Is there any good strategy for ending mental looping? In the past I think I remember reading about the Zeigarnik effect where we supposedly remember tasks we haven't finished better than those we have completed. I wonder if I physically wrote out these recurrent loops of conversations where I am micromanaging responses I got wrong it would close these loops out. After all - almost always - I know intellectually no one is thinking about me or what I said / did / wore for more than 5 minutes after I am out of sight.
Discussion
Idk. I'm willing to try that. With music, I can just turn it off. When I was a kid, music would really torture me, just looping on maximum volume in my head, and I eventually learned to just slam it off. I do that for sleep, too. I say, "sleep now," in my mind, and then I wake up 8 hours later, usually with no dreams. I'm kinda fascinated with this shit. But it's different with people and this trick doesn't work.