Bad gut feeling

Trust Your Gut: What It Actually Means

A sixth sense, hunch, or gut feeling: Whatever you choose to call it, the sudden flash of insight from deep within can inspire plenty of faith.

The old saying “trust your gut” refers to trusting these feelings of intuition, often as a way to stay true to yourself.

Following your instinct can certainly direct you toward the best path for you. And yet, you might wonder whether you should put so much trust in a feeling, an instinct you can’t explain.

Wouldn’t sticking to logic and reason help you make better decisions?

Not always. Science suggests intuition can be a valuable tool in some circumstances.

It seems those gut feelings do mean something, and they can often help you make good choices.

Ever experienced a nagging feeling of unease about a situation? Suddenly felt suspicious about someone you just met? You can’t explain your feelings logically, but you know something isn’t quite right.

Or maybe a rush of affirmation or calm floods you after a tough decision, convincing you that you’re doing the right thing.

Gut feelings can evoke a range of sensations, some not unlike the physical feelings associated with anxiety. Other, more positive sensations might seem to confirm your choice.

Some people describe gut feelings as a small internal voice, but you’ll often “hear” your gut talking to you in other ways.

Signs of a gut feeling

a flash of clarity
tension or tightness in your body
goosebumps or prickling
stomach “butterflies” or nausea
a sinking sensation in the pit of your stomach
sweaty palms or feet
thoughts that keep returning to a specific person or situation
feelings of peace, safety, or happiness (after making a decision)

These feelings tend to come on suddenly, though they aren’t always strong or overwhelming.

You might experience them as a faint whisper or the barest sense of uneasiness, but they could also feel so strong, you can’t imagine ignoring them.

If it seems like your brain is encouraging you to take notice of these feelings, well, you’re not far from the mark.

Though gut feelings often seem to come out of nowhere, they aren’t random. They don’t actually originate in your gut, either.

The gut-brain connection makes it possible for emotional experiences to register as gastrointestinal distress. When you feel anxious, fearful, or certain that something’s wrong, you might experience stomach twinges, pain, or nausea. That’s where the name “gut feeling” comes from.

Experts have come up with a few potential explanations for these feelings.

Normal brain processes

Research links these flashes of intuition to certain brain processes, such as evaluating and decoding emotional and other nonverbal cues.

As you go about your day, your brain collects and processes sensory data from your environment. You’re perfectly aware of some of this information.

For example, if you notice two people shouting and pushing each other outside a store just ahead, you’ll probably cross the street. But you wouldn’t say your gut told you to move, since you made a reasoned decision based on available information.

Your brain carries out these processes automatically to help prepare you for any situation that might come up.
Since these processes run in the “background,” you may not always realize what you’re observing or what it means.

What if you suddenly feel a strong urge to cross the street? There’s no obvious reason behind your impulse, but you can’t ignore it, or the tingling at the back of your neck.

A few seconds after you cross, the sign on the building ahead comes crashing down, right where you would have been walking. You stare in disbelief, heart pounding. How did you know that would happen?

This flash of intuition probably doesn’t relate to any mystical sixth sense. It’s more likely that as you walked, you made some unconscious observations.

Maybe one corner of the sign hung loose, wavering in the wind and slapping against the building. Perhaps other pedestrians noticed and stepped out of the way, and you followed without realizing it.

Predictions based on experience

You can also think of gut feelings as a type of prediction based on experiences. Even memories you don’t fully recall, or information you aren’t consciously aware of, can guide you.

A 2016 study that attempted to measure intuition tested this idea:

Researchers asked student participants to look at a screen of tiny moving dots and determine whether the dots moved toward the right or left side of the screen.
At the same time, the researchers also showed participants images designed to inspire positive or negative emotions: a puppy, a baby, a gun, a snake. These images told them which way the dots were moving on the screen.
Participants only saw these images through one eye, but they didn’t know they were seeing them. They viewed the dots through a mirror stereoscope, a device that allowed researchers to block those images from their conscious awareness.

When participants “saw” these images, their decisions became faster and more accurate. Skin conductance responses, which measure physiological arousal, suggest the participants also reacted to the images physically — even though they never realized what they were looking at.

Consider these examples of how existing knowledge — even if you aren’t aware of it — can trigger gut feelings.

A group of friends ask you to dinner at a popular restaurant. Something tells you not to go, and you pass on the invite.

A few days later, you hear that nearly everyone who went came down with food poisoning. That’s when you remember reading a critique of the restaurant that pointed out several unsanitary food preparation practices.

