cases, a health professional, such as a psychiatrist, may prescribe medication to help balance the chemicals in your brain. These drugs are commonly used in cases such as OCD and depression.

Natural treatments

Paying attention to your own habits is a very effective form of treatment. Trying to perceive yourself more and working on the idea of recognizing these thoughts as just thoughts, learning to reframe them is a great alternative. As well as trying to build habits that you can promote more balanced mental health, such as physical activity, which can simply be awalk.

Watch out for Intrusive Thinking Syndrome and see a doctor if necessary!

As you can read in this article, intrusive thinking is part of every human being's experience, there's no escaping it. What changes from one person to another is how they deal with these thoughts over the course of their lives.

However, there are many ways in which you can treat intrusive thinking syndrome, from introducing healthier habits into your routine to seeing a qualified mental health professional.

Seeking psychotherapy is a very effective way of learning to deal with intrusive thoughts. With it, you can restore your quality of life and mental health by identifying the causes of these thoughts and always looking for solutions and internal or external resources to resolve them.

Therefore, try to invest time and dedication in your self-knowledge process, so that you can understand yourself better every day. Keeping an eye on your feelings and thoughts is also a form of caring for yourself. If necessary, if you feel you can't deal with intrusive thoughts on your own, seek the help of a psychologist or a specialist doctor.