Category: Mental Health

What’s the RAS and why it’s crucial for OCD recovery

Posted in Anxiety, Mental Health, OCD, OCD Awareness Week, OCD GeneralTagged , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

One of the greatest insights into the brain and how it functions for me was when I learnt about the reticular activating system or RAS for short. 

I first read about the RAS in Jim Kwik’s book, Limitless – which I would highly recommend. 

He states that:

‘Every second, your senses gather up to 11 million bits of information from the world around you….
…The conscious mind typically processes only 50 bits per second. ‘

The RAS system plays an important role, 11 million is a lot and would be completely overwhelming if it all got through to your conscious awareness, so the RAS, filters out most of the information coming in. 

How does it know what to let through and what to ignore? This is generally based on where you focus your attention!    

Have you ever noticed when you’re shopping for something new, like a car, you suddenly start seeing the one you’re interested in all over the place?

I remember when my husband and I were looking for a new front door. I’d never looked at anyone’s front door before in my life, but all of a sudden I knew what everyone’s front door on my entire street was like.  We’ve now purchased our front door, and since then I’ve had no interest whatsoever in anyone else’s – my brain has stopped drawing my attention to them.

Another interesting example of this was when my husband and I went for an anniversary meal one year.  We were sitting in a beautiful conservatory enjoying a wonderful meal and I made a comment about one of the flower displays and how interesting the vase was.  My husband – generally much less interested in flowers and much more interested in technology – commented that he hadn’t even noticed the flowers but was looking at how they had discreetly wired in the sound system speakers – something which I had little interest in, so hadn’t noticed. 

Isn’t it fascinating how two people in the exact same space and moment in time can be experiencing something completely different, depending on what their brain thinks they’re interested in and is therefore drawing their attention to!

Bringing us round to OCD we can see how this system can work against us.  When we’re overly focused on our obsessions (unwanted, intrusive, and distressing thoughts, images, urges, or feelings that repeatedly enter a person’s mind and cause significant anxiety.) our brain is going to see them as important and hijack that small stream of data coming through to our conscious awareness to bring our attention to them.  As it does this it blocks out all the other things we might very well have been interested in! 

Another great quote which I love is: ‘What am I missing by choosing to worry and be afraid?’

How much of your life are you missing out on? It can feel tough to hear all this, particularly, if like me, you’ve had OCD for a long time.  OCD thoughts consume so much of our mental space and energy that when other things come along, they could be right in front of us and we don’t see them!

So what do we need to do?

Well it doesn’t happen quickly, but we need to not engage with the OCD obsessions when they come in, any resistance to them shows the brain they are important and activates that filter.  I know it can feel impossible, but I have found, through 30 years of OCD experience, it is the only way to be rid of them. Just say: 

‘Thank you brain, that’s exactly what I want to hear right now’

and carry on with your day. This way you’re not pushing it away but you’re also not interacting with it.

Next, you need to check your inner dialogue. This will also effect what comes through your filter and quite often is running on auto pilot in an unhelpful way.

A great exercise is to sit for a moment and see how you talk to yourself.  I’m guessing if you have OCD you’re probably not being that kind.

From Jim Kiwk’s book, a quote from Dr Jennice Vilhauer

‘The inner critic isn’t harmless.  It inhibits you, limits you, and stops you from pursuing the life you truly want to live.  It robs you of peace of mind and emotional well-being and, if left unchecked long enough, it can even lead to serious mental health problems like depression and anxiety’ 

and I’d venture to add OCD to that list.    

Take a moment and write down what you hear yourself saying, then see if you can find a better more uplifting dialogue to tune into. Below are a couple of ideas for when OCD obsessions come in but you can apply this idea to all aspects of your life:

  • ‘I’m noticing my OCD is feeling overwhelming right now, but I’m working on letting it be and I know it will pass.  I am a strong and resilient person who can sit with this uncomfortable feeling’
  • ‘I know that giving into the OCD obsession will only make it worse in the future, I’m being strong now for my future freedom, I’m so proud of myself’
  • ‘When my OCD is triggered, I know I will be thrown into fight or flight, I can’t think rationally in that state so there is no point in interacting with the thought, I love that I can empower myself with this knowledge’.  

Next time you’re triggered have a go at using one of the above and see if it helps switch your mind away from negative thinking – which is going to be the focus of next week’s post.

Don’t forget to subscribe if you haven’t already so you don’t miss any of my upcoming posts. let me know your thoughts on the RAS in the comments below, I’d love to hear your experiences of it too.

