Do you spend all your time thinking about one person? Are your days and nights filled with visions of one girl, the perfect girl, who would make your life complete?
Then, my friend, it sounds like you’re in love. It sounds corny, but love is a crazy cocktail of chemicals, endorphins, and hormones that sends the sanest people around the bend.
If you find yourself wondering why you can t stop thinking about her, then keep reading.
Being totally preoccupied with thoughts of someone else is a fairly decent sign that you’re falling in love with them.
The preoccupation can tilt into obsession, though, so beware of becoming too hung up on the idea of someone.
If you like someone, make a move. But if you can’t, it’s better to cut and run instead of dwelling on them all day and night.
If you do find yourself obsessed with someone, what can you do about it?
Being in love can make us not want even to spend any time with friends or do anything other than think about that person.
Being lovesick can easily spiral into isolation and negative feelings and even depression.
So how can you walk that line and stay on this side of healthy infatuation? Should you even try to stop thinking about her? If so, how do you even begin ignoring someone you’re in love with?
Table of Contents
How Come I Can’t Stop Thinking About You?
When you’re in love with someone, or at least crushing on them hard, then it can become pretty much impossible to stop thinking about them.
Whatever you’re doing, you don’t stop thinking about her, from waking up to going to bed, and even then, she haunts your dreams. But how to stop thinking of someone?
Want to hear the brutal truth? The more we try to stop thinking about something, the more we dwell on it.
Here’s a little experiment to prove my point. Don’t think about pink elephants. Okay? Now, what are you thinking about? As soon as we tell ourselves not to think about something or someone, we instantly get it to our attention.
So, our biological and psychological makeups mean it’s physically impossible to forget something we tell ourselves we need to ignore.
Plus, studies show that we want things we can’t get. Imagine telling a two-year-old they can’t have a cookie before dinner. How badly does that kid now want that cookie?
Well, you’re that two-year-old, and your crush is the cookie, I’m afraid.
What Does It Mean When You Can’t Stop Thinking About Someone?
When you know you can’t even stop thinking about someone, it probably means you’re in love. Unrequited love can be a terrible thing, and things can turn nasty.
Obsession, paranoia, and depression lie just around the corner from love. And, when we get obsessed, it can distract us from our real lives
When we’re in love, it can be easy to turn someone into an unrealistic ideal of themselves. Perhaps, you are thinking always of having a wedding and the best wedding planning guide.
When we’re crushing on someone, we may see all their good attributes while ignoring the bad. We also criticize other people more harshly, including ourselves, while placing the loved one up on a pedestal.
Love, crushes, and dating doesn’t necessarily lead to obsession and depression. In fact, for most people, being in love is the best time of their lives.
However, if you find you can’t even stop thinking about another person to an obsessive amount, you might want to consider how it’s affecting the rest of your life.
Take a step back and ask yourself some hard questions, like is it negatively affecting my other relationships with my friends?
Am I productive with my time? How much time per day do I spend thinking about this person and doing nothing else? Also, how much time do I spend on social media versus going outside?
How to Stop Thinking About Someone?
If the answers to those questions freaked you out a little, don’t worry and keep reading.
Regaining control over your thoughts can be one of the most important and empowering things you do in your life. But it’s not easy to get that control.
The difficulty doubles if you’re trying to do it while madly in love with someone who doesn’t love you.
So, what should you do about your predicament? Do you succumb to the desires and slip under the surface of dreams and fantasies?
Or do you get out of your head for a second, give yourself some space, and see clearly for a second?
Our minds are a lot stronger than we may think, and we fight them at our own peril.
First of all, don’t try to get rid of your thoughts. No one ever wins when they try to control their mind.
Instead, try to distract yourself. Doing activities that require focus is a much better way to distract yourself than trying to force your thoughts from one track to another through sheer willpower alone.
Here are a few ways you can do it. First of all, give yourself a few minutes to voice your thoughts.
Listen to that part of you for a set amount of time, then put it down and walk away. Ideally, you’ll have set up an activity that distracts your mind and body, even better if it’s with friends.
Moving your body can be a great way to distract the mind. Exercise as basic as walking and running are awesome at making us get real and focus on the present.
While the mind can wander, every intersection, pedestrian, and obstacle forces us back into the present moment.
More demanding sports like soccer, tennis, or jiu-jitsu need much more focus and attention. Team and combat sports may require interacting with other people.
Getting the heart pumping and the sweat going through sports and exercise can be a great way to get her out of your head.
You know you can strengthen your muscles, but you can also strengthen your mind. The more we learn about mindfulness and meditation, the more our brains look like muscles that we can strengthen and condition, just like our bodies.
