Do you doomscroll on your phone?
It feels like the world’s new favorite pastime. An addictive dive into the worst possible news, over and over again. But it goes deeper than the phone.
Here’s the thing: do you doomscroll your own thoughts? Looping, replaying past horrors, inventing worst-case futures, as though unable to stop? I refer to this phenomenon as emotional doomscrolling. Or mental doomscrolling. Sometimes I just call it doomscrolling of the mind to mean both things simultaneously. Whatever the name, it’s the same loop: negative thoughts triggering negative feelings, and negative feelings dragging you right back into negative thoughts. You don’t need a screen to get caught in it. You’ve got a whole personal feed running inside your head.
Luckily, there’s a simple method to break out of that loop. And honestly, it’s easier than putting down your phone.
If you’re ready, let’s get into it.
Long before I learned the term, I knew the presence. Not a voice within, but a vast intelligence, radiant, connected through light, touching my path from just beyond it. A conduit between this human life, the soul that animates it, and the divine cosmos that creates it. Only years later did I come across the phrase “Solar Angel”, and something in me both stilled and awakened.
Specific Steps to Feeling Better Right Now
If your negative thoughts tend to spiral into a vortex that’s hard to stop, chances are good that you’ve tried a variety of ways to rein them in. But then you find yourself back at square one, stressed out and trying to outrun your own mind. Good luck with that, by the way. We’re all running the same track. Human beings are hardwired to be on the lookout for danger. Our brains are core-coded with the instinct to survive. If we weren’t, we would have become extinct thousands of years ago. It’s just that when the instinct to survive becomes instead a pattern of finding danger everywhere, you reach diminishing returns.
Maybe it happens to you only when something is especially stressful. An upcoming review at work, for example. Or a doctor’s appointment. A test at school. Or, you know, something casual, like mass deportations or the slow corruption and collapse of Western civilization. Or maybe it’s become a daily habit that you can’t seem to trace back to any single cause. “It’s just how my mind works,” you perhaps say to yourself.
Words that might come to mind include fear, worry, sadness, grief, regret. The list is long.
If you’re looking for a way to stop the cycle of stressful, repetitive thoughts – this doomscrolling of the mind that holds so many of us hostage on a daily basis – this article will give you a 3-step process that’s easy to do and very effective.
And no, it’s not meditation, deep introspection, or hanging out in good vibes. Rather, it’s a simple, targeted way to swap a bad thought for a better one. It’ll help you be ready with a well-prepared positive thought, chosen in advance, for when the doomscroll begins.
Sidebar: Is This Technique Right for Everyone?
This practice is probably best suited for adults with a generally steady mind, even if that mind feels overloaded, foggy, or stuck on repeat. That is, it’s not the right tool for moments of serious distress or mental health crisis. If your thoughts feel too big to manage on your own, it’s not only okay to reach for something else, it’s a wise act of self-love and self-care. You’re not doing the technique wrong at all. You’re just starting from a different place.
Lastly, this technique is not really designed for children or teens, since their ability to observe and redirect thought is still developing. That said, if you observe that your kid is spiraling and it feels to you like this technique might be helpful, try walking through the steps together. Say those things that don’t always show up in conversation. You might be surprised at what comes up by simply verbalizing what’s going on inside.
The Thought That Makes It Work
The practice begins with a foundational process that sets you up for 3 simple steps you’ll repeat as needed throughout your day. It’s important to do this preparatory work when you’re not in the middle of a full-blown emotional doomscroll. Right before you sleep is typically relaxed for most people, or first thing on a weekend morning as you stretch, yawn, and greet the day slowly. Take a few minutes to develop a clear and specific positive thought. Make it rich with detail and easy to recall. This will become your go-to replacement when doomscrolling of the mind strikes.
Here are a few ideas to help you land on a positive thought unique to you and your preferences:
- A vase of flowers
- A gorgeous sports car
- Sitting outdoors on a perfect day
- A fireplace at night
- A cabin in the woods
- A loft condo in east London
- Your golf or tennis game
- A roomful of puppies or kittens
- A tapestry you remember from childhood
- Your old collection of sports cards
- Yoga asanas that are especially delightful to you
- A large chest filled with priceless personal treasures
This list is by no means exhaustive. In fact, you might find nothing on it that works for you. That’s okay. It’s intended to help you consider what might work for you. Try to arrive at something that you can lavish details on in your mind.
