Recently, I found myself getting into a mental spiral; my thoughts getting dark and heavy. One moment, I was just fine. And the next, I was drowning in negativity. It came out of nowhere, and that’s what caught my attention. What’s going on with me?! I wondered, half curious, half worried.
If you’ve ever been there, you know how instinctively we start chasing the “why” and trying to fix it with positive thinking.
Today, I want to offer a different approach to help you end a mental spiral. Instead of looking at the thoughts and trying to reframe them, here are 3 other ways to recover from negative thinking.
#1 – Food & Mood
So, coming back to my own mental spiral story, I sat there tracing my thoughts, trying to pin down what had set me off. Was it something I read? Maybe an unpleasant memory that had resurfaced? Or was it my baby’s fussiness getting to me more than I realized?
I kept trying to figure it out, but nothing made sense. And then it clicked: it was the pasta.
I had just eaten red sauce pasta, and I’ve been making this correlation more and more over the past few months. Every single time, without fail, I spiral afterward.
It has nothing to do with my self-worth, my healing journey, or some karmic debt. Rather, it’s my brain and body reacting poorly to something in that food.
That moment I realized – not all thoughts deserve my attention. Some thoughts are just a byproduct of what’s happening in the body.
And when that happens, no amount of positive affirmations or analysis can solve the real issue. The root is physiological, not psychological.
The best solution? Ask yourself these questions:
- Did I eat or drink something that might be affecting me?
- Are my vitals in check, or do I need to get deeper bloodwork done? I address this important factor in this article.
- Am I hydrated? (regardless, go drink a glass now!)
I also LOVE this podcast conversation and recommend listening to it to understand the correlation between food and trauma. For example, the speaker Luis Mojica explains how we crave dessert to keep us “high” and greasy foods to keep us “sedated”. My mind was blown!
#2 – The Nervous System Connection
One long-term client has a particularly heavy self-criticism problem:
“I’m so dumb.”
“No wonder people don’t like me.”
“I’ll never figure this out.”
If I stay at the level of those thoughts and try to do mindset work with her, we would go in circles forever. But instead of debating the validity of her self-talk, I focus on this question: How’s your nervous system this week?
And without a doubt, the intensity of her inner critic mirrors her nervous system state.
Whenever she has been stuck in fight, flight, or freeze, her thoughts are harsher and more hopeless. When her nervous system is calmer, the same life challenges feel manageable, and her self-talk softens naturally.
So instead of battling her thoughts, we work to regulate her nervous system using modalities such as somatic practices, breathwork, grounding, and parts work.
By the end of our sessions, she often surprises herself with clarity and compassion. The thoughts shift because her nervous system state shifts.
#3 – Space, Time, and Perspective
Think of those moments when you’ve spiralled in the car or sitting at home, but the heaviness lifts as soon as you step outside. Or when you’ve stayed up late into the night worrying, only to wake up the next morning wondering, why was I so bothered?
That’s our neurological system experiencing a reset with changes in space, sensory input, or time.
The thought itself didn’t change, but your body and brain state did, which allowed you to look at the situation through a different lens. Thus bringing a natural end to the mental spiral.
The conclusion? Go to sleep or go for a walk. Or do both!
I also find this saying, usually used for kids, effective for us adults too – if they’re in a bad mood, either put them in water or take them into nature!
Concluding Thoughts
The bottom line is that not every thought needs to be analyzed or spiritualized.
And while tools such as mindset work, affirmations, and reframes are useful, they can also keep us stuck in mental loops, treating every thought as meaningful.
Yet sometimes, a thought is nothing more than noise created by physiological dysregulation, chemical imbalances, fatigue and such.
So maybe the kindest thing we can do for ourselves is pause the over-analysis and tend to our bodies. When we do so, the mind will naturally find its way back to balance.
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