I hope this insight has been helpful, As always, Stay Strong xxx

Understanding OCD as a Faulty Defence Mechanism

Posted in Mental Health, Mental Wellbeing, OCD, OCD Awareness Week, OCD GeneralTagged , , , , , , , Leave a comment

I’ve talked in a previous post about how OCD is closely linked to our sympathetic nervous system, how when we get triggered by an obsession, if we pay attention to it, we get thrown into fight or flight – which is not where we want to be. 

This system has it’s uses and, in the past would have been responsible for keeping us alive and safe but when we have OCD, this mechanism – which is designed to be a temporary state – can become a permanent trait! 

I guess this is because the brain has seen that by keeping us stuck in an OCD loop we are ‘safe’ from the ‘perceived threat’ and even though we can logically see it’s not a useful mechanism, all the brain can see – who’s main job it is to keep us safe – is that we are still alive, so job done. 

It’s worth noting here that the brains top priority is keeping us alive.  Not happy, not living our best life, not being socially connected or prosperous, nope, just being alive and if it thinks there are risks and threats out there that need to be avoided – due to OCD’s faulty system – and it thinks the OCD spiral keeps you safe, then it is going to have you looping down that rabbit hole forever! 

It does seem that in OCD there is a ‘fault’ in the switch that allows us to dismiss obsessions when they come in, the threat system, seems ‘hot-wired’ but why? 

I personally believe (and current evidence seems to confirm) that the ‘fault’ comes from some sort of highly driven sympathetic time or event in a person’s life.  This person will most likely have a predisposition (genetic vulnerability) towards OCD; however I also believe that we don’t have to know what that time or event was, sometimes it’s obvious – birth of a child, prolonged periods of feeling unsafe or stressed but other times it’s not and that’s OK.    

Putting these two ideas together:

1. That OCD is a fault in the threat detection system
2. The brains top priority is to keep us safe,

we can see how OCD can be seen by the brain as ‘a useful tool’. It becomes a learned habit – ‘if I spend my time focused on OCD thoughts, then I’m safe’. 

Is OCD therefore a defence mechanism – albeit a faulty and unhealthy one – to ‘avoid life and keep us safe’?

It feels like quite a big question and something that people with OCD might object to but just stop and think for a second. 

Does your OCD stop you from living the life you’d love to live?  And in doing so does your brain – rightly or wrongly so – believe that it is keeping you safe?

Another interesting insight I had was that with OCD we tend to know that the obsession is unfounded, and logically not true but because we can’t be 100% sure we get stuck. 

Is this another, particularly clever, part of the mechanism?  We sit at home ruminating and so not venturing out into the ‘scary world’ with the ‘unpredictable uncertainty’ – but it’s never enough to ever fully convince us that the obsession is true. Therefore, we stay at home, where we are stuck but according to the brain safe, job done. 

It’s an uncomfortable theory right: is OCD a defence mechanism the brain uses to keep us safe? 

If we look at OCD this way, then we can start to see it for what it is – a badly calibrated, unhealthy and faulty protection system which for whatever reason can feel productive and useful – it’s not. 

We need to start to write a new story, remember the brain will always focus on the negative and try and find evidence to prove itself justified. 

I would bet for all the negative evidence it finds there’s just as much, if not more positive evidence to the contrary, your brain is just not seeing it – tunnel vision.  You need to widen the spotlight and make it a flood light. This way you can see the whole picture and realise everything OCD has been telling you is a very convincing LIE! 

This idea of OCD as a faulty safety mechanism has helped me to see that my brain is just trying to keep me safe, it has allowed me to be a lot kinder to myself and even laugh at the non-sensical nature of it. 

I hope it helps you too,  
As always stay strong xxx

The Power of Surrender in OCD Recovery

Posted in Mental Health, Mental Wellbeing, OCD, OCD GeneralTagged , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Surrender is something I’ve been trying to implement more in my life recently. 

I have written previously on how trust and confidence in the process of ERP are so important but also allowing yourself to surrender any internal resistance – which by the way can feel impossible at times – is really important, doing this allows your system time to discover it can cope and reset. 

I’ve recently noticed a sneaky OCD compulsion I have, where when an OCD thought comes in I naturally start to make a list of all the reasons that thought is rubbish.  It’s not even a fully conscious thing I do, but I have noticed me going:

‘Well, there’s no way I’d do __________ because I’m a good person and I’ve never done anything like that before and actually this feeling of doubt is a sign that I’d never do ________ and why would you hurt someone you love?’ etc, etc, etc

Does this sound familiar?  I think for a long time I’ve done this thinking it helps, but I’ve now realised it’s a damn COMPULSION!  Which has been keeping me stuck, argh!!!!

So, surrender is now my new strategy, noticing when this inner monologue kicks in and letting go of the need to defend my character. 