Or you match with someone on an online dating app and meet in person after a few weeks of texting. Things start off well, but suddenly you feel uncomfortable, though you can’t say why.

Eventually you say you’re not feeling well and leave. Back home, trying to puzzle out what happened, you glance back over their profile and early messages.

Some of the information — their last job, where they went to school, how their last relationship ended — completely conflicts with what they said on the date. You didn’t catch the lies in the moment, but they still served as red flags to wave you off.

Gut feelings bring up some of the same physical sensations as anxiety, so it can be tough to tell the two apart. You might also worry your mistrust of someone suggests paranoia.

Let’s say you told a friend about what happened on your date instead of digging into those messages. “Your nerves got the better of you,” they said knowingly. “It’s totally normal to feel nervous when you finally meet someone great.”

You felt certain something wasn’t right about them, but you decide your suspicions must have come from nerves after all.

Here are some guidelines for distinguishing between gut feelings, anxiety, and paranoia.

Gut feelings lead you in a clear direction

That sense of knowing you recognize as a gut feeling tends to come up in specific situations or when thinking about a certain person. This intuition usually leads you toward a concrete decision or action.

Anxiety, on the other hand, tends to focus on the future and often has less definition.

With anxiety, you might find yourself worrying about all manner of concerns, particularly those you can’t change or control. You might come up with several solutions to cope with potential negative scenarios but not feel certain about any of them.

Paranoia isn’t based on fact

Paranoia is an irrational suspicion of others and their actions. You might feel convinced someone means you harm, though you have no reason to mistrust them and no evidence to support your doubts.

These feelings often show up in different situations across your life. In other words, you probably won’t suspect just one person.

You may not recognize right away what fueled a gut feeling, but time and consideration can lead to deeper insight, even proof — just like the proof you found in your date’s messages.

To explore the feeling, try asking yourself things like, “What specifically bothers me about this person or situation?” or “Has something like this happened before?”

Anxiety lingers

Gut feelings tend to pass once you make a decision. You might even notice a sense of relief or calm has replaced them.

Anxiety is more than a passing feeling, though. It typically leaves you on constant alert for potential threats. When you resolve one concern, you might begin worrying about something else or begin to doubt your decision.

No matter what you do or where you go, that persistent background rumble of fear and unease follows.

Gut feelings can be very real things, grounded in observation and experience. Still, you may not want to use them to make every decision.

Here’s a look at a few scenarios where trusting your gut is probably a safe bet.

When you can separate them from wishful thinking

Wishful thinking happens when you want something to happen so badly, you begin to believe it will happen.

Say you’ve always wanted to publish a novel, but you only have a few chapters written. But you just know — in your gut — your writing is good enough to catch the attention of an editor.

They’ll respond immediately, eager for more, you tell yourself. When you explain you’re struggling to fit writing in among the demands of daily life, they’ll offer an advance that allows you to take time off and focus on your book. In the end, you send the chapters out and start preparing a letter of resignation for work.

It’s difficult to rely on intuition when you lack the experience to back it up. Your desire to get published interferes with the reality that very few first-time authors get paid to finish writing a book.

When you need to make a quick decision

Research suggests the wealth of experience already cataloged in your brain can serve you well when you need to decide something quickly.

Sometimes you’ll want to weigh options, compare reviews, or get as many facts as possible. In some situations, though, you may not have much time to deliberate.

Say you’re looking at an apartment. The neighborhood seems fine, the building quiet, and the apartment itself is gorgeous. You love it, but you’d prefer to spend more time researching potential flaws or downsides before making up your mind.

As you finish your tour, the landlord says, “It’s yours if you want it, but I have four other people waiting, so I can only give you about 10 minutes to decide.”

If your gut says “Yes! Rent it. This is the place!” you’re probably safe to listen. But if this is your first time picking a place on your own, it might be best to get a bit more experience under your belt first.

When you’re trying to get in touch with your needs

Logic and reason can’t always compare with your intuitive knowledge of what you need. After all, you know yourself best.

Tonight is your friend’s birthday party, but you don’t want to go. You feel tired and drained, and a loud, crowded room sounds like the worst possible place to spend your evening.

Even though you know you might feel a little better once you’re actually there, an internal voice insists, “No way.”

Go ahead and skip it (really). Listening to your body can help you make decisions that support your needs in the moment.

