Do other people have quiet times in their head or is their brain always talking?

[Smallsteps88]

Do you ever have silence in your head? I never do. My head voice is constantly talking. Shite mostly. It often interrupts conversations I’m having with people and I have to concentrate really hard to “hear”what the other person is saying. I really wish I could switch it off sometimes. I take hours to fall asleep every night because my brain is still going. Is that what everyone else has or do you have quiet sometimes?

Thanks for all explaining your brains to me.

I have been still here thinking about this thred and trying to listen to anything my brain is saying. I'm guessing 'thinking' is different from internal monologue ?

My cat sat on me i said, 'oh you are so pretty'. Then I remembered something I read yesterday about how humans know your cats love you and I wonder (while smiling) if cats have a good about how to tell if your human lives you. I then planned my day as I am going over to my parents.

What I do know is that I don't hear voices, my thoughts are rarely critical of me and they are rarely intrusive.

On another similar note I can not form a picture in my mind (not even one of my children) with my eyes closed.. one test I've read about before is forming a picture of a red apple with your eyes closed. I can't do this.

@RufustheSniggeringReindeer

My children take the piss out of me for subject jumping...what they obviously don’t realise is that i have finished with the subject

And quite often so have they....in my head

Touché

Cat have a book *

Love not lives !

I nearly got diagnosed with a psychotic illness when I was younger because I talked about 'the voice in my head' and the 'argument in my mind' which I now know are completely normal.

When I am really tired I use the ability to sustain a verbal conversation and a trail of thought. When I'm at my best I can have multiple 'browsers' open and be multitasking with more than one thought trail as well as talking and doing something else. I have anxiety and when my head gets too 'noisy' it feels like other people must be able to hear my thoughts (they can't!) because they are so overwhelming to me. No psychotic illness, although I do wonder about ADHD

My brain never stops. Ever. Constant worry, anxiety and self hate.

@Sideorderofchips

My brain never stops. Ever. Constant worry, anxiety and self hate.

💐

Meditation will be your friend!

I now have clear internal dialogue. Insights that are useful, actions I need to take etc.

None of the nonsense and chatter monkey brain!

My brain talks to me a lot.
Problem can be when I've had a conversation with someone in my head and I can't remember if it was actually with them, or in my head.

And sometimes I have arguments in my head.

I was just thinking about this when I hit up this morning. My mind NEVER stops and, horribly, it’s usually negative thoughts. About people who don’t like me, all the bad things that might happen, regrets about decisions I made 20 years ago, how my life would be better if I’d behaved in another way, how bleak the future looks... It’s like I have that miserable robot from Hitchhiker’s Guide doing the commentary of my life. I try to stay positive but it’s hard with all the negative thoughts dragging me down.

I’ve always wondered if I had ADHD too.

The thoughts only stop if I drink booze (which I don’t do anymore), or exercise can make them cheerier. The thoughts are intrusive, cyclical and constant. With vivid images of bad things happening too. (Yikes, I sound barking!) And I fall asleep with the tv on.

I felt even more stressed, anxious and clammy! My breathing and heart rate had increased as the total silence in the room from the other participants had just amplified everything else I could always hear but try to block out...the buzzing overhead light, the ticking heater, the receptionist on the phone down the corridor, people arriving and leaving the building, traffic passing, and worst of all an entire room filled with the sound of people breathing! It was not a relaxing or calming experience for me at all...

This is exactly what happens to me! DH is always telling me to relax and think of nothing for 10 minutes or so after having a sauna. I can't. I have to play a game or read something. I can't just lie still and relax, I get more stressed.

Meditation will be your friend!
I can't! And I don't understand how people do it.

The thing with meditation is — you’re not ever going to experience a completely silent mind. Unless you do it for years and become a Master.

The point of meditating is to notice when your thoughts wander off, and bring them back. That “begin again” action is the point of it, apparently. They call that the “bicep curl” of meditation.

So over time you gain practise and control over corralling your thoughts.

Often quiet. I like puzzle solving, often puzzle solving.

My head is loud all the time. But then again I have anxiety, so that might not be normal.

Sometimes when we're in the car, DP will zone out and I'll ask him what he's thinking about (I know - people hate that question haha) and I'm expecting something truly life changing because of how much he was concentrating on whatever it was .. and he looks almost startled and said he was thinking absolutely nothing.

That's such an alien concept to me - it's weird!

I also have the multiple browsers open, constant dialogue and am a daydreamer (I refuse to call it maladaptive though, I enjoy my daydreams and use them as a refuge if I am feeling stressed or sad or to pass time when travelling or waiting).

