[00:00:05] Henry Emmons, MD: β Hello, I'm Henry Emmons, and welcome back to Joy Lab.
[00:00:09] Aimee Prasek, PhD: And I'm Aimee Prasek. Last Episode, we introduced our new Element of Letting Go, and we shared how we define it here at Joy Lab. We said Letting Go is a skill of loosening the grip on the thoughts and behaviors that keep us anchored to the past, resisting the present, and anxious about the future. And then Henry, you introduced, like, two way better definitions after that: surrendering to what is; allowing what is. So we have lots of opportunities to create our definitions here for Letting Go. It's part of what we'll do, I think, even through our Series.
So we did highlight those four areas that we're gonna focus on. Letting go of unhelpful thoughts, letting go of our stories, letting go of the myth of closure, and letting go of control. So today we're working on letting go of intrusive or unhelpful thoughts.
I cannot resonate. I've never had an intrusive or unhelpful thought. Hahaha.
[00:01:19] Henry Emmons, MD: Oh, believe me, Aimee, it happens to others. Haha.
[00:01:23] Aimee Prasek, PhD: Okay. Wow, am I kidding. We're starting here 'cause it's so common. So actually let's lean on a definition. We'll use Rachman's definition of intrusive thoughts. So, here β definition: intrusive thoughts are repeatedly occurring, unwanted, and difficult to control thoughts that are generally accompanied by subjective discomfort.
And I just wanna add β unwanted, I think, is a really mild explanation. It's not uncommon for intrusive thoughts to be scary; sometimes repulsive; sometimes shocking. There's an old article on intrusive thoughts that I like. It's called _They Scare Because We Care_. I love that title because it's a reminder that these wild thoughts just pop up sometimes, and we often react so strongly to these thoughts because they're inconsistent with, you know, who we actually are; what we value. And so these intrusive thoughts that shock you the most are usually proof of how much you care about the opposite outcome, not a sign that something is wrong with you. We'll get into that more.
I also wanna note that, again, we're starting our work [on] Letting Go with intrusive thoughts because they're common. One study looked at 777 or so college students and their intrusive thoughts, and like 94% of them reported having had one intrusive thought, at least, in the last three months.
[00:03:04] Henry Emmons, MD: One? Hahaha.
[00:03:05] Aimee Prasek, PhD: Okay. Yeah. If you consider some of the research on how folks tell white lies to look better in social situations, I would just say the number is closer to 100%, and those 6% were lying, and the 94% were undercounting. Uh, yeah. One every three months at least. But probably the most important part of the research on intrusive thoughts has found that the actual content of intrusive thoughts doesn't predict worse outcomes or specific diagnoses. I think that's really interesting. That means it doesn't matter how weird or terrible you think the thought is, it doesn't mean that you're weird, or terrible, or broken, or something. What matters isn't really what the thought is, it's more about how often it shows up and how tightly we grab onto it.
I guess the caveat here though, is that intrusive thoughts that shock us the most β kind of what I was describing earlier β those can catch our attention more than the milder intrusive thoughts, but not because they're true. It's because they're scary and shocking, so we can respond to them more. They take up more space in our brain, and in our body, as we kind of physically respond to them with a stress response or other physical reaction, which then makes us think about them more. So again, it's not the content. It's our gripping onto the thought β our reaction, and that's where the skill comes in. We can loosen the grip on those thoughts, and if we do that, they'll likely show up less, or at least take up less of our energy.
[00:04:54] Henry Emmons, MD: Mm-hmm. You know, in a sense, I see most thoughts as intrusive.
[00:05:00] Aimee Prasek, PhD: Hahaha. Really?
[00:05:01] Henry Emmons, MD: They're not always β yeah , they're not always as unpleasant as what you're β you were describing, but I think β here's what I mean. Most of our thoughts are unconscious, and they're β and we didn't ask for them.
[00:05:16] Aimee Prasek, PhD: Hmm.
[00:05:17] Henry Emmons, MD: Where do they come from?
[00:05:18] Aimee Prasek, PhD: I like that. Yeah. Okay.
[00:05:20] Henry Emmons, MD: Yeah, it's not like we're intentionally sitting down and saying, "Hey, I wanna think about this for a little while." It just happens.
