Mind Control and Distraction: Mind Control Techniques for a Lifetime

Chapter 2 Control and Regulation of Negative Emotions (1)
Anxiety will affect people's blood circulation system, secretion system, and nervous system, which is very harmful to health.
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Charles Maymore

Gaining peace of mind with sedatives
At present, many people rely on sedative drugs to calm themselves down. Just like an umbrella can block rain, sedative drugs can shield us from undesirable mental stimulation and interference.Its mechanism of action is to eliminate the stimulation and interference brought by the external environment, but it cannot fundamentally eliminate the bad external environment.

Our emotions do not depend entirely on the external environment, but on our own reactions and attitudes towards the environment. The existence of sedative drugs just illustrates this point.Tranquilizers help people reduce and alleviate the excessive negative reactions of adverse environments to the human body.

It is worth mentioning that the current clinical field is too casual in the application of sedative drugs.Every mental illness, ranging from anxiety disorders in adults to ADHD in children, is treated with related sedative drugs.Every day, irresponsible and informal online diagnostic platforms prescribe drugs related to mental illness through the Internet.

Dr. Lucinda Buster of the Midwest Anxiety Research Institute in the United States has done a lot of research in the field of mental illness and has made many outstanding achievements.These studies follow the principles of psycho-cybernetics theory.Here I recommend the information and services she provides on self-regulation. You can read her work "From Fear to Strength". This book can give you a preliminary understanding of self-regulation methods.Dr. Buster suffered from acute anxiety disorders since childhood, which gradually developed into chronic anxiety disorders starting in 1981.In the book, she uses her own treatment process as a case framework and supplements thousands of cases for illustration, creating a set of self-regulation courses.This set of courses can help patients with anxiety get rid of the shadow of anxiety and return to a happy life.

For many people, including you, controlling your mind requires neither drugs nor advanced anxiety treatment equipment, because the adjustments you have are powerful enough, as long as you learn to use them, everything will be fine .

Excessive negative reactions can be corrected through daily habits
Suppose such an example: You are sitting in the study reading this book with relish, and suddenly the phone rings.Based on your life experience and personal habits, this is a stimulus signal, and your relevant response should be to answer the phone without thinking and making unconscious judgments.So you leave your comfortable seat and walk over to the telephone.This is the mobilizing effect of external stimuli on you.It changes your original state of mind, thoughts and actions, and this change is your response to the stimuli in the environment.

However, you don't have to answer the phone, you can not follow external stimuli, not react, and ignore the phone ringing.If you want, you can refuse to respond to external stimuli, and continue to read there quietly and relaxedly, maintaining the original state.

You can imagine yourself sitting there quietly, letting the phone ring, ignoring the stimuli it sends, unmoved.Although you realize that the phone should answer when it rings, you just don't care and don't listen to it.In addition, make this point clear: external stimuli do not dominate you by themselves, and you don't have to listen to it.Responding to stimuli is because you are used to doing so, and you can also develop a new habit of "don't do it" if you want to.It should also be noted that not reacting is not deliberately asking yourself to fight against the old reaction, or to strive for something, but to really do nothing-to completely relax from the state of "doing".Just ignore the stimuli as long as you relax.

The ringing of the phone is just a metaphor, like every external stimulus you habitually respond to.Subconsciously get rid of the previous habits, and I can let the outside world interfere, and I will stand still.Responding to many stimuli at the same time can leave you feeling stressed and unable to deal freely with all the faxes, cell phones, emails, and people milling around outside your room.

How to develop the habit of self-calming

In the same way that you respond automatically to the ringing of the phone, you can self-regulate to respond in some way to other stimuli.

The term "conditioned reflex" in psychology comes from the famous Pavlov experiment.He trained a dog to salivate at the sound of a bell.

There are all kinds of annoying stimuli in our living environment, and we seem to get used to their presence.And the response to them seems to have become static, and then there is no purpose, everything is just natural.But, dear readers, you are not stupid animals. Animals are controlled and ordered by their owners throughout their lives, and have no thoughts of their own.And we are creative, thinking people.Why live a controlled life like a pet instead of an upright, upright, independent thinking person?

Many people are afraid of strangers because their parents told them not to talk to strangers when they were young.Avoiding strangers is a protective response for children.For some adults, it can still be fidgeting around strangers, even when they know the person is friendly.In this situation, the stranger becomes the "ringtone", and our conditioned reflex is panic and avoidance.

Some product salesmen are not very enthusiastic about customers when they are doing marketing, and they are perfunctory about sales tasks.When counseling these salesmen, I often unearth their underlying fear of contact with strangers.When counseling men and women who are not good at making new friends, or who are not good at making friends of the opposite sex, I also turn up the "old imperial calendar".