It reminds me of something I read called ‘Resisting the demons’ from Tara Brach’s book: ‘Trusting the Gold’, which I’d like to share.  It’s about a twelfth-century Tibetan master, called Milarepa and it goes as follows:

‘…he returned one evening to find his cave filled with demons.  Although he understood that they were just projections of his own mind, that didn’t make them any less threatening or horrible.  But how was he to get rid of them?

First, he thought teaching them spiritual truths might help.  They just ignored him. Angry and frustrated he ran at them, trying to push them out of the cave.  Far stronger than he, they laughed at him.  At last, Milarepa gave up, sat down on the floor and said, “I’m not leaving, and it looks like you are not either, so let us just live here together.”  That’s how we might finally respond to the especially stubborn demons we live with: “Well, that’s just the way I am.  I guess I have to live with it.  This is just the way life is.” 

But to Milarepa’s surprise, when he stopped resisting, instead of taking over, all the demons got up and left the cave.  All except one, and this one was particularly powerful. Milarepa realised that the only thing he could do was have the courage to deepen his surrender.  He walked over to that great demon and placed his head inside it’s gigantic mouth. “Just eat me up if you want to,” Milarepa said.  At that moment the demon vanished.’ 

Does this story resonate with you too?

I can see how the demons represent OCD obsessions, the ‘teaching them spiritual truths’ is a compulsion and feels a lot like what I’ve been doing recently with my, ‘I’m a good person reasoning’.

It does feel that surrendering – counterintuitive as it seems – is the only way to allow the thoughts to come and go without the distress. It’s only when we stop, judging, controlling, tensing against and avoiding our compulsions that we arrive in a more open, tender and healing space where the thoughts lose their power over us. 

I think it can feel ‘useful’ to be fighting against and battling our inner ‘demons’ at times but years of struggle has taught me that it’s not. 

When you finally stop it can feel a bit open and spacious, which is uncomfortable in a different way, the brain likes to be busy and it’ll want to fill that space with something. It is a creature of habit, so you will probably still get the doubt feeling coming, even if you’ve let go of the obsession, you need to get used to that feeling. If you don’t the brain will try desperately to attach it to another obsession – this is known as the ‘whack a mole’ effect – but know if you let it be the brain will eventually realise it doesn’t need to produce that feeling any more.

OCD recovery can feel like a long road but stick with it because the peace and clarity you get in the good times is worth it.

As always, you are not alone,
Stay Strong xxx

OCD is Ego-Dystonic, but what does that mean?

Posted in Mental Health, OCD, OCD Awareness Week, OCD GeneralTagged , , , , , Leave a comment

A super short one this week to highlight something important everyone suffering with OCD should know.  If you’ve had OCD for a while you’re probably already aware of it’s ego-dystonic nature but if not, it can be enlightening to understand what this means.

What do we mean when we say something is ego dystonic?

Ego-dystonic means: against the self or being inconsistent with one’s true beliefs and personality.

When it comes to OCD we can say that the obsessions – unwanted, and intrusive thoughts, urges, or images – are ego dystonic, as they directly contradict a person’s values, desires, and self-image.

In fact, someone with OCD will find the obsession so repugnant in nature that they often lead to the compulsive behaviours we see in OCD – which are an attempt to ‘neutralize’ the anxiety caused – despite the fact we often recognise the compulsion as unreasonable. 

A couple of examples of ego-dystonic content could be:

Harm OCD – A caring person having unwanted, persistent thoughts of harming someone.

Or

Contamination OCD – A clean and tidy person worrying that they’ll spread a disease or infection to someone they love.

As with intrusive thoughts, everyone will experience ego-dystonic thoughts at times.  The difference being that someone without OCD can immediately recognize the thought as untrue, and move on with their day.

When it comes to OCD however this is where the ‘glitch’ or ‘faulty signal’ in the system seems to trip us up. For whatever reason we get stuck worrying that the thought might mean something – it doesn’t, but by giving the thought time, the brain starts to see it as significant and so we can see where the OCD spiral into fight or flight begins.

In conclusion it’s our job to notice these thoughts when they come in for what they are – ego-dystonic – and let them go, taking the fact we find them so distressing as our sign that it’s OCD at play and nothing more. 

I really hope this one helps, it’s one I often have to remind myself of, but it’s always really helpful when I do.

Remember you are not alone,
As always, Stay Strong xxx

Overcoming OCD: Letting Go of the Rope

Posted in Mental Health, OCD, OCD Awareness Week, OCD Coping Strategies, OCD GeneralTagged , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

I have had OCD for what is fast coming up to 30 years. As I quickly approach my 41st birthday it can sometimes feel like I’ve been fighting a war inside my brain for what feels like forever.  I’ve read all the books, listened to the podcasts, had a couple of rounds of therapy, trained as a yoga teacher and PT, I look after my nutritional and physical health, and choose to share what I’ve learnt in the hope of helping others through my blog, Instagram posts and workshops. 