Meditating is a great way to get better at focusing the mind on the present moment and letting go of everything else.
There are lots of meditation apps and videos to follow along if you don’t know anything about meditation.
An easy way to start is sitting cross-legged on the floor, closing your eyes, and following your in and out-breaths for a few minutes.
Start with something low, and you can increase your time as you go, start to know more, and stop thinking.
A great way to stop thinking about a crush is by learning something new. Acquiring a new skill takes focus as you build new patterns of behavior and action.
Ever wanted to learn a new language or know how to play the piano? Well, now’s a good time.
If you’re down in the dumps, obsessing over someone, then learning something new may help you focus on other things and boost your confidence as you level up.
As you go through this, make sure you talk to friends. An obsession-level crush can push someone inside their own heads and away from other people.
Take a look at your life. Are you communicating with your friends as much as you need to? What about your family?
Movies and books are great for getting you out of a negative thought cycle. A good story can take us out of our lives as we follow the heroes to their victory or demise.
I’d say steer clear of romcoms and even weepy dramas. Sci-fi, action, and comedies can help distract you when you need it.
Movies, books, and talking to other people can also help you realize that you’re not alone here.
Most people experience lovesickness and heartbreak at some point in their lives. Seeing how other people experience it and deal with it can be a great way to get over it yourself. You need to understand; other people go through this stuff too.
Is It True That When You Can’t Stop Thinking About Someone That They Are Thinking of You Too?
To put it bluntly, no. Your mind is different from other people’s. Just because you’re infatuated with someone doesn’t mean they feel the same way about you. This is the essential problem.
Not only do you tend to think about the person all the time when you’re crushing on them, but you’re left wondering whether they think the same about you.
Unfortunately, we can’t control, start, or stop other people’s thoughts. Or, maybe this is actually a good thing.
Free will is, in fact, what makes us human. Just because the other person doesn’t feel the same way you do doesn’t mean the world should end, and time needs to stop.
Learning how to deal with a world that doesn’t give you everything you want is part of becoming a well-rounded, stable human being.
If you’re constantly being thrown around by your feelings, flipping between ecstatic love and maudlin depression, then it can be a lot harder to get things going in your life.
If you’re in love with someone, the best thing to do is tell them how you feel. Trying to guess what they’re thinking or what they might say is a sure way to drive yourself to distraction.
It’s also a great way to build resentment towards that person as their real-life version clashes with the one you’ve created in your fantasies.
Toxic, one-way love can wreak havoc on your life and relationships. That’s why it’s super important for you to recognize and stop when your thoughts about someone are tilting from healthy to unhealthy, positive to negative, and creative into destructive.
People who love and don’t get love in return can do one of two things.
Some people use their heartache to learn something about the world, other people, and themselves, and integrate their understanding into a new and improved outlook on the world.
On the other hand, bitterness and resentment are real possibilities if you love someone, and they don’t love you back.
Willing someone to think about you just because you want them to is as impossible as trying to hold a handful of water. It’s most likely going to end in tears for both parties. Please do yourself a favor and let them go.
How Do You Know If Someone is Thinking About You?
Ever find yourself trying desperately to guess what the other person is thinking? Do you spend hours wondering and hoping that you’re on their mind? Maybe you spend hours creeping their social media, hoping that somehow that leads their thoughts to you.
Trying to govern another human being’s thoughts is a recipe for disaster. Love is as much physical as it is mental, and there’s no way you can control their hormones and endorphins!
Imagine if someone you didn’t love tried to convince you to fall in love with them. Love doesn’t work that way.
If you really want to get in someone’s head in a positive way, you have to impress them and make them think you’re an awesome human being.
It’s not about infiltrating their dreams through manipulation and schemes; it’s about coming across as a decent person who’s worthy of their time and consciousness.
Why not work on improving yourself instead of trying to guess what another person is thinking?
Sorting yourself out and getting your life together gives you a way better chance of occupying someone else’s thoughts than stalking them and obsessing over them.
If, over time, you catch their eye in a positive light, then you can learn more about them.
Ask them lots of questions and genuinely listen to the answers. Be funny, honest, and entertaining. Perhaps sparks will fly, a relationship will blossom, and love will fill the air.
Even if you do get your dream and start dating this person, don’t try to guess what they’re thinking. Don’t spend your time wondering if they’re thinking about you. Being too clingy or lacking confidence can spoil a relationship in two seconds flat.
If you’re spending an unhealthy amount of time wondering whether or not someone else is thinking about you, do yourself a favor and ask them straight up.
It’ll be like a pulling a tooth; for a second, it hurts but a moment of pain will be worth it. Everyone benefits – your crush, your friends and family, and, most importantly, you.
