This seems reasonable to note; at the same time, I think that a lot of people who end up badly after experimenting with exotic self-modification techniques do so despite rather than because of the techniques.
This technique seems best if your problem is that your thoughts tend to often go down loopy, unproductive, distressing paths, in a way that you can self-diagnose with confidence. Which is totally a real thing! I used to find my brain making up imaginary offenses people had committed against me, and I would feel angry or vindictive for a moment. Fortunately I developed a thought pattern that immediately just notes “… and that NEVER ACTUALLY HAPPENED,” and then I move on from the moment. That’s a situation where it’s really easy to notice a bad thought pattern and change it, cutting out any real world action. And once I’d done it a couple times, I started noticing this as an overall cognitive strategy.
Another example is from my work as an engineer. During my first year or so doing research, I noticed several bad patterns of thought and behavior: throwing things out prematurely when I’d make a mistake, doing overly complex mental math, and trying to emergency correct mistakes rather than going to my desk and working out an actual plan of solution.
But in these cases, while “noticing my thoughts” was key to the solution, because it interrupted a bad pattern of behavior, it was noting the bad outcome, then working backwards to a specific root cause that got me there. Continuously monitoring my stream of thoughts was not part of this process. It seems like a technique of continuous thought-monitoring would be more important if the problem you were having was with your thoughts themselves. If your problem manifests as behavior, then paying attention to the stream of behavior and figuring out the root cause seems best.
This seems reasonable to note; at the same time, I think that a lot of people who end up badly after experimenting with exotic self-modification techniques do so despite rather than because of the techniques.
This technique seems best if your problem is that your thoughts tend to often go down loopy, unproductive, distressing paths, in a way that you can self-diagnose with confidence. Which is totally a real thing! I used to find my brain making up imaginary offenses people had committed against me, and I would feel angry or vindictive for a moment. Fortunately I developed a thought pattern that immediately just notes “… and that NEVER ACTUALLY HAPPENED,” and then I move on from the moment. That’s a situation where it’s really easy to notice a bad thought pattern and change it, cutting out any real world action. And once I’d done it a couple times, I started noticing this as an overall cognitive strategy.
Another example is from my work as an engineer. During my first year or so doing research, I noticed several bad patterns of thought and behavior: throwing things out prematurely when I’d make a mistake, doing overly complex mental math, and trying to emergency correct mistakes rather than going to my desk and working out an actual plan of solution.
But in these cases, while “noticing my thoughts” was key to the solution, because it interrupted a bad pattern of behavior, it was noting the bad outcome, then working backwards to a specific root cause that got me there. Continuously monitoring my stream of thoughts was not part of this process. It seems like a technique of continuous thought-monitoring would be more important if the problem you were having was with your thoughts themselves. If your problem manifests as behavior, then paying attention to the stream of behavior and figuring out the root cause seems best.