OCD doesn’t have to take over your life and you don’t necessarily have to employ a shrink or a therapist to help you get over your problem. Check out these tips to help you overcome OCD on your own and find out how you can begin to rid yourself of your OCD.
What labels are you using?
Often inadvertently, we label ourselves. Usually negatively in ways such as “I can’t do that” or “I always do that” and other easy excuses.
You doubtless label your OCD traits.
Take the time to work out the labels you use and then decide how you can turn these labels round so that they no longer reinforce the behavior you’ve been experiencing all this time.
Don’t try to relabel everything at once. Apart from it being a major task, it’s also counterproductive. You’re more likely to get a feeling of overwhelm.
Instead, pick on a reasonably small label and work on that until it’s reduced in severity enough for it to carry on disappearing. Usually this means that by the time you get to roughly the half way point, it will just continue the good work of getting rid of itself.
Then pick on the next label, and so on.
Go into zombie mode
This one sounds weird at first but don’t let that put you off.
Zombies seem to do everything robotically and in slow motion.
So pick on one of your obsessions and turn yourself into a zombie the next time you get the urge.
Go very slowly – almost like you were making a stop motion movie. Trace out every individual part of the sequence you normally carry out fairly rapidly. And exaggerate each step of the way if possible as well.
If you can do this without getting bored, you’re not going slow enough.
What this will do is gradually train your mind that this particular part of your OCD is too boring to bother with.
Distract yourself
Whenever you feel the urge to obsess coming on, find something else to distract yourself with. Ideally something completely unrelated to your regular OCD pattern.
Go back into a child-like mode – they get easily distracted – and just allow yourself to do the distraction for long enough that you don’t get trapped in your OCD ways.
Get some exercise
Exercise releases endorphins into your body – they’re our natural opiate and are perfectly safe.
They explain the rush that you get when you’ve taken some exercise. They will also help to push your obsessive thoughts to the back of your mind, hopefully for a good length of time.
You don’t have to turn into a gym rat to get the benefits of exercise – even a brisk walk will do the trick.
Work out what’s causing your anxiety
OCD is normally a manifestation of anxiety, whether you realize it or not.
If you can’t figure out what’s causing your OCD on your own, talk it through with a friend or work colleague. They’ll probably have spotted what it is well before you noticed and are often very glad to be asked to help.