A visualized image works really well as a positive thought because you can keep building upon the visual aspects of the image. Your image might even include other sensory involvement.
For example, if you were to use a vase of flowers as the positive thought to keep at the ready, the smell of the flowers might be part of the thought. Your perfect outdoor day might involve a gentle breeze that cools your face or rustles your hair. The flames in the fireplace might crackle and smell like hickory. You get the idea.
And don’t be surprised if the positive thought changes over time. You might start with flowers, move onto puppies and then one day find yourself examining an endless treasure chest. That’s totally fine.
If you’re not an especially visual person and/or inner visualization is difficult for you, no problem. You can just think abstractly and conceptually, so long as that holds your attention in detail. Here are some examples of concepts:
- The enjoyment and satisfaction of gardening
- The excitement of discovering new music on your favorite streaming service
- Seeing friends and family members you don’t get to see often
- The gentle self-love of taking time for yourself
Like the visuals, this ‘concept list’ is hardly exhaustive. Consider possibilities and choose one that speaks to you. And again like the visualizations, you can always change it up as your practice of the technique evolves.
Once you have your visualization or thought, here are the 3 steps of the actual technique.
Step 1: Allow Yourself to Think the Negative Thought
Yes, it hurts, but go ahead and think it, without trying to run from it. For a few minutes, do not try to stop repetitive negative thoughts. Instead, consciously and deliberately allow the mental doomscrolling to happen so that you can identify it.
Maybe it’s a group of thoughts. That’s fine. Just arrive at a “topic” you can identify. This might be health or something a little more specific like my recent diagnosis. It could be my partner, job, body image, or something else personal to your life. It could be the state of your nation, or the world. Just go ahead and, for a moment, think the scary, negative thought without resistance.
No one enjoys their stressful thoughts. We have them while trying to run from them. It’s that same stress you feel when doomscrolling on your phone. So, it might take a few attempts until you can name the thought or thoughts. That’s okay.
In fact, this is the exact cycle we’re going to break with this new technique, so this step is crucial to the practice. Just keep working toward discovering and acknowledging the thoughts involved in the mental doomscroll.
Step 2: Acknowledge the Feeling the Negative Thought Gives You
In Step 1, you got clear on the thought – the thing that keeps circling round and round in your head, like an old record on a DJ’s dusty turntable.
In Step 2, you’re going to get as clear as possible on the feeling that the thought gives you. It’s okay if the idea of this makes you uneasy. Why wouldn’t it? Just as we run from our negative thoughts while simultaneously running toward them, we have a similar experience with the feelings associated with those thoughts. It’s what humans do.
When you first try to describe the feeling, the words might seem vague or general. You might say things like I feel bad or I feel upset. That’s fine. Those are valid words and valid descriptions.
If you can work toward making them more specific, so much the better. There are many emotions that might fall under bad or upset. For example: afraid, worried, embarrassed, sad.
See if you can find a word that accurately describes how you feel.
This step is important because it helps you see that the thought and the feeling are not the same thing. I’m gonna say that again: the thought and the feeling are not the same thing.
The thought might be I don’t have enough money to pay all my bills this month. That’s a tough situation, absolutely. But it’s not an emotion. If that thought spirals into panic (an emotion), you’re swept away into debilitating stress.
And while that reaction is understandable, it’s also unhelpful. You find yourself virtually incapable of even addressing the actual problem because you’re overwhelmed by it.
It’s always the feeling behind the thought that turns it into emotional doomscrolling. When you can unravel the feeling and remove it from the equation (Step 3, below), the thought returns to its actual status as a statement of facts. And addressing the problem shrinks into something manageable.
It may take a few attempts to name the thought, identify the feeling, and pin one to the other. So, be prepared to spend a little time here.
It’s uncomfortable to sit with a bad feeling. In fact, it’s ironic that while it seems more natural to try to outrun our negative feelings, we actually lavish abundant focus on their every detail while we’re running away. And of course, many people try to get away from them through habits that might be unhealthy: stress eating, substance abuse, even destructive relationships.