When you lack data

Gut feelings can’t replace cold, hard evidence, but you may not always have facts to consider. Or you might have some data, just not enough to guide you to an answer.

Perhaps you’re trying to choose between two job offers that seem pretty equal on paper, or deciding whether to go on a second date with someone you feel less than enthusiastic about.

Your emotions can play an important role in decisions, so trust them. The choice you make might resonate more soundly with your sense of self.

Time and practice can hone your intuition, so give your gut feelings the consideration they deserve. Tuning in to your emotions and bodily cues can help you practice listening to your gut and learning when to trust it.

When you struggle to identify gut feelings or have a hard time separating them from anxious thoughts, a therapist can help you cultivate the ability to tell them apart.

Crystal Raypole has previously worked as a writer and editor for GoodTherapy. Her fields of interest include Asian languages and literature, Japanese translation, cooking, natural sciences, sex positivity, and mental health. In particular, she’s committed to helping decrease stigma around mental health issues.

5 Gut Instincts You Shouldn't Ignore

Sections in this article:

What is a Gut Instinct?
Gut Feeling 1: “Something feels wrong in my body.”
Gut Feeling 2: “I’m in danger.”
Gut Feeling 3: “I want to help.”
Gut Feeling 4: “I know how to do this.”
Gut Feeling 5: “This is it!”
What Does an Instinct Feel Like?

A few years back, two scientists at the University of Iowa conducted an experiment in which research subjects played a game of chance with four separate card decks and stacks of play money. Each card indicated whether the player had won or lost money, and the goal for the player was to draw as many cash-delivering cards as possible. What the players didn’t know is that the decks had been rigged. Two of them had been stacked so they yielded high rewards but punishing losses, while the other two offered smaller rewards and virtually no losses. It took most players about 50 cards before they started to favor the safer decks, and about 80 cards before they could explain why they did so.

Here’s the curious part (and amateur gamblers should take note): Sensors attached to the players’ skin showed that after only 10 cards, a player’s hand would get sweaty and nervous when it reached for the risky decks. “Although the subject still had little inkling of which card piles were the most lucrative . . . [his] emotions knew which decks were dangerous,” writes Wired contributing editor Jonah Lehrer in How We Decide. “The subject’s feelings figured out the game first. ”

What is a Gut Instinct?

Most of us have experienced the sense of knowing things before we know them, even if we can’t explain how. You hesitate at a green light and miss getting hit by a speeding truck. You decide on a whim to break your no-blind-dates policy and wind up meeting your life partner. You have a hunch that you should invest in a little online startup and it becomes Google.

If only you could tap into those insights more often, right? Turns out you can, especially if you learn to identify which signals to focus on — whether they’re sweaty palms, a funny feeling in your stomach, or a sudden and inexplicable certainty that something is up.

According to many researchers, intuition is far more material than it seems.

According to many researchers, intuition is far more material than it seems. Hope College social psychologist David Myers, PhD, explains that the intuitive right brain is almost always “reading” your surroundings, even when your conscious left brain is otherwise engaged. The body can register this information while the conscious mind remains blissfully unaware of what’s going on.’

Another theory suggests you can “feel” approaching events specifically because of your dopamine neurons. “The jitters of dopamine help keep track of reality, alerting us to those subtle patterns that we can’t consciously detect,” Lehrer notes.

This means if something in the environment is even slightly irregular — the speed of an approaching truck, the slightly unusual behavior of someone at a party — your brain squirts dopamine and you get that “weird” feeling. Whether you pay attention or not can make all the difference. You might meet your future spouse — or meet your maker. Those signals carry a lot of important information, so it’s wise to listen up.

Judith Orloff, PhD, a Los Angeles–based intuitive psychiatrist and author of Second Sight, believes the benefits of listening to your instincts go far beyond making good on life-or-death decisions. “Living more intuitively demands that you’re in the moment,” she says, “and that makes for a more passionate life.” (See, “The Living Experiment: Intuition” to learn what your “gut sense” is telling you.)

But she also notes that gut instincts are far from infallible. The right brain’s skill with pattern identification can trigger suspicions of unfamiliar (but not dangerous) things, or cause you to be especially reactive to people who simply remind you of someone else.

So how do you choose which gut feelings to trust? Orloff suggests that it’s a matter of “combining the linear mind and intuition,” and striking the right balance between gut instinct and rational thinking. Once you’ve noticed an intuitive hit, she says, you can engage your rational mind to weigh your choices and decide how best to act on them.