There is also a kind of people who feel panic and anxiety in crowds, in closed or empty spaces, in front of authority figures or superiors.These factors become their "ringtones", making them involuntarily afraid and want to run away.

In the past, we were too conformist to the "ringtone".Now, we have to learn to get rid of it!

How to Overcome Habitual Responses
We can eliminate the habit of responding to external stimuli by developing the habit of relaxing.Take the example of the phone ringing earlier: we can learn to ignore the phone ringing and just sit still and let it ring.At this time we need a belief, just think: "The phone is ringing, but I don't have to answer the phone, just let it ring." We put this belief in our minds and keep it ready for use at any time.This belief comes into play when you repeatedly tell yourself when the phone rings to relax, sit peacefully, do nothing, do nothing, and not hear the phone ring.It will act like a trigger, and when you hear the phone ring again, you will be reminded of your old attitude.

When it is really impossible not to react, we can try to postpone the reaction.In the process of eliminating the conditioned reflex of the phone ringing, it may be difficult for us to not hear the phone ringing at first.Especially when the phone rings at the moment we expect it to be, it's harder to ignore.In this situation, we can achieve the same effect by delaying the response—eliminating the conditioned reflex.

I knew a Miss Jones who used to get restless when she was in crowded places.By practicing the techniques introduced earlier, she has been able to relax herself and not be disturbed by external stimuli on many occasions.But sometimes the thoughts of running away, running away, etc. still come out, flooding the brain, unstoppable.

"Do you still remember Scarlett in "Gone with the Wind"?" I asked her, "Her philosophy of life is: "I don't bother to think about it now, let's think about it tomorrow." No matter in the face of war, disaster, plague, Whether it is a gratuitous love, Scarlett can maintain her mental balance and adapt to the environment by delaying her reaction.

Delaying the response can interrupt the original conditioned reflex.When the anger is overwhelming, the "count to ten before getting angry" method can calm down the anger.That's a way of postponing a response.

Miss Jones finally resorted to postponing the response, eliminating her years of crowd phobia.When she felt that she couldn't help running away from the crowd, she said to herself: "I'll hold on for a while, just 2 minutes, and leave after 2 minutes!"
[-]. Relaxation will make your mood more stable

In fact, our bad emotions (such as anger, fear, anxiety, restlessness, etc.) do not come directly from external stimuli, but from our own reactions.If there is a reaction, the spirit will be tense; if there is no reaction, it will naturally relax.Scientific experiments have proved that in order to take action or react, the muscles must first be tensed. As long as the muscles remain absolutely relaxed, bad emotions such as anger, fear, anxiety, and restlessness will not occur, and the mind will remain peaceful.Therefore, relaxation is a natural sedative, and it is an umbrella that shields you from bad emotions.

I have a friend who is a lecturer. When he gave a speech in the early years, he would have some habits such as pacing back and forth before going on stage to help him concentrate.But in practice, these habits have invisibly increased his psychological burden, so he can't satisfy himself with the performance of every speech.Later, he got rid of these small gestures. Before going on stage, people often saw him sitting there with a calm expression, relaxed and casual.Since then, he has always been able to perform incisively and vividly in speeches.We can all learn to be alive, motivated, and at our best without being tense.

[-]. Learn to do decompression activities that are beneficial to yourself
If a good table tennis player feels tense and out of shape when preparing to serve, he will pause for a while and do small movements—such as wiping his racket, grabbing his pants, etc.—to relax himself and get a calmer state of mind , to refocus.Elite athletes have a consistent set of mind control exercises, while mediocre athletes have very few.

We have a saying in the training of mind control skills: "Calm the mind, calm the body; calm the body, calm the mind." This sentence is the same whether you are reciting upright or backwards—whether you relax your body first Or relax the mind first, both of them can achieve the effect of relaxing each other.

The trick to staying relaxed is to develop your own set of "pre-serve movements" to overcome tension and prevent negative emotions, no matter what the movement is, as long as it makes you feel calm and relaxed.

Build a quiet "spiritual cabin" in your heart.

A philosopher in ancient Rome once said: "People are accustomed to looking for places that are inaccessible, or mountain villages, or seashores, or mountains. And this is what you yearn for. In the final analysis, this is a vulgar longing, for there is within yourself the power to withdraw whenever you wish. There is no better place to escape from the noise of the world than in one's own heart, whether for greater peace or less distress. ;if he thought in his heart that "seeing through the world, you can find pure peace", then it is even more so. And I firmly believe that if you have peace in your heart, you have achieved inner peace; Your own heart orders. In this case, immediately let yourself enter this retreat and reshape a brand new self..." Here I strongly suggest that everyone use their imagination to build a quiet hut in their hearts, Resist external disturbances.

Build a decompression chamber in your mind
(End of this chapter)