Where do they come from? Who knows? And where do they go after they've kind of passed through us? We don't know that either. Thoughts arise, and then they recede. They recede if we allow them to. That's kind of what we're β really what we're getting into here. And really, that's the problem, because the kind of intrusive thoughts you're talking about, the kind we ruminate over, sort of by definition, we're not able to let go of them. They have us in their grip. And as you said, Aimee, we can all relate to this.
It's not what I would call normal, exactly. But aside from a very few, you know, Zen masters and enlightened people, we all experience this from time to time, and sometimes a lot more, especially when we get stressed or agitated, and then our mind's activity just accelerates. So when we are in the middle of what I'd call a mental storm, letting go of those thoughts is really, really hard.
[00:06:39] Aimee Prasek, PhD: Yeah. I think also many of us have been trained to actually do the opposite of loosening the grip. We've been taught to ignore or push away intrusive thoughts, and the problem with that is the more we fight with them, the more likely they are to stick and grow, It's the pink elephant paradox, actually. Let's do it right now. Okay, I'm gonna give you 10 seconds of silence here, and during that time, do not think of a pink elephant. Don't do it. Do not think of a pink elephant, okay? Go. But don't think of a pink elephant.
...
Okay. Henry, did you think of a pink elephant?
[00:07:36] Henry Emmons, MD: Well. Yeah. Hahaha.
[00:07:40] Aimee Prasek, PhD: Everybody else, did you think of a pink elephant? So this is called ironic process theory. Daniel Wegner was the pioneer of this work kind of in the late 1980s. Actually, I think Fyodor Dostoevsky introduced it in one of his books in the mid-1800s. He wrote something like β I'm paraphrasing.
[00:08:00] Henry Emmons, MD: Oh really?
[00:08:01] Aimee Prasek, PhD: Yep, I'm paraphrasing β I'll have to find it. He wrote, "Try not to think of a polar bear, and you will see that cursed thing every minute." So, I mean, this is something that we can certainly all relate to. It is true. The idea here is that when we try to intentionally suppress a thought or emotion, we actually end up making it occur more frequently, and intensely. And the proposed mechanism has to do with two, kind of competing, mental processes. So one that is trying to suppress or distract us from the thought, and then another that is monitoring whether the thought or emotion has come back. And both of these take cognitive effort.
Just think of that game β the Whac-A-Mole game. I pray to God kids still play this game. I love that game. Skee-Ball and Whac-A-Mole, I could be in an arcade all day. So with Whac-A-Mole, you're looking at those five or six holes, right? And you're monitoring for a mole to pop out. All you can think about is moles, right? That's the monitoring process. And when one pops up, it takes effort to whack that mole. That's the suppression process. Both of those are effortful. And then when you're, you know, suppressing or whacking a mole, you're also trying to monitor if another mole is gonna pop up, which takes a huge amount of effort β to jump between these tasks of suppression and monitoring as rapidly as possible?
And this whole process can get your stress response activated. Like, I can just feel it right now. When I'm at the arcade playing Whac-A-Mole, my heart rate is up.
But honestly, it's the same with our intrusive or unhelpful thoughts. We so often try to suppress and monitor, and suppress and monitor, and it's tiring for us and doesn't leave a whole lot of room for much else. And you, like, don't even get tickets for your effort, so there's no reward of a stale Laffy Taffy at the end all that work. Haha.
[00:10:19] Henry Emmons, MD: You β you've spent more time in arcades, I think, than I have.
[00:10:23] Aimee Prasek, PhD: Oh my God.
[00:10:23] Henry Emmons, MD: I don't even know about Laffy β what's Laffy Taffy?
[00:10:26] Aimee Prasek, PhD: Oh Henry. God.
[00:10:27] Henry Emmons, MD: You've gotta take me out. Haha.
[00:10:29] Aimee Prasek, PhD: Oh, and we're going to the arcade, my friend. Hahaha. We'll report back on stale Laffy Taffy and Whac-A-Mole.
So the β you know, the truth is, is that we do not have to suppress those thoughts. And if we're not worried about suppressing them β avoiding them β if we can let go of that mallet and not whack them, then the monitoring process becomes less consequential too.
