How to forget bad memories?

How to get rid of bad thoughts, hard memories, forget an unpleasant conversation or events that bring pain? Perhaps, each of us at least once in his life asked such a question. But such memories often do not only cause a bad mood. They also lead to nervous breakdowns, depression, become the cause of psychosomatic ailments, and simply interfere with our lives. So is it possible to “clean” the memory? Let's try to understand this issue in this article.

Unpleasant and bad memories cannot be erased or forgotten forever by willpower. Usually, such selective amnesia can occur as a consequence of post-traumatic syndrome, when partial blocking of bad memories is possible. But man cannot do this on purpose. Yes, this is not required.

In this case, the memories cease to cause severe pain, and the person begins to perceive them more calmly.

It so happens that the brain itself defends itself, blocking unpleasant images. Such cases, of course, are more exceptions to the rule, but they do occur.

The same can happen with traumatic brain injuries, with insufficient blood supply to the brain, due to alcohol or drug intoxication. But to resort to such methods of cleaning memory hardly anyone wants to voluntarily. Moreover, erasing painful memories from memory is possible with other methods. They are called artificial forgetting methods or reconsolidation. These include hypnosis, NLP programming, chemical exposure, framing memories.

This method of psychocorrection is based on the individual’s innate ability to strive for spiritual comfort and process the information received. However, when we are faced with truly problematic and unpleasant situations, the brain often refuses to listen to us. And literally imposes on us what we would like to quickly forget, now and then returning us to these memories as a black hole. As a result, this results in at least a nervous breakdown.

The specialist must make him turn these memories into some neutral images, change their perception, which ideally leads to complete oblivion of the painful situation.

This section of psychology stands for neuro-linguistic programming. Specialists in this field are not trying to make your brain forget painful memories. Their task is with the help of special exercises to change your attitude to such events, cause, if not positive, at least neutral emotions regarding an unpleasant situation that has happened, change the emotional coloring of the memories that disturb you.

This method is partially similar to those described above. The only difference is that the place of disturbing real memories should be taken by bright, but invented ones. In principle, false memories are inherent in all of us, we often think of this or that situation, and later we are convinced and are ready to convince others that it was so in reality. The task of the specialist in framing memories is to make us create new joyful memories to replace sad ones.

A tough and dangerous method of dealing with painful memories. After all, it is unrealistic to force a drug to act only on a certain part of the brain that stores certain information. Thus, taking pills affects the functioning of the entire brain. A person forgets not only what needs to be forgotten, but also other events from life, and, in principle, any information that has been accumulating in his head for years.

There are also drugs that make memory lapses temporary, limited only by the duration of their action.. These are narcotic substances, after which the person gives in for some time to any suggestions. And therefore, unfortunately, they are used not only for the good when they are used by doctors as a medicine, but also for criminal purposes. With their help, attackers can affect their victims. However, the use of such substances for "peaceful" purposes can lead to sad consequences.

You can cope with some bad memories at home.

Here are just a few ways.

• Memories can simply be washed away. Imagine an unpleasant, obsessive situation in the form of dirt adhering to you. Go to the shower and rinse it off in the same way as you wash off the dirt after a summer rain. Agree, it is unlikely that this situation can lead to a nervous breakdown. In the process of cleansing the body, and at the same time the head, turn on pleasant and cheerful music. So it will be even easier to let go of unnecessary memories.
• If you do not like the water element, use the fire. Describe what worries you on a piece of paper, preferably with all the details, so you can pull the "dirty" thoughts out of your head. And when you pour out your soul to paper, simply burn the sheet, mentally saying goodbye to everything that was entrusted to it.
• Bury your memories. Take some item that you associate with an event or person, with troubles that are vital for you to forget, and arrange a “funeral”. Bury this thing, and at the same time mentally say goodbye to your negative memories. You can even cry a little, most importantly, forever part with negative emotions.
• If you do not want to act so dramatically, then apply a milder method. Collect a bag of unnecessary memories. Take the trash bag and put the items there according to the same principle as described in the previous version. Be sure to imagine that throwing away not just an unnecessary thing, but a toxic object that poisons your life. After that, solemnly take this “bag of misfortune” to the garbage site, do not forget to leave the memories that you decided to throw out of your head there.

Of course, as in any other case, self-medication can be dangerous, so it’s better to still seek the help of a specialist. But you must admit, there are situations and memories that you can easily deal with yourself. For this you must not allow yourself to be lazy: go headlong into work, and there’s simply no time left for alarms.

Another way - Extreme sports or entertainment. Have you been to the fear room for a long time? Try to go. It is possible that the emotions received there will help you cope with some of your own scary memories. By the way, experts advise them to share more often with others: the more often you talk about what excites you, the less fear or pain will become.

Describing events, you kind of dull your own attitude towards them. Generally, communicate, speak and be sure to smile every new day, and leave old and unpleasant thoughts in the past using any of the above methods.