Constant negative thoughts: how to stop the spiral
You can’t choose which clouds drift over. You can stop chasing them.
Nobody can stop negative thoughts from arriving. Almost everyone gets them. What you can stop is the spiral that follows, the going over it and over it. You replay the conversation and find the one thing you got wrong. A friend doesn’t text back, and your mind is ready with reasons. The thought itself lasts a few seconds. The spiral turns it into a lost evening. And the spiral is made of steps you take, so it can be interrupted.
The free guideHow to stop overthinking (without fighting your thoughts)Why fighting a thought keeps it close, and what to do instead.
How the spiral works
Every spiral has two parts. First the trigger: a thought like “I’m useless” or “they’re annoyed with me.” It arrives on its own and lasts a few seconds. Then the chase. A question attaches itself (why am I like this? what if I’m right?) and you start answering. Each answer raises another question, and an hour later you feel worse than when you started. That’s a loop.
Say your manager writes, “Can we have a quick chat tomorrow?” The thought arrives: I’m in trouble. That’s the trigger. Then the chase. You reread last week’s emails, rehearse what you’ll say, and at one in the morning you’re adding up every mistake since school. Whatever the chat turns out to be about, the evening didn’t prepare you for it. It just took the evening.
The psychologist Adrian Wells puts it in one line: “Thoughts don’t matter but your response to them does.” Two beliefs keep the response going:
- “It helps.” If I go over it, I’ll work out what’s wrong with me, or I won’t make the same mistake again. Sometimes, quietly: I deserve to feel bad. So you start willingly.
- “I can’t stop.” Once it starts, it has to run its course. So you keep going.
Most people find the usual fixes don’t last either. Pushing the thought away, or swapping it for a positive one, still keeps you busy with it. In a well-known experiment, people told not to think about a white bear kept thinking about it. Fighting a thought is still engaging with it. So there’s nothing here to fight, and no willpower needed.
What the course does about it
The Open Sky Method is eight spoken lessons of about 40 minutes, with an AI guide who asks you questions as you go. You’re never asked what your thoughts are about, and the guide won’t argue you out of them. It works on the chase:
- Lesson 1, The trap. Telling the trigger from the chase, naming loops (“that’s a loop”), and your first attention practice.
- Lesson 2, The brake. Testing “I can’t stop it”: leaving a thought alone without pushing it away, and postponing the chase to an optional 15-minute worry window in the early evening.
- Lesson 3, Watching the sky. Watching thoughts drift over like clouds while you stay on the hillside. A thought that says you’re useless is just a cloud with some words written on it. Then a test: worry as hard as you can for a couple of minutes, and see whether you can stop.
- Lesson 4, Fixes that feed it. Reassurance, checking, avoiding and scrolling to numb it: why they keep the alarm on, and dropping one.
- Lesson 5, The great con. Testing the spiral’s promises, including “I deserve to feel bad,” with a worry-more, worry-less experiment.
- Lesson 6, Old files. Shame and old memories, judged with adult eyes.
- Lesson 7, Attention is yours. The full 12-minute attention training, to find out who chooses where your attention goes.
- Lesson 8, Nothing to give up. A look back over the whole method, and a plan for when loops come to visit. A visit doesn’t mean you’re back at the start.
In between, most days, there’s a few minutes of practice (for the first four weeks after Lesson 2, attention training twice a day: one full 12-minute round and one short 5-minute round, then once a day), and a Postpone a loop tool for when a thought grabs you. Mostly you’ll do something small: notice, name the loop, leave the thought where it is, and get on with your day.
Try a short sample
A taste of the course for negative thoughts: a few minutes of the guide explaining the loop, then a short guided practice. Headphones help.
What it isn’t, and when to get help
This is self-help education, not therapy, and the guide is an AI. It doesn’t diagnose or treat any condition, and nobody can promise your negative thoughts will stop arriving. Some negative thinking deserves proper support:
- Low mood. If you’ve felt low most days for two weeks or more, or lost interest in things you used to enjoy, talk to your GP or doctor. They can talk you through the options, which often include a talking therapy such as CBT.