So why I ask myself do I still struggle at times?  Why does the world still feel overwhelming & why won’t my nervous system just relax already? 

Maybe my expectations are too high?  I had a therapist once say to me that I might just have to ‘accept the fact that I’m an anxious person’, not really what you want to hear but then expecting to find total inner peace is probably a little unrealistic too I realise.     

I know Steven Phillipson says, ‘I don’t care how you feel, continue with your day aligning to your values’ and I try to do this. It is in fact how I’ve managed to achieve everything I have over the last 10 years but I do sometimes wonder how much noise is normal?

I wrote in a post a while back: ‘When we have OCD, Fight-or-flight can turn into a trait instead of a temporary state!’ and this is how I feel, like I’m stuck in fight or flight most of the time. My ability to relax, be in the moment and not feel overwhelmed is seriously lacking.    

I feel like I’ve been on a mission the last few years for answers – which I now realise may be a sneaky compulsion of mine, eek!   Maybe what I should have been doing is letting go of the rope – another ACT metaphor which I love.

This ACT metaphor illustrates how struggling against your obsessions (the monster) is a never-ending fight, but Letting go of the rope and not engaging with your intrusive thoughts, accepting the presence of them and carrying on with your life while aligning to you values is your way to freedom. 

Breaking it down a bit further:

  • The Monster: Represents your OCD obsessions.
  • The Rope: Represents your attempts to control, avoid, or eliminate these obsessions with compulsions.
  • The Pit: Represents the fear of being consumed by, or drowning in your obsessions.
  • Letting Go: Means dropping the rope (not completing the compulsions) and ceasing the battle, not necessarily defeating the monster (obsession). 

We need to recognise that fighting our obsessions is exhausting and ultimately ineffective, allowing our difficult thoughts and feelings to be present without fighting them is the key, this then frees up energy and attention to focus on what actually matters. 

I wonder then have I secretly been pulling on that rope and keeping my OCD alive with all my research and development?  Argh! Does it all actually come down to my inability to just stop and sit with the feelings?

As I head towards my 30 year anniversary with OCD, I need to acknowledge that some education with OCD is important but then try to recognise where the line is between being informed and it being a compulsion.  

Have you got any sneaky defaults which are keeping your OCD alive and kicking? Do you feel like you’re doing everything right but you’re still struggling too?  

Maybe try and keep a list this week, whenever you notice yourself doing something unnecessary because of your OCD, write it down, awareness is the first step to being able to change these traits, which we have unknowingly accepted into our lives. 

On a more positive note and bringing some hope back into the conversation. I do have the odd occasion when I come out of fight or flight and it feels so wonderful.  It feels like what life should be, I’m present, in the moment and experiencing life as it could be, full of opportunity and joy.  

If I have one target for the next 40 years it’s to spend as much time as possible out of fight or flight and if I can achieve this I will be a very happy soul. I want to be able to enjoy life without rushing through it, listen when people talk, take joy in the small things and the process of getting to them.      

Let me know if any of this resonates with you.  It can be very lonely at times to have OCD, and community can help us feel that less.
A bit of a heartfelt one this week as I approach that 30 year milestone but sometimes that’s what’s needed.

As always, you are not alone,
Stay Strong xxx

Understanding OCD Through Relational Framework Theory

Posted in Mental Health, Mental Wellbeing, OCD, OCD GeneralTagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Does this sound familiar?

You’re out enjoying your day, you feel happy, in fact you feel really good and then all of a sudden out of no where you get hit with an OCD obsession.  ‘Ugh you think, why now when I was having so much fun and feeling so happy?’    

Why indeed?

Well there’s a theory to why this happens and it’s called, ‘relational framework theory’ in fact it’s what ACT – acceptance commitment therapy – is built upon.

I’m sure I’m not going to be as good as the creators at explaining how it works so please go look up Steven C. Hayes if you have a chance but the theory is based upon the concept that humans think relationally. 

This basically means that humans can and do relate objects in their environment to other objects. Virtually in any possible way e.g. same as, better than, opposite of, greater than, faster than, part of, similar to or like, before and after, if/then, family relationships, near and far etc,
There are all sorts of ways in which we sort and link information in our minds and it has been amazing for our evolutionary progress however it also opens us up to the possibility of immense suffering.   

Lets dig a little deeper

As we grow as humans, we create vast networks of relationships in our brains.  We link objects together so we are better able to make sense of them and recall them when needed. 

Ever found that when learning something new if you can relate it to or build upon something you already know it’s far easier to remember?  Or when you try and recall someone’s name it can help to remember where you know them from? 

This is because your brain has linked ‘Julie from the gym’, with the gym in your head, therefore remembering the gym will help you recall Julie’s name. 