To that end, here are five gut feelings that Orloff and other experts recommend you pay attention to — and some reasons why you’ll be glad you did.

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Gut Feeling 1: “Something feels wrong in my body.

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Listening to your body’s subtle signals is a critical part of exercising your intuitive sense, says Orloff, who also trains UCLA medical students and psychiatric residents to use intuition when treating patients.

“Intuition allows you to get the first warning signs when anything is off in your body so that you can address it. If you have a gut feeling about your body — that something is toxic, weak or off — listen to it.

“Your body is a powerful intuitive communicator,” she explains in Second Sight. “Intuition allows you to get the first warning signs when anything is off in your body so that you can address it. If you have a gut feeling about your body — that something is toxic, weak or ‘off’ — listen to it. Go and get it worked up.” She’s seen too many people ignore their sense that something isn’t right with their bodies, and subsequently find that small problems have become big ones. (Discover 5 steps that will help you to tune in and establish a connection with your higher self at “Access Your Inner Wisdom“. )

Physical symptoms can also have symbolic value. “If you’re around somebody and your energy goes down, that’s an intuition not to ignore,” Orloff says. Sudden sleepiness can mean that you’re in the presence of an energy-draining person or circumstance; it can be your body’s way of communicating that these conditions are taking more energy than they give. If you stay in a situation that makes you feel instantly depleted (like taking a job after you left the interview feeling exhausted), it can easily lead to a situation where you become depressed, anxious and — not surprisingly — stuck.

Ronald A. Alexander, PhD, a psychologist, mindfulness expert, leadership consultant, and director of the Open Mind Training Institute in Santa Monica, Calif., also recommends paying close attention to any sudden physical sensations you experience during the course of an interaction. He tells a story of traveling in India where he decided not to get in a cab because of a “burning sensation” in his gut, and he later saw the driver being arrested in the train station for suspected robbery. He says he typically feels intuitions in his chest or his stomach; the latter is relatively common given that the intestines house the enteric nervous system, sometimes called the “second brain.”

“That second brain really is the intuitive brain,” Alexander explains, and he recommends that when it speaks, you listen.

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Gut Feeling 2: “I’m in danger.”

Jackie Larsen was leaving her Grand Marais, Minn., prayer-group meeting on an April morning in 2001 when a clean-cut young man named Christopher Bono approached her, asking for help. He told her that he was on his way to meet friends in Thunder Bay, and his car had broken down. During their brief conversation, she got a visceral feeling that something was wrong, accompanied by a sharp pain in her stomach. She sent Bono inside to talk to the pastor of the church and called the police to have them trace his Illinois license plates. It turned out he was the prime suspect in a gruesome crime and was fleeing the scene.

Larsen’s brain had likely detected subtle irregularities in Bono’s behavior. “Mere ‘thin-slices’ of someone’s behavior can reveal much,” writes Myers, who relates Larsen’s story in his book Intuition: Its Powers and Perils. His understanding of this capacity is more socio-historical than neuroscientific; he believes that the feeling you get about a person in the first 10 seconds expresses an “ancient biological wisdom.” Early humans who could speedily detect whether a stranger was friend or foe were more likely to survive, he says, and they would create descendents who were able to read emotional signals in another person’s face almost instantly.

Of course, the human capacity to “thin-slice” can go badly awry, as it did in the 1999 fatal police shooting of Amadou Diallo in New York City. Police fired when they thought the young Guinean man was reaching for a weapon, but he was actually unarmed and digging in his pocket for his identification.

Because social conditioning helps to create unconscious beliefs, and these beliefs can produce first impressions and snap decisions that are utterly flawed, Orloff suggests that it’s important to check your gut feelings against your rational mind whenever possible. And there are simple ways you can attend to what feels like a warning signal in the short term, she says.

“If you don’t trust somebody, even if it turns out to be inaccurate, it is something to pay attention to,” she explains. “If you’re walking down the street at night and you get the feeling ‘stay away from that person,’ just cross the street.”

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Gut Feeling 3: “I want to help.”

While you might think of our gut instincts as something we’ve maintained mostly to avoid danger, the human species has evolved an equally powerful capacity to sense when our fellow beings need support. “Sympathy is one of humanity’s most basic instincts, which is why evolution lavished so much attention on the parts of the brain that help us think about what other people are feeling,” notes Lehrer.

Sympathy is one of humanity’s most basic instincts, which is why evolution lavished so much attention on the parts of the brain that help us think about what other people are feeling.