You can see those moles pop up β those thoughts β and you're like, "Hey, mole, I'm not gonna mess with you today." And at some point that mole, which really just feeds on your attention, is like, "All right, I'm not gonna pop up as much 'cause you're not giving me as much attention." So it takes practice, but it really does help.
[00:11:18] Henry Emmons, MD: Yeah, and I think because this is really challenging, it's best to start small. You know, by learning, for example, just to recognize a thought as a thought; to be able to see it firsthand as it arises in our mind, and also as it recedes and just kind of drifts away, which it will do if we allow it to.
So I have a fairly benign example to share about β about some of the downsides of these intrusive thought patterns. Believe me, I could share something more extreme, but I'll start here.
[00:11:56] Aimee Prasek, PhD: Haha. Let's start small.
[00:11:57] Henry Emmons, MD: Yeah, start small. And I remember this really clearly because for me, this was kind of a moment of awakening. This is some years ago.
When my boys were young, we used to go to Colorado every summer for a music camp, and I loved being in the mountains. It just made me feel so alive, and I loved biking in the mountains. So I was biking one day, and then I realized β I was by myself, and I realized I had been obsessing about something. I don't even remember what it was, and it really β the content doesn't matter at all. What does matter is that I realized I'd been biking for an hour in one of the most beautiful places on Earth, and I hadn't been there for a minute of it. Truly, I could not tell you one thing I'd seen, because I didn't see it. I was lost. Absolutely lost in thought, and I was missing one of β one of the peak experiences of my summer.
There is a real cost to intrusive, ruminative thinking, and I think a lot of that cost comes directly from this complete lack of presence.
[00:13:21] Aimee Prasek, PhD: Yeah. You say, like, benign or, you know, like that's a small example, but man, those small examples add up over a lifetime [to] where we can feel like we've missed a big chunk of our lives.
[00:13:33] Henry Emmons, MD: Yeah.
[00:13:35] Aimee Prasek, PhD: So they do matter. And you're describing exactly what's happening in our brain. We just can't be in two places at once: lost in our thoughts and in the moment. And what's wild, I think, is that those two places β like, our thoughts and the real moment in front of us β they can be hard to distinguish if we haven't done some training; some practice to get to know our thoughts, as you've highlighted, and to also practice this kind of present moment awareness so that we can return to it. I'll give some examples or explanations of how we can get kind of lost in our thoughts.
So some theories of emotion, like somatic marker theory and embodied cognition, suggest that even before one of those intrusive thoughts pop up, physical sensations can surge and influence our cognitive processing, our interpretation, or decision-making. So these feelings, in effect, can actually make an intrusive thought, or at the very least can make an intrusive thought feel, more real in our mind, and that's because we have these tangible sensations. So we, you know, we think these thoughts must be real. I can feel them. It's easier to get lost in those.
This relates to phenomena like affective realism and interoceptive ability. I wanna dig into those.
So affective realism is essentially how our affect β so how we're feeling and the intensity of our feelings β how that influences our perception. For example, when we're feeling more pleasant, then we tend to perceive our external world as more pleasant. And if we're feeling bad, we tend to see the world as worse off too. I think that sounds obvious. We all know that, kind of. But this isn't so easy to realize when you're kind of lost in it.
Take hangry, for example. Ooh, I had a recent experience with this with a friend when we were traveling. We had a very hangry moment. When you're hungry, you actually are far more likely to perceive strangers more negatively β and everyone around you, let's be honest. Hangry is affective realism. So your perception of the outside world β those strangers, for example β has shifted based on your affect, based on those sensations. And for good reason. From an evolutionary perspective, going out and making new friends is not a priority. You've gotta eat. That's the priority. But if you're not aware of that β those thoughts, those sensations, the anger, the irritation, the hunger β then it's really hard to pause and think to yourself, "You know, I should probably get a snack before my hangry takes over."
And that's where interoceptive ability comes in, which is your ability to detect your internal body sensations. So it might help to think of exteroception, which is your detection and processing of sensory info from outside through your five senses. So [interoception is] that, within. So interoception is what you're detecting within your own body. Like noticing your heartbeat changing, or your breathing rate, or pain in your body, or hunger β all of the noticing that you can do as it relates to your physical sensations. And we need accurate noticing to accurately interpret and take smart actions in response to those sensations.