Julie from the gym might also have other connections such as she has a daughter who goes to the same school you used to attend or maybe she likes to play netball and so does your friend Jane – Jane and Julie will now be linked in your mental framework too.

Here’s a little game you can play to help demonstrate this further:

Write down one noun – any type of object or animal will do

Noun 1 _________________________

Now write down a second noun

Noun 2________________

Now answer the following 3 questions:

  1. How is the first noun related to the second one?
  2. How is the first noun better than the second one?
  3. How is the first one the parent of the second one? 

The third one can take a bit longer but given a bit of time an answer will come.

This exercise highlights how the brain can relate anything to anything else!!!!!!!  It is an interesting insight as ultimately not everything can be the parent of everything; however, the brain justifies these relations by features it abstracts from the related facts. Your mind can always find a justification for that relation!  Sound similar to OCD?

Bringing us back then to OCD and the start of this post.

We can see how obsessions (unwanted, intrusive, and distressing thoughts, images, urges, or feelings that repeatedly enter a person’s mind and cause significant anxiety.) can become linked to events, people, places, circumstances, actions, words, smells, music/sounds etc.

The obsession, whatever it is, can become attached to an existing relational framework in our brain, triggering our OCD every time we then come into contact with that object or framework in the future!

‘ARGH!!!!!!!!!’

Does this sound familiar? 

Can you think of any frameworks that OCD has latched onto?  Maybe something in your bedtime routine, perhaps when you cook a meal and get the knives out, maybe when left on your own with your kids, perhaps when the news comes on, or it could be when you get into your car, the things OCD can attach itself onto are literally endless.

And unfortunately, once it has attached itself, as far as I’m aware, there’s no easy way to unattach it again.

Having an awareness of this is so important for OCD recovery because we have to accept that we are going to get triggered, and if we fight it, push it away or try and block it out, it just makes it stronger and even more sticky.  You can’t unravel these networks they are too vast and convoluted.    

So what can we do?

We have to let go of the struggle.

There’s a lovely ACT metaphor which illustrates this nicely

Someone is standing in a battlefield fighting a war. The war is not going well.  The person fights harder and harder.  Losing is a devasting option, but unless the war is won the person fighting it thinks that living a worthwhile life will be impossible. So the war goes on. 
Unknown to this person however is that at any time they can quit the battlefield and begin to live life now.  The war may still go on and the battlefield may still be visible. The terrain may look very much as it did while the fighting was happening but the outcome of the war is no longer very important and the seemingly logical sequence, of having to win the war before beginning to really live has been abandoned. – Extract Taken from: Get out of your mind and into your life by Steven C. Hayes. 

Here we see that the way to move forward is to stop fighting, accept the obsession and carry on with our lives aligning to our values.  Eventually the brain sees the link to the framework as unimportant and stops bringing your attention to it so readily, however every now and then it will throw it back up to check if its important and it’s your job at this point to say:

‘thank you brain that’s exactly what I wanted to hear right now’

and then carry on with your day aligning to your values – for more information on values work check out my post here.


If you’re enjoying learning more about ACT therapy then I would highly recommend looking up Steven C. Hayes, which is who a lot of these ideas have come from. 

A small thank you at the end of this one for your ongoing support, this is my 100th blog post and definitely something which should be celebrated.

As always, Stay Strong xxx

ACT Metaphors for OCD Recovery

Posted in Anxiety, Mental Health, Mental Wellbeing, OCD, OCD Coping Strategies, OCD GeneralTagged , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

I’ve written a lot recently about how when we have OCD, if we give into our compulsions we are likely to be plunged into our sympathetic (fight or flight) nervous system.   

This is an issue as when in this state we are unable to think rationally and our intrusive thoughts can feel all overwhelming. 

There are some great ACT metaphors which we can use to illustrate this concept, below are 3 of my favourites, let me know which one’s yours:

1. The fog

When an OCD thought comes in imagine it like fog being blown towards you.  You have the choice, at this stage, to not participate, let the thought be and wait for the fog to dissipate or you can give into the compulsion.  Every time you give into the compulsion, whatever it may be, imagine a new layer of fog being blown towards you, further damping your ability to see clearly.

2.Ripples on a pond

Here the OCD obsession is like a stone being thrown into a pond.  If we do nothing and let it be the ripples will soon disperse and we will be able to see clearly again. If however we give into the compulsion it’s the equivalent of throwing a new stone in every time.

3.The bus stop

Here we see that before we are triggered we are standing at the bus stop watching the traffic go by.  If we then get triggered and give into the compulsion it is the equivalent of walking out into the road and being surrounded by the traffic, therefore not being able to see clearly.

