I feel like my mind is constantly racing thinking about work. No matter if I’m there or not. I hate that when I’m home I think about work. I’m in doctorate school as well, and I feel like takes up more in my mind (which is shouldn’t, my doc work is more important). Anyone else struggle with always being on/thinking about work? Advice to help stop?
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You might like Cal Newport’s Deep Work. I remember him talking about a shutdown ritual he does to signal to his brain that work time is done (something he says out loud at the end of the day. I can’t remember the exact phrase he uses but anything like “work day concluded” would work).
For me, as long as something is written down or captured in a system I can trust, I can stop thinking about it. I use a written planner and I know that if something gets written in my planner, it will not slip through the cracks, so I my working memory doesn’t have to keep track of it. I just write everything down or capture it in a document that I know I will come back to.
Have you ever tried meditating? I went through a traumatic experience years ago, and my therapist recommended I try meditating, because my brain would get stuck on the traumatic experience and make it impossible to focus on anything else.
I did a free online guided meditation class and also a free “intro to meditation” Zoom call with a local Buddhist temple, and did some guided meditations on YouTube for a while (Yoga with Adriene has some good ones) until I was able to do it on my own without a guide. It’s basically training your brain to let go of thoughts and focus on something else (a mantra, your breathing, your body, etc), and I found that as I did it more, I was able to utilize the skills in real life when intrusive/unwanted thoughts popped up. It was really helpful at the time.
I haven’t done it regularly in years, so I’m crappy at it now, but it was helpful at that time in my life.
Idk what your job is, but my job isn’t that serious.
Whenever I get thinking about work outside work hours, I remind myself that my corporate job isn’t that serious. I’m not a neurosurgeon. I’m not sending people to space. I’m not a pilot flying a 737 with 200 people on board. I’m not a military General that has thousands of lives in my care.
My little “Approved” emails that I send out aren’t even going to make the giant multinational corporation I work for crumble if I make a mistake. It’s not that serious.
This probably won’t work if your job really is serious 😆
As a social worker, it was part of my university seminars to learn how to stop thinking about work, about clients, how to keep a healthy distance from the job. Because otherwise, it destroys you.
What helped me most was realising I can help a client just so far, they must do the work to change themselves.
Besides that, I’m engaging in different hobbies. I just prefer thinking about my hobbies, interests, things that are fun in my free time.
I hate the notion of folks who make their job their whole personality.
So I focus on things I like.
Job-stuff can wait until I’m at work again.
I have found reading to be the absolute best way to redirect my mind from anything. I think it’s bc you can’t really half read, it requires your full attention. Run a nice bath and just escape for a little while.
In the longterm, massages have been really useful in helping me to “control” my thoughts. I’ve learned to be more conscious of what I’m thinking and then actively focus away on either the touch/sensations or the calming noises they play. Takes a bit of practice, but I was motivated by not wanting to waste my money by not relaxing lol
Are you going through past interactions, thinking about to-dos, or something else? What do you do for work?
I work PRN at the hospital and I promise you a cam hear the call bell in my sleep 😭😭😭 I think of the patients that I’ve treated and hope that they’ve made a full recovery. I feel like in the medical field it’s hard to turn the work brain off.
For me, it helped to stop talking about work outside of work. I stopped complaining to my friends. I only told them positive stories about work. It helped my brain focus less on the stressful parts. The most effective thing for me though, was to get a less stressful job that I actually like. I have trouble remembering what I was working on Friday when Monday comes around because I don’t give work a single thought once the work day ends.
Buspar was the only thing that helped me