Since evolution has made you a quick read of other faces and their emotional signals, you don’t always need to wait for a verbalized cue before you reach out. The sympathy instinct nudges you to change the subject when wedding talk makes a newly divorced colleague cringe, or to start up a conversation with a nervous seatmate during an airplane landing — subtle gestures that can make a big difference in someone’s day. The capacity to empathetically identify with other faces can even be what compels you to donate money after a natural disaster. Studies of humanitarian relief efforts show that people are markedly more compelled to give after seeing a photo of an individual in need than after reading statistics about damage.

Finally, this ability to “read” other faces isn’t just good for those you help. One recent brain-imaging study suggests that generosity makes the pleasure centers in the brain light up like the Las Vegas Strip. When participants were given $128 of hard cash along with the choice to keep it or donate it to charity, the reward centers of those who chose to donate went wild.

One recent brain-imaging study suggests that generosity makes the pleasure centers in the brain light up like the Las Vegas Strip.

Multiple studies have also demonstrated a phenomenon known as the “helper’s high,” which causes individuals aiding others to experience improvements in mood, immunity and overall well-being. That’s why following your instincts for sympathy and generosity generally turns out to be a good investment in your own health and happiness, too.

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Gut Feeling 4: “I know how to do this.”

Basketball announcers can be merciless when otherwise talented players choke at the free-throw line, but most of us can identify with the player’s sense of panic. You might have a well-developed yoga practice with one pose that still stumps you. Or maybe you’re a stellar driver who forgets how to parallel park whenever your intimidating sister-in-law is in the car. Or you’re a great cook who botches your favorite dish each time you make it for guests. In situations like these, the can-do instinct you’ve developed through years of experience is being drowned out by an onslaught of overthinking.

“Choking [among athletes] is a vivid example of the havoc that can be caused by too much thought,” Lehrer points out. “Such deliberate thought processes interfere with the trained movements of their muscles.”

He cites a study at the University of Chicago showing that, while novice golfers did better when they thought carefully about their putts, the performance of more experienced golfers got much worse when they reflected on what they were doing.

Rational thought served the beginners, it turned out, because they were still developing muscle memory and technique. But for those players who had already integrated all that information, instinct naturally took over — and did a far better job. Overriding instincts and neural patterning in favor of logical thought absolutely destroyed their performance.

“Once you’ve developed expertise in a particular area — once you’ve made the requisite mistakes — it’s important to trust your emotions when making decisions in that domain,” Lehrer insists. If you know you can do it, trust your gut — not your head. (Learn more about trusting your gut at “Gut Feelings“.)

Next time you’re tempted to think too much about something you know how to do, try a little therapeutic distraction. Say the alphabet backward when your yoga teacher orders you into the dreaded handstand, or sing a favorite song to yourself at the free-throw line. Briefly engaging your conscious mind with something other than the task at hand can leave your instincts free to do their job — and free you to enjoy the satisfaction all that practice has made possible.

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Gut Feeling 5: “This is it!”

Most people have a great “I just knew it was right” story. It might be about the time they first spotted their sweetheart or crossed the threshold of their first house or figured out they wanted to switch careers. There’s a reason most of us have memorable stories about the biggest and best decisions we make in life, says Orloff — they’re typically remarkable for their lack of cognitive heavy lifting.

When your intuition signals that you’ve found something or someone truly right for you, the choice often becomes strangely easy.

When your intuition signals that you’ve found something or someone truly right for you, the choice often becomes strangely easy. “It feels healthy; it feels good; it doesn’t feel like you’re forcing it, there’s not a lot of conflict,” she says.

Lehrer agrees that when you’re poised to make a big decision with lasting repercussions, like choosing your life partner, you’re best off deciding from the gut. Based on the bulk of his research into the cognitive mechanisms of decision-making, he actually recommends that you “think less about those choices that you care a lot about.”

According to Lehrer, the rational mind is really suited only to limited concrete choices, like deciding between two brands of car insurance. In situations where there are just a couple of relevant factors involved, the prefrontal cortex can weigh the comparative rewards of each and yield an excellent result. But there are so many factors involved in a complex decision like, say, buying a house, that the limited space in the prefrontal cortex gets overwhelmed. In that state, it becomes the wrong part of the brain for the job.