And so it makes sense then that those who have better interoceptive ability are less likely to have their affect influence their perception, okay? So they're less likely to get hangry. They'll notice, "Ah, I'm hungry, and uncomfortable, and feeling angry and irritated." As they've identified that within themselves, they're less likely to see that outside of themselves. The world doesn't look more irritating or angry just because they are. So the point is, if we aren't aware of our own state, then it can be really hard to see the truth of a situation. It's like everything just gets mashed together. Our hangry becomes a hangry world. Our sense of hopelessness becomes a hopeless world. Our feelings of worthlessness become a worthless world. Our intrusive thoughts become an intrusive world, something we're fighting against rather than, you know, being a part of, and something that we project outside of ourselves rather than something we can tend to, and care for, within us.
So we can work on our interoceptive ability. We do that here at Joy Lab every single week. We do that in our Experiments all the time. Be sure and join us for the Experiments. We can learn how to, you know, strengthen that skill and separate the two β our thoughts and reality β so that we can let go of those intrusive thought loops and be more present in our lives.
[00:19:20] Henry Emmons, MD: So I remember being on a retreat. The topic of this retreat was mindfulness and neuroscience . And one of my favorite teachers said something like this: "The key to mindfulness is to be present to our visceral experience." I think that's what you're talking about, Aimee, when you say interoceptive ability. I think it's another way of saying that. And as I understand it, it is that ability to be aware of what you're experiencing deep within your body, and I have found that incredibly useful, for me.
So when we get triggered with a strong emotion β you know, even something like a bad panic attack β it doesn't start in its full-blown state. If you can notice it, there are some early signs. They might even be subtle, but they are unmistakable, that something stronger is about to arise within you. You don't need to figure anything out at that point. All you need to do is notice the sensation in your chest and belly , and give it your attention. And often it's just a tightening up, a little constriction, or even a vague sense that something is wrong. There's no need to understand it or to know where it came from. If you catch it early and you just turn your attention toward it, very likely it'll just dissipate on its own. There's just something so powerful about being present to your own vulnerability at that early stage of an emotional storm. It softens the entire experience. And this matters because most of the escalation that comes after that first surge is something we do to ourselves.
And that loops us right back to Letting Go. You genuinely cannot suppress that very first unwanted, intrusive thought any more than you can suppress that first surge of emotion. It comes from the unconscious, and you don't get a vote on whether it shows up. But once it has shown up, you do have choices. Do you believe it? Do you reinforce it by repeating it , replaying it, maybe even telling someone else about it? Or can you just notice it and let it move on?
If you grab onto a thought, you give it power. It feeds on attention. But if you can touch it lightly, "Oh, I see you," and keep moving, it goes back to wherever these thoughts come from.
[00:22:17] Aimee Prasek, PhD: Yeah. From the mole game at the arcade. That's where all thoughts are generated.
Yeah. Ah, it's β I love, you know, this encouragement of this gentle awareness; this noticing. It's, like, rooted in self-compassion, which we work on a lot here as well. I think it's also helpful to remember that we don't live in a vacuum, and that your thoughts are not just arising from you and you alone. Like you said, we don't know where they're coming from. But one thing I do know is they're not just coming from you. You're part of this big, wild world with all kinds of stories, and sensory experiences, and beautiful things, and scary stuff, and those things influence us. They can influence what thoughts pop up, how we perceive, what we perceive, what we predict, how we feel. We are a thread in this big web.
I just talked about hangry. I think I'm actually hungry 'cause now I'm thinking about this classic study on chips, but I think it relates. So these researchers had participants eat chips, but before they ate the chips, they had to predict how much they'd like them. And then after they ate the chips, they reported how much they actually liked them. The interesting thing was that one of the groups had a pile of chocolate sitting with them in the room as did this.
[00:23:48] Henry Emmons, MD: Oh boy. Hahaha.
[00:23:48] Aimee Prasek, PhD: Yep. Okay. And then another group had cans of, like, canned meat β tinned meat in the room.
[00:23:56] Henry Emmons, MD: Spam?
[00:23:57] Aimee Prasek, PhD: Yeah. I think there's one with spam. There's another β there's another study that did sardines.
[00:24:02] Henry Emmons, MD: Oh, God. Okay.