There are plenty more of these metaphors out there, if you’ve found these ones helpful why not have a look around for some others or if you know of another helpful one then add it in the comments below, I’d love to hear it. 

I do think the metaphors can make it all seem very easy to just draw yourself back out of fight or flight. I don’t for a second want to belittle how hard this is to do when you’re in it, believe me I know, but it can help to show what the effect of giving into an OCD compulsion can be and hopefully it gives you another tool and incentive to not give into those compulsions when they come along, they really do only lead to misery. 

I really hope it helps, as always remember you are not alone.
Stay Strong xxx 

Conquering OCD: Recognizing Fight or Flight Responses

Posted in Mental Health, Mental Wellbeing, OCD, OCD Coping Strategies, OCD GeneralTagged , , , , , , 1 Comment

In my last post I talked about the threat bucket metaphor and how it relates to our resilience levels – if you haven’t read that one you might want to go and check it out first – link to pervious post.

In this post we’re going to look closer at why it’s particularly bad for your bucket to overflow when you have OCD and why your self-care is of the upmost importance. 

Why it’s so bad for OCD when your bucket overflows?

When we have OCD we want to do everything we can to keep our resilience as high as possible, why? 
Well, when in fight-or-flight, our brain shifts into ‘survival mode’ this, like OCD, changes how you think, not just how you feel.

Our goals switch to speed and safety over accuracy, nuance and long-term reasoning – not what we want when dealing with OCD intrusive thoughts. 

Here’s a summary of what’s happening in the brain when our resilience drops (bucket overflows).

1. Our brain’s “thinking centre” goes offline – The prefrontal cortex (responsible for reasoning, planning, empathy, and impulse control) becomes less active.

This means:

  • We have a reduced ability to think logically
  • Difficulty seeing multiple perspectives
  • Poor working memory (“I can’t think straight”)
  • And more impulsive reactions

You’re not choosing this—blood flow and neural activity are redirected away from this area.

2. Our threat-detection system takes over – our amygdala and related limbic structures start to dominate.

This means our thinking becomes:

  • Threat-focused (“What’s wrong?”)
  • Binary (safe vs dangerous, right vs wrong, black vs white)
  • Fast and reactive
  • Emotion-driven

Our brains are asking one question only: “How do I survive this?”

3. Cognitive narrowing occurs, Fight-or-flight (an overflowing bucket) causes tunnel thinking.

You may experience:

  • Fixation on one detail or outcome
  • Loss of creativity and flexibility
  • Difficulty accessing learned skills – this is why prepping in advance for triggering situations is so important
  • Overgeneralization (“This always happens”)

This is efficient for survival—but limiting for problem-solving and not where you want to be when experiencing intrusive thoughts.

4. Biases increase – in survival mode, the brain relies on shortcuts, common thinking patterns include:

  • Catastrophizing
  • Mind reading (“They’re against me”)
  • Personalization
  • Black-and-white thinking

These are not “bad habits”—they’re stress (OCD)-induced neural shortcuts.

Understanding all this helps you realise that you can’t reason or ruminate your way out of fight-or-flight (OCD)—you regulate your nervous system first. Thinking comes back after ‘safety’ is restored.

BUT…
…how do we know if we’re in fight or flight in the first place?
and
…how do we get out of it and stay out of it when our amygdala keeps letting off faulty signals all the time?
I hear you ask.

Honestly it can feel impossible at times, I get it! 

First things first, the best way I’ve found to work out if I’m in fight or flight is from Martha Beck:

Ask yourself:
‘Am I suffering/struggling?’

If the answer is, ‘yes’ then you can almost guarantee you’re in fight or flight.   
There’ll be no logic involved, you won’t be thinking rationally – you need to stop.    

Our bodies are designed to move between rest and digest and fight or flight naturally and if you can recognise you’re dysregulated and sit with the uncomfortable feeling then great, do that.

I have however found some nice ways to speed up the process, so you can start to see things more rationally more quickly!   

Here are some of the best tools I’ve found to come out of fight or flight when in it:

