“I don’t know about you, but as a child, my mother always told me - first think, and then do. The teachers also taught the same. “Before making this or that decision, it is necessary to think carefully, weigh and analyze everything,” they instructed. I obeyed, but, having matured and graduated from the university, I began to doubt - is it so useful for a person to puzzle over every little thing?.."
And having become a psychologist, Viktor SUMYATIN recommends that his patients get rid of this bad habit at all.
IF YOU ARE NOT A CHESS PLAYER …
Nobody argues that a design engineer needs to think over his project and calculate the slightest nuances for several months. It would be good for a chess player to calculate all the variations before making this or that move. However, there are many situations where wiggling the convolutions only harms the business. Imagine: your child fell on the street and broke his legs and arms with blood. While you are pondering what is more logical to do first, and what then, in what sequence to treat the wound and what exactly - with hydrogen peroxide, brilliant green or iodine, the baby will become completely ill. There is no time to think here, you need to act immediately.
Here's a more complicated example. You need to transport old furniture to the dacha - a sofa and two armchairs. You, as a smart person, try to act logically: you estimate how much time and effort this occupation will require, how many assistants you will need. Then you remember that the entrance doors to the dacha are narrow, and the sofa is wide - it may not go through … In a word, trying to find the best way to solve the problem, you drive yourself so hard that you start to feel tired before you start doing anything. But the most important thing is that you yourself drive yourself into frames, build a system of restrictions. As a result, if you have to work a little longer or a little harder, literally fall off your feet from exhaustion.
EVERYTHING COMES FROM THE HEAD
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Some of you will argue that meditation has nothing to do with it: it's just that people are frail and weak now - they get tired of any physical activity, even the most trifling one.
Nothing like this! Look at professional athletes. They can hardly be blamed for poor physical fitness. They give their best, but they fall dead after crossing the finish line. Try telling a heavyweight who just lifted a heavy barbell and set a record: lift a couple more pounds. You will see, he will not lift a finger, because he believes that he has completely exhausted his strength and capabilities. Athletes, indeed, are capable of a lot, but only within strictly defined frameworks of rounds, sets and tours. And beyond the finish line they get tired, fizzled out. And this is completely normal.
However, most of us do not even suspect that fatigue does not come from the body at all, but from the head. The body cannot get tired at all. So why is it so hard for our muscles to dig a garden or general cleaning in an apartment?
The brain is the place that signals us: you are tired, you are tired. And not because he is so designed, but because we taught him so. Some people get tired of even the thought of the job ahead. “How difficult it is. How I do not want to do this. This work will take so much effort and time from me,”the brain signals to us, and we, having not done anything yet, feel squeezed out like a lemon.
All our conscious life we do only understandable and meaningful things. Try turning off your brain and doing something ridiculous and completely useless. I assure you that at first you will not succeed.
DO NOT THINK AT ALL
What stupid advice you might say. These psychologists will always come up with some nonsense. How can you live without thinking, without brain prompts? It turns out that it is possible, and military service is an excellent confirmation of this.
All that is required of a soldier is a trouble-free work of the body and a complete lack of thinking. The management thinks for everyone. Two or three months of such a life - and the guys begin to think that the head is really useless. Moreover, it complicates things a lot. When at six in the morning they shout to you: "Rota, wake up," there is no point in arguing that it is very early, that they could wake up later, that the biological rhythms of a person resist such an early rise. In a minute, you should be dressed, shaved and washed on the parade ground. At first it seems impossible, but time passes - and you succeed.
Think it's about skill? Nothing like this. In the army, soldiers are taught not to think, but to march, run, shoot. At first you resent, protest, and get tired. But soon you accept the rules of the game and start just doing what you are told. Fatigue immediately disappears, and you gain the ability to work day and night. For, as already mentioned, our fatigue is not in the body.
You don't have to join the army to gain this experience. You can learn to turn off your brains yourself. For this, meditation or any monotonous activity is suitable. For example, sharpening knives, weeding a vegetable garden, cross stitching. As soon as you stop asking yourself what is the point and why is it needed, the brain will stop pressing on you and convincing you that you cannot do it. And instead, he will do something useful, for example, he will begin to solve math problems, write poetry and choose the right rhyme, dream of a bright future. Try for a few hours just digging a garden bed to the country - and you yourself will be surprised at what right thoughts come to your mind.
You will say: all this concerns only tedious physical work. And man is a rational being, and his activity is not limited to hauling logs. I agree, but psychologists persist. Hauling logs, as well as mowing lawns, in their opinion, is much more beneficial than purposeful wiggling. Especially if you are busy with purely intellectual work from 8 to 17.
Rosary and rocking chair
Many people know that when you concentrate less on a particular problem, it is easier to solve. The simplest example is writing poetry or prose. When you push, push as hard as you can to come up with something brilliant, nothing comes of it. As soon as you relax and start thinking about something else, completely foreign, the necessary lines themselves fall on the paper. Hence the conclusion - almost any work moves more successfully if at this moment you think about something else or do not think at all.
If you have to make an important decision, hold a business meeting or negotiations, arm yourself with a rosary or any other trifle that you can hold in your hands. It would be nice to swing in a rocking chair or just walk around the office back and forth. All these simple actions: fingering a rosary, stroking an object, rocking in a chair help to reorganize the thinking process. Thanks to them, anyone can enter a state of light trance. The brain will be freed from many barriers, and good ideas will start visiting you much more often than if you were thinking hard and hard while sitting at your desk or at the computer.
Want to learn how to think productively? Then try to think motor. It doesn't matter in what way you turn off your analytical part, your rational, so that the liberated unconscious will solve a difficult creative or practical problem for you. You can swing your foot, drum on glass, or juggle apples. You can iron linen or move furniture. Let this be the most familiar action for you. Have you started? Now concentrate all your attention on the trajectory of the iron or the flight of apples. Don't be discouraged if you don't immediately clear your mind of obsessive thoughts. Sometimes, in order to achieve a state of detachment, you need to iron a mountain of linen and move more than one sofa. Be persistent - and after a while you will start to have very interesting thoughts. And most importantly, you will forget about what fatigue is.
Sergey BORODIN