- Anxiety most days. See a GP, doctor or psychologist, and ask about CBT or another talking therapy with a trained therapist.
- Intrusive thoughts that horrify you. Thoughts about harm, sex, religion or what kind of person you are, with an urge to check or seek reassurance until you feel certain, can be part of OCD. People often call this Pure O. Only a qualified professional can tell you, so start with a doctor or psychologist. The recommended first treatment is CBT with exposure and response prevention (ERP) from a qualified clinician (NICE guidance). This course isn’t designed for OCD. See Pure O and intrusive thoughts.
- In treatment now, or have a history of trauma, psychosis or severe depression? Check with your clinician or doctor before you start.
This isn’t a crisis service. If your negative thoughts include thoughts of ending your life or hurting yourself, they aren’t clouds to practise watching alone. Please reach out now: call or text 988 in the US and Canada, call Samaritans on 116 123 in the UK and Ireland, or find a free line at findahelpline.com. In immediate danger, call your local emergency number. More lines are on the help page.
Lesson 1 of the Open Sky Method takes the spiral apart out loud and gives you your first practice in letting a thought pass.
Try Lesson 1 freeA spoken, 40-minute lesson with a guide who asks you questions as you go. No account needed. How the 8 weeks work.
Common questions
Why do I have so many negative thoughts?
Having them isn’t unusual. In a study of 777 students across six continents, 93.6% reported at least one unwanted intrusive thought in the previous three months. For most people, they pass. What makes them feel constant is usually the response: the hours spent going over them.
Should I try to think positive instead?
Most people find it doesn’t last. Swapping a thought for a positive one, or arguing with it, still keeps you busy with it. The course asks for less: notice it, leave it where it is, and carry on with what you were doing.
How do I know if a negative thought is true?
The course doesn’t try to settle that, and you don’t need to settle it to stop chasing. Weighing it up is usually more of the chase. If a thought points at something real you can act on, decide the next step and take it. Problem-solving ends in a decision. The spiral ends in another question.
Can constant negative thinking be a sign of depression?
It often goes along with low mood, and only a professional can tell you what’s going on. If you’ve felt low most days for two weeks or more, see your GP or doctor. Self-help can sit alongside that support, not replace it.
Read next
- How to stop overthinking, without fighting your thoughts
- How to stop replaying the past
- Worry postponement: “not now, later”
- Overthinking at night
- Rumination vs worry
Pages like this one: overthinking · anxiety and worry · rumination · replaying the past · Pure O and intrusive thoughts
Sources
- Wells, A. (2009). Metacognitive Therapy for Anxiety and Depression. New York: Guilford Press. Quotation from p. 1; negative thoughts as fleeting for most people, p. 248. https://www.guilford.com/books/Metacognitive-Therapy-for-Anxiety-and-Depression/Adrian-Wells/9781609184964
- Radomsky, A. S., Alcolado, G. M., Abramowitz, J. S. et al. (2014). Part 1—You can run but you can’t hide: intrusive thoughts on six continents. Journal of Obsessive-Compulsive and Related Disorders, 3(3), 269–279. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jocrd.2013.09.002
- Wegner, D. M., Schneider, D. J., Carter, S. R. & White, T. L. (1987). Paradoxical effects of thought suppression. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53(1), 5–13. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.53.1.5
- Öst, L.-G., Havnen, A., Hansen, B. & Kvale, G. (2015). Cognitive behavioral treatments of obsessive–compulsive disorder: a systematic review and meta-analysis of studies published 1993–2014. Clinical Psychology Review, 40, 156–169. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2015.06.003
- National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (2005). Obsessive-compulsive disorder and body dysmorphic disorder: treatment (CG31). https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/cg31