  1. Creativity – this will mean different things for different people but creativity is amazing at switching on a different part of the brain, drawing your attention away from the catastrophizing part. Quite often if you can focus on creating something, whether it be a piece of art, a yoga sequence, something in the kitchen, garden, workshop, on the computer, anything that gets you thinking outside the box, you will start to draw your attention back to a more balance place.
    What’s your creative outlet?
  2. Curiosity – This can be curiosity about anything, quite often when we become curious and interested in something it grounds us and pulls us away from that extreme black and white thinking. Try asking why? Maybe investigate how something works or why it’s the way it is.
    Have you ever wondered about anything?
  3. Humour – is fabulous for getting the brain to switch modes. It works because its unexpected, remember the brain is a prediction machine and it’s pretty good at it. When a joke comes along and it doesn’t end where the brain think it will, BAM! You’re out of default mode and the brain is switched on and listening.
    Do you like any particular comedians? Go and look up one of their new sets online.
  4. Awe – part of the joy of being human is our ability to find awe. It can really give you some perspective when you look at the stars, birds, clouds, landscape etc. Going out into the world and finding things that make you think, wow! Is very important to our wellbeing and it helps us reset.
    What brings you that feeling of awe?
  5. A Challenge – this can be tricky when you’re in fight or flight but something which I found fun – from Martha Becks book – was to try and write your signature backwards. It takes a huge amount of focus and is very grounding. Go on, give it a try!
  6. Foundations Work – movement, nutrition, sleep, relaxation & social connection.  This takes an element of doing what you know is good for you, even when you don’t feel like it. We have to take action first, do the things we know make us feel better in the long run, your body and brain will thank you.

I really hope some of these methods are useful for you, give them a go and see what works.  It can be very individual which is tricky but once you’ve found the thing that works it can be seriously life changing.  Once back in rest and digest quite often we can let the thought go and see it as completely irrational, but if not, at this stage we can work through Byron Katies, questions.

Ask yourself:
Is it true?
Is it 100% true?  If the answer is no – which it always is in the case of OCD as it is based in doubt and uncertainty – then:

YOU HAVE TO LET IT GO!!!!!!

As I said in one of my previous posts, why would you torture yourself over anything less than 100% certainty?

I really hope this post has helped you to understand the role the nervous system plays in OCD and why it’s so important to recognise when you’re in fight or flight and find useful ways to bring yourself back. Only when out of fight or flight can we rationalise, think clearly and see OCD thoughts for what they are, just thoughts.

And if you ever wanted a reason not to complete a compulsion in the first place then remember, every time you give into one of those unwanted, intrusive, and distressing thoughts, images, urges, or feelings you’re filling up your bucket a little bit more and getting closer and closer to fight or flight, where it all starts to fall apart! 

Leave that thought be and carry on with your life aligning to your values. 

I really hope this post helps, education and knowledge are so vital for OCD recovery,
As Always, you are not alone,

Stay Strong xxx  

Understanding Thought-Action Fusion in OCD

Posted in Mental Health, Mental Wellbeing, OCD, OCD GeneralTagged , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Thought-action-fusion is a common cognitive distortion associated with OCD.  It’s where a person believes that having a thought is equivalent to performing an action, or that thinking something makes it more likely to happen.

It is a very important distortion to be aware of if you’re suffering from OCD as when you’re in fight or flight mode – talked about in my previous post – anything can feel possible.     

Remember when we are suffering from OCD we are highly likely to be in the fight or flight (sympathetic) part of our nervous system. When in fight or flight our ability to think rationally goes out of the window and so things that we know to be impossible, when in our rational minds, can feel possible! 

When struggling and ruminating on an OCD obsession the brain and body are suffering with high stress (fight or flight), when in this state our memory becomes selective and fragmented.  Our attention narrows (tunnel vision) and our hippocampus (memory organiser) works less efficiently.

The result of this is that we can get gaps in our memory, Out-of-order recall and confusion about timelines. In addition to this the brain searches for danger-related memories, and the Safe or neutral memories are harder to access. 

It’s important to note that a Strong memory ≠ accurate memory.  Stress increases confidence in memory and emotional intensity but decreases, detail accuracy, context and perspective! 

All this results in intrusive memories feeling more real because they’re emotionally tagged

  • “What if” thoughts feel urgent due to amygdala activation
  • Memory distrust develops (“What if I forgot something important?”)

This fuels checking, reassurance, and rumination.

For me this was one of the most enlightening distortions to learn about.  Following my nervous breakdown, I was constantly in my sympathetic nervous system and so I had a few events when an intrusive thought occurred, and I couldn’t remember clearly/rationalise it/work it out, this caused me unbelievable distress. 

Thought-action-fusion can make you feel like a thought is real and because of your mental state your inability to rationalise that distortion feeds the uncertainty.  We need to recognise this pattern when it happens for what it is and reduce the impact by:

  • Not trying to ‘figure it out’ while anxious – this includes during the night, no analysis between 11pm and 5am remember! 
  • Remembering that you’re in fight-or-flight, you’ll be thinking in extremes and this is not evidence.
  • Find ways to reset and come back into the parasympathetic nervous system (rest and digest). 

I really love Byron Katies method for this where we say:
Is it true?
Is it 100% true? 

If the answer to the second question is no – which it will be because the stress is based on doubt and uncertainty, then ‘you have to let it go’.   

Why would you torture yourself over anything less than 100% certainty? 