I have no idea what people who don't daydream do during these times!

Although I have lots of different streams of thought, I can choose which one is dominant and say "not you" if I want to push one to the back and bring another to the foreground, leaving the others to continue running in the background.

I have wondered about ADHD in the past (largely because I am the most restless person I know - sitting the whole day in an office chair was absolute torture for me, and I have been known to turn down trips to the theatre for any play over two hours), but I am also capable of intense concentration on a single item for work.

I have an interest in lots of things so I quite enjoy sending one strand of thoughts off to consider something, for example, considering all the varying reports I have read on the merits of the Coronavirus tiers and distilling a view on them, is one thread I have running in the background at present.

but I am also capable of intense concentration on a single item for work.

The type where you lose track of time, don’t eat, etc? That can be an ADHD trait apparently.

I worry I’m being really annoying on this thread with all my “apparently” interjections! I’m being like my brain is. 😂

Question as fellow MD...Do you find your MD gets worse and more intense at certain times of your monthly cycle

Yes! I think it's because that's when I unnaturally have the most energy. I suppose with hormones racing and your body trying to get you to mate, it just amplifies the busyness.

I could fall asleep watching tv but in bed I need total silence otherwise I focus on a noise and get annoyed.

My youngest seems to be very much like me but as she's so young her monologue is external. It's like she's narrating her life with added made up songs and character voices

Naturally not unnaturally!

MacbookHo - not really because one of my "browsers" is a timer so I always know what the time is and when I need to finish by :). I'm also quite good at being interrupted, it doesn't put me off (probably learned through raising three DC I suspect) and nothing would ever make me miss a meal.

I tell my dogs they have stomach clocks - I usually feed them at the same time and they start agitating about 15 minutes before then, but I think I have one too :)

@Raindropsonrosesand

Blimey, that sounds exhausting!

I'm like the pp who said My brain only thinks about things I want it to. I don't 'hear' voices but rather sense them

I do sometimes daydream - when walking say - but can easily stop it if I want to. I very occasionally have an earworm song running through my head for a few hours - I can stop it, but it comes back.

Generally inside my head is lovely and quiet and calm. That's why I spend time by myself when I want to relax. Whilst it's lovely chatting to friends (I hate the social isolation of lockdown) it's also nice to have a rest after a while. But it sounds like your internal monologues are more full-on than my social life!!

I do think my ability to concentrate is quite high - a few people have commented on it at work. I find it very soothing to go into the state of deep concentration I need for work (IT) where all other senses stop and only my line of thought exists. But I have always thought most people were pretty much like me, just maybe get bored of things more quickly. I'm actually quite shocked to hear what it's like inside your heads!

To get that level of concentration I generally need background music or noise because noise quietens my voices. It's only if it's really technical stuff I'm learning when I might have silence but then there's a big voice on my head yelling about meiosis is eukaryotic cells or whatever.

I wouldn't say it's 'talking' so much as mentally creating to-do lists...I'd bloody love to get to the end of a to-do list...

@Nackajory

You should find Eckhart Tolle on YouTube. He makes loads of sense about this subject.

Yes. Although he can be tricky to concentrate on himself. Arggh the endless garbage noise

@caringcarer

When I go us in on a TV program I just sort of switch off thinking about stuff. In the summer I lie in garden sun bathing and don't think of anything.

😮

I was hopeless at meditation but a long, long silent hot bubble bath can turn it right down (no wine/candles/music).

I've also got a really noisy mind, there's constantly imaginary conversations, music, daydreams or just a never ending internal monologue. It drives me mad when I'm trying to sleep although like someone upthread said, if I have the radio on I fixate on that and it frustrates me. I suffer from anxiety but I've always been like it, I read a lot or do puzzles to try to direct the thought. The only time it quiets is when I'm swimming. I thought everyone was like this but I've just asked DS and he looked at me like I was mad!

I can absolutely hyper-focus, but it feels like a different take on the same brain rather than a different type of brain activity.

When I hyperfocus, my brain is still running lots of simultaneous threads but they are all focused on different aspects of the same problem.

Ideally once in that state I will focus until all the threads are "tied off" by getting to a state where each one has finished and the overall task is either complete, or has come to a natural pause where I can put it down and pick it up again later without having to remember all the interim details. Hence, when I hyperfocus I will skip eating, work very later into the night etc, because the physical effects of that are less "painful" to me than the mental "pain" of dropping all the threads unfinished and having to untangle them again when I restart.