[00:24:04] Aimee Prasek, PhD: Tinned β tinned meat. So the assumption by the researchers was that chocolate is better than canned meat. Some may disagree. I get you. I β but, I think overall it's probably correct.
So people in the canned meat room predicted they would like the chips way more than the people in the chocolate room. I think that's interesting. But once they ate the chips, the actual enjoyment ratings of the chips pretty much leveled out. I think there's two really important things here that this highlights, related to intrusive thoughts.
First, the canned meat impacted their thoughts and perceptions. They thought they'd like the chips way more. You could say that the canned meat caused intrusive thoughts. That's a reminder that our thoughts can arise from anything, even canned meat. Second, their predictions β so their thoughts or perceptions β were wrong. So when the canned meat was no longer influencing their thoughts, more specifically when they were focusing on the chips in the present moment, they had a different experience than they thought they would, which also means those old thoughts resided. They didn't have to influence their experience of the chips. They were able to let those [thoughts] go.
So I think there's a bit of humility to consider here with intrusive thoughts. You said vulnerability too, Henry. Sometimes, they're just weird thoughts born out of a mash of pink elephants, true crime podcasts, stress response, canned meat, chocolate, something you saw at the coffee shop, past memory, random surge of anxiety. Just all this stuff that sometimes mashes together and pops its weird little head up, and we don't have to follow it. They do not have to be a statement, or a truth, or a prediction. They don't have to say something about our moral character. Sometimes β more often than not β it's just a weird, random, intrusive thought.
I love Anne Lamott's quote. She says, "You can get the monkey off your back, but the circus never leaves town." And so humility; vulnerability β we can loosen the grip on these thoughts, get them off our back, and the humility there is, as well β they'll probably come back too, the circus of our thoughts. And that's why we need this work on Letting Go. I mean, the circus is gonna get quieter as we practice, but there is humility in knowing that, man, the circus is coming to town, quite often.
[00:26:53] Henry Emmons, MD: That's great. Love Anne Lamott.
[00:26:56] Aimee Prasek, PhD: Yeah.
[00:26:58] Henry Emmons, MD: Also, I think chips go very well with chocolate.
[00:27:02] Aimee Prasek, PhD: It's true. Oh, God.
[00:27:04] Henry Emmons, MD: And I think chips go well with canned meat too.
[00:27:10] Aimee Prasek, PhD: Probably. Yeah.
[00:27:11] Henry Emmons, MD: So if we tie this back to Letting Go...
[00:27:13] Aimee Prasek, PhD: Please.
[00:27:14] Henry Emmons, MD: It's not about pretending the thought never happened, and it's not about fighting it, or shoving it away. That's avoidance, and we've said that's not what this is. Letting Go looks more like noticing the thought, naming it for what it isβ just a thought, not a fact, not a decision, not a reflection on your character β and then letting your attention move on without grabbing hold of that thought. And the gentler you are with yourself in that moment, the less power the thought has. Judgment and self-criticism are what make these thoughts sticky.
[00:27:58] Aimee Prasek, PhD: Hmm.
[00:27:59] Henry Emmons, MD: Self-compassion is what lets them pass through. And there's a nice side effect too. The more that you build this skill β noticing your body earlier, meeting your thoughts with compassion instead of alarm β the less often these thoughts escalate into full storms in the first place. It's preventive. And when they do show up, you can get back to center quicker. This is a skill, which means it gets easier with practice. The first 100 times you do this, it might feel awkward. By the 200th time, it starts to feel natural.
You're literally rewiring how your brain responds to these thoughts, and it takes time. And you've got time.
[00:28:52] Aimee Prasek, PhD: Yeah. Yeah, it takes practice; it takes time. Join us for the Experiment for this Episode. We'll get into a practice for this. We can do this work, and it's really wonderful to do it together.
So next Episode, we're moving from single thoughts to something bigger, I suppose you'd say: the stories we tell ourselves; the ones that are mostly negative, mostly not true. We can let go of those, too.
To close our time today, I wanna share some wisdom from Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett, who's actually one of the researchers for a lot of the work on affective realism. Here's what she wrote: "Human beings are not at the mercy of mythical emotion circuits buried deep within animalistic parts of our highly evolved brain: we are architects of our own experience."
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