But sitting with a bad feeling for the purpose of naming it, and accepting it so that you can regain perspective, is a whole other thing. The intention makes all the difference. So hang with it
Step 3: Practice Replacing the Negative Thought with the Positive Thought
This is the fun step. The main event. The reason you’re reading this article. It’s the action that will pull you out of mental and emotional doomscrolling and give you the chance to enjoy your own mind again.
In this step, you’ll consciously use the positive visualization or concept you developed earlier to intentionally replace the negative thought, like swapping out cards in a deck. The moment you realize you’re engaging inner doomscrolling, bring in your positive thought and focus on it in as much detail as you can muster. Let yourself enjoy that positive thought and explore it fully. Give it all the love and attention you can.
And now here’s the payoff: notice how the feeling inside you shifts from negative to positive. Maybe not unicorns and glitter positive, but if you bring the focus, you will reap the reward of feeling the oppressive pall lift with application of the positive thought. That’s how the mental discipline of this technique serves to lighten your emotional load. And that, my friend, means that you have hit the reset button and broken free of the tyranny of your emotional doomscrolling. Maybe just for a minute, or even just a few seconds. But now you can identify how it’s done, how it feels to do, and how it works inside you. You regain dominion.
I’m not gonna lie: meaningful relief might require repeating this step many times throughout the day. In the earliest stages, it could take more than a few. Maybe even more than many.
But it will get easier, and become more effective and long-lasting, as you stick with the simple practice. And one day, you’ll notice it’srrr been hours, or even days, since you’ve felt the wrath of your own doomscrolling of the mind. You will have broken the pattern that’s held you hostage for a long, long time.
Secret Info for Those Who Like Secrets
Powerful and transformative as it can be, this technique isn’t meant to fix doomscrolling of the mind. What it’s designed to do is give you a hard pause. So that you can fix it.
That’s a crucial distinction. You are the power here. You are both the engine and the process of your own existence. You were built for better things than emotional doomscrolling. You are not here to be bullied by your thoughts or your feelings. Your thoughts and feelings are here to serve you, not to plague you. You have extraordinary agency to think elegant, healthy thoughts, and to feel elegant, healthy emotions.
Living a human life can separate you from that truth. You feel the spiral. It nags at you, even beyond the tension that stressful, negative thoughts and feelings create.
True self-transformation, which we often think of as “fixing my life,” is almost always the result of many steps, many processes, and many inner distillations that you orchestrate inside yourself. Sometimes consciously, sometimes on autopilot. It rarely happens in a day, and it needs time to develop.
If this technique helps you expand your awareness of that reality, then it’s done its primary job. If you can further leverage it to regain mental clarity, that’s the free gift with purchase. That’s the secret. Enjoy it.
Not a Fix, a Way Forward
As I mentioned earlier, this practice isn’t meditation, and it’s not meant to replace it. A lot of meditation, especially mindfulness-based practices, centers on releasing thoughts.
By comparison, this quick and accessible approach is about replacing a negative thought and its unhappy feeling with a positive thought and the feeling that follows. If you treat the technique as a complement to your meditation practice – not a replacement – you’ll be using it to its fullest. In fact, learning how to stop doomscrolling of the mind may eventually support your meditation practice simply by helping you build mental discipline. With time, you might find yourself less resistant to tranquility and more adaptable in how you reach it.
If that sounds like an odd concept, consider how often we humans resist change, even when we know it will help us. That’s how we get into patterns of emotional doomscrolling. We fall into them because they’re easy and don’t require us to change. We just keep running on that hamster wheel of emotional overload, desperate to get off but uncertain about the open road.
So if you want out of the spiral, give yourself room to ease into this practice.
Keep in mind that it’s not about fixing you. You’re not broken. It’s about helping you realize you’re not just a stowaway inside the runaway train of your mind. You actually have a say in what happens next.
It might feel awkward at first. You might forget to do it. Some days, you might not want to do it. You might even want to snuggle back down into that familiar emotional doomscrolling that’s kept you locked in a tower for so long. A kind of Stockholm Syndrome, in a way.
It wouldn’t be surprising if you don’t feel it helping right away. That’s normal. You’re learning a new kind of participation in your own mind. Give it time. Let it remind you that you have agency here. More than you may have realized.
Stick with it. It works.
Originally published in 2022, this update offers new insight into emotional doomscrolling and includes audio.