Thoughts Feel Sticky Anxious thinking makes your scary thoughts hard to avoid. They seem stuck in your mind. No matter how much you tell yourself to think of something else, catastrophic thoughts come right back to intrude into your consciousness. Distractions are only partially helpful in getting your mind onto another subject, and they sometimes are no help at all. This is the neurological basis for the ironic process of the mind, which was first introduced in chapter 1. Effort used to not think of a thought actually makes it more intrusive.
