How to Stop Getting Lost in Your Own Thoughts

3 Simple Ways to Step Out of a Mental Spiral and Back Into Your Body

Hot yoga is one of my favorite things to do. It helps me to get out of my mind and into my body.

Interestingly enough, the hardest part of hot yoga for me isn’t the 104 degree room or the poses we move through during a 60-minute class. It’s the beginning and end when I’m lying on my back, still, in corpse pose (shavasana).

This might shock you, but I’ve always struggled to sit with my thoughts.

As an anxious person, the stiller it seems I make my body, the more my mind tends to wander and ruminate. What else am I supposed to do if I’m not doing something with my body?

When I lie in shavasana before class, I feel very uncomfortable.

I start thinking about who might show up to class. Or that work email I still need to send but I’ve been putting off. Or the meeting I have next week that I’m anxious about. Or what I should get for dinner afterwards.

Often, that means I become immersed in these thoughts, with the familiar physical signs of anxiety moving throughout my body: My chest gets tight. My breathing becomes shallower. My palms start sweating.

This has become a topic during my therapy where my therapist (who also does hot yoga) introduced mindfulness as a method to start quieting my mind in these types of situations.

Here are three ways I’m learning to practice mindfulness, especially when my mind starts pulling me into these familiar spirals.

What is Mindfulness, Really?

We’ve all heard the term mindfulness. It’s often discussed alongside meditation, though the two aren’t the same thing.

Meditation is one way to practice mindfulness, and mindfulness can also be practiced throughout everyday life.

Originally, I thought mindfulness meant actively working to have a clear mind. I envisioned people practicing mindfulness as sitting still, thinking nothing, and enjoying some kind of blissful nirvana.

What I’ve since learned is that mindfulness isn’t about clearing your mind. It’s about observing it nonjudgmentally without identifying with whatever comes up.

In my shavasana example before yoga class, this means I can actively watch the thoughts, but not fully embody them.

I kind of think of it like sitting 10,000 feet up in the air on a cloud while a bunch of thought clouds float by below me. I can look down at them and be curious, but I don’t need to jump off my cloud to fully identify with each thought or worry.

Here are a couple structured ways to do this that have helped me.

Mental Noting (“Logging the Data”)

This might be the easiest one.

You’re going to simply observe the thoughts that come up in your mind and note what you find.

Treat each thought and worry as simply data that you’re logging, almost like a scientist during an experiment.

“Ah, I notice a thought about missing my ex. That’s interesting. My chest is a little tight and my stomach feels a little unsettled.”

“Oh, now I'm having a thought about Margot Robbie. Boy, do I love her. She's beautiful. I feel a little flutter in my heart.”

“I’m noticing a thought about an angry email a customer sent me. I can feel my body getting tense.”

You’re simply observing as best you can without judging what comes through.

You are not your thoughts. You can have a thought without automatically believing everything it tells you or feeling the need to act on it.

By observing and naming a thought, I create a little space between myself and whatever my mind is telling me. I can recognize the thought without automatically getting pulled into it.

The 3-Minute Notice and Reset

This activity is based around focusing on your breath, but that’s not really the goal.

Set a timer for three minutes and bring your attention to your breath.

Focus on your breath for the next three minutes. When your mind wanders, gently bring your attention back to your breath.

I typically say to myself, “I know that I am breathing in” when I breathe in, and “I know that I am breathing out” when I breathe out.

You can find something that works for you, but the goal is to simply observe yourself breathing in and out. It might help to focus on where you feel the sensation the most, like the air in your nostrils, or your stomach rising and lowering.

Inevitably after doing this for a while, my attention drifts, and I start thinking about something else.

Good! That’s the point.

I can then catch that my mind is wandering and gently focus my attention back on an anchor, whether that’s narrating my breathing or noticing the sensation of breathing somewhere in my body.

I’m essentially building muscle memory to catch when my mind wanders and bring my attention back.

Keep in mind that as you’re doing this, your mind will wander. That’s totally normal.

Every time you notice your attention has drifted and gently bring it back, you’re practicing mindfulness.

Drop the Anchor

I’ve started to use this technique in situations like in shavasana before hot yoga when I’m fully in a rumination loop.

To drop anchor, bring your attention to your body. Focus on a body part, like your feet, legs, or back, touching the surface of your seat.

Notice the pressure of your body part on that surface.

You can also focus on something like your hand resting on your chest or belly. Feel it rise and fall with the breath.

This requires enough awareness to notice when you’re caught in a thought loop. Once you recognize what’s happening, you can drop the anchor by bringing your attention back to your body.

When I do this, I generally focus on the feeling of my heels on my yoga mat. I’ll stay with that sensation, observing the pressure. I might rotate my feet side to side and notice how that feels.

The goal is to bring your attention back to the sensations in your body.

Building the Mindfulness Muscle

I’m continuing to practice these techniques and I still struggle sometimes, especially when my body is still and my mind is active.

But I’ve noticed that as I practice more regularly, I’m getting better at observing my thoughts without automatically getting pulled into them.

I’ll continue working on this, especially during shavasana.