Fear lives in the vague after all and it’s my guess, it’s just a thought (obsession), attached to a feeling of uncertainty, that you’re basing your rumination on, not facts. 

Your brain is probably desperately trying to work out whether there is something genuine to be concerned about, you should take this as your sign that there isn’t!   

I really hope this helps, OCD recovery isn’t easy and sometimes thought-action-fusion can get worse when we are in recovery and start to let our guard down, but know and trust who you are and as always,

Stay Strong xxx

Breaking the Cycle: Overcoming OCD Compulsions

Posted in Mental Health, OCD, OCD Coping Strategies, OCD GeneralTagged , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

I wrote last week about how when we get triggered by OCD obsessions (unwanted, intrusive, and distressing thoughts, images, urges, or feelings), it’s a faulty signal from our amygdala (part of the brain responsible for detecting potential threats), if we then give into the compulsion (a repetitive behaviour or mental act) it confirms the threat and fully triggers the fight or flight response in our body. 

Why is this an issue? 

Well, when in fight or flight we don’t tend to think rationally, we’re in survival mode and though this system can be useful at times, when it comes to OCD it’s not the place we want to be. 

It allows the irrational use of compulsions to ‘neutralise’ thoughts seem rational.  We see ourselves doing things we know are senseless, like retracing our steps, washing our hands multiple times, repeating safety phrases in our heads or ruminating endlessly on thoughts, but for whatever reason the brain has convinced us it will help. 

This is wrong, in fact compulsions do nothing but cause us more distress, more uncertainty and less trust in our own ability to cope!

So why does our body do this? 

According to ChapGPT it serves the following purposes:

The brain prioritizes speed over nuance.
In a threat situation, the amygdala, pushes the body to act quickly. Nuanced thinking takes time; survival favours rapid, simple judgments like safe vs. unsafe, friend vs. foe, stay vs. run.

It reduces cognitive load during stress.
Under high stress, the prefrontal cortex (responsible for reasoning and complex thinking) becomes less active. The brain simplifies decisions to conserve resources.

It minimizes hesitation.
Ambivalence can be dangerous during real threats. If you’re being chased, you don’t want to think:
“Well, maybe it’s dangerous, but maybe it’s not, and perhaps I should consider my options…”
You want an immediate, decisive action.

It helps coordinate the body’s physiological response.
Fight-or-flight relies on a clear appraisal: threat = act. Black-and-white thinking helps the brain send a strong, unified signal.

Why is this an issue in OCD?

When we believe our obsessions, which are being prompted by a fault in this system and give into our compulsions, we are triggering our fight or flight response repeatedly, the cascade of issues this causes is as follows:

The brain learns:

  • Ambiguity = risk
  • Nuance = unsafe
  • Only extremes are predictable

So the nervous system keeps simplifying the world into binaries—even when there is no threat!

Our amygdala becomes hyper-reactive

A sensitized amygdala reacts to mild cues, (OCD obsessions) as if they’re major threats. This leads to rapid, black-and-white judgments like:

  • “That bump in the road might have been a person”
  • “I had a negative thought when I turned on the light, maybe I should turn it off again and make sure I think positive thoughts when I turn it on this time, just in case.”
  • “There’s a tiny mark on that apple, I should probably throw it away and get another one, it’s probably poisonous.”

The prefrontal cortex, responsible for reasoning and nuance, gets less access as chronic stress reduces blood flow and connectivity in regions that support:

  • Perspective-taking
  • Emotional regulation
  • Tolerance for uncertainty
  • Gray-area thinking
  • Long-term planning

In this state, the brain defaults to simple categories because complexity feels overwhelming.

When we have OCD, Fight-or-flight can turn into a trait instead of a temporary state!

When the sympathetic nervous system (fight or flight) stays activated long-term, the cognitive style that evolved for emergencies becomes our everyday thinking. 

This is why giving into OCD compulsions, even one, is only ever going to lead to more distress, more compulsions to try and relive that stress, sending you freefalling down that rabbit hole. 

We need to realise that the compulsion is not keeping us safe and remove it’s usefulness. 

I know from years of experience with OCD that there’s always another ‘what if?’ or ‘maybe?’ and whenever I’ve given into a compulsion all I’ve done is made things worse. I become withdrawn, irritable and irrational, simple tasks get overwhelming and life becomes very challenging. 

I understand it can feel impossible at times not to just do the compulsion, ‘just once more won’t hurt, I’ll sit with it the next time’ – sound familiar?  But I know from experience that it’s never going to feel easy, it’s always going to be challenging.

However knowing that the compulsion is useless, serves no purpose and will only make things worse, helps give me the strength to not give in.

I really hope this information helps you too. Let me know what you think in the comments below.
As always,
Stay Strong xxx