Several studies support the wisdom of emotional decision-making in the realm of big choices. Lehrer cites one conducted at the University of Amsterdam that simulated the experience of buying a car, providing research subjects with overwhelming amounts of detailed information. Some car buyers were briefly distracted, then left to choose quickly and with their emotions. Follow-up surveys revealed that they selected the most satisfying car 60 percent of the time. Other subjects who had more uninterrupted time in which to choose were pleased with their decision less than 25 percent of the time — worse even than random chance.

In another study, the same Dutch researchers shadowed shoppers at IKEA, observing their shopping behaviors. Later interviews indicated that those who spent less time making their choices ended up more satisfied overall. Choosing a couch and choosing a spouse are decidedly different acts, to be sure, but both tend to provoke the kind of agonized overthinking that leads to poor choices. Using your intuitive brain in these situations, on the other hand, will almost always point you toward a lasting fulfillment.

Of all the reasons to use your gut instincts to make big decisions, this may be the best: It leads to the choices that are most fully satisfying — decisions that can improve the quality of your life.

“It allows you to find relationships that resonate for you, instead of what looks good on paper,” Orloff says. “It allows you to connect with people on a heart level, it allows you to deeply experience life instead of just letting it wash over you, and it allows you to be really smart about how you make your decisions.”

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According to Judith Orloff, a Los Angeles psychiatrist who teaches medical students at UCLA how to use their intuition when working with patients, most gut instincts are accompanied by some kind of physical sensation. In her book, Second Sight, Orloff shares some of the feelings you might experience during an intuitive “hit” or instinctive response.

Positive and affirming instincts are often accompanied by:

A sense of warmth
Ability to breathe more easily
Sharp clarity of hearing or vision
A wave of goose bumps, tingles or “fluttery” sensations
Relaxation in the gut and shoulders

Negative or warning instincts are often accompanied by:

Icy cold hands and feet; an overall chill
Twinging or clenching pain in gut or chest
Nausea or acid stomach
A sense of being on “high alert”
Fatigue or loss of energy
Onset of headache

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This article has been updated. It was originally published online on November 1, 2010.

A bad feeling in the soul: how to get rid of it and where it comes from

Let's tell you what to do when a bad feeling suddenly overcomes you, why you worry and expect trouble and how to get rid of a bad feeling.

Some people are said to be able to make an elephant out of a fly, inflate any conflict, describe the scale of the catastrophe even if nothing of the kind is even close. These same people often feel that “something is about to happen.”

However, psychologically, a bad feeling is a symptom of unrealized potential and internal fears.

If you have a bad feeling, then you should delve into yourself and figure out where it could have come from. The easiest way, of course, is to seek help from a psychologist. He will ask the right questions and make you get to the bottom of the reasons for the premonition of trouble. However, you can also do something yourself.

If I have a bad feeling, what should I do?

First, you need to analyze your own behavior, your character and temperament. There are people who absorb all the colors of the world more clearly and brighter than others. Such people notice details, nuances, see many shades. Often these are creative individuals who can be poets, artists, designers, musicians. Even if they do not work in the creative field, they make something at home in their free time, compose stories, draw, embroider.

Read on the topic Is it good to be a person with a fine mental organization?

The accumulated information about the external environment results in new compositions, creative thoughts on paper, new creations of the material world. People willingly use their imagination to create new things. It can be paintings, sculptures, blog stories, written songs. However, not all people are creative.

Sometimes the accumulated data gives rise to thoughts,

which are directed in the wrong direction.

And here the imagination is already working to its fullest - you draw gloomy scenes of the future for yourself.

Out of nowhere, a bad premonition arises in the soul, which is nothing but a play of the imagination and the result of your inner fears.

Talk to a psychologist

Most likely, you had situations in the past when you experienced, suffered, could even get into serious trouble, suffer because of other people or circumstances. Instead of focusing on the future, on the creative and beautiful, you are in the past, past circumstances.

Your brain clings to everything you have experienced, and therefore any vivid impression gives rise to a new emotional outburst in your mind, which results in a bad presentiment in your soul.

Note that active, active people have little negative thoughts. Including they are not visited by any premonitions, thoughts with bad overtones, memories and fragments of phrases that can spoil the mood. If a person actively spends his energy and directs it in a creative direction, then more and more positive things begin to happen in his life.

Read on the topic Is it possible to live without anxiety and obsessive thoughts?

How to get rid of a bad feeling?

You need to understand that by thinking about the bad, you are constantly winding yourself up. There are people who are able to get hung up on an idea, thought, event, and in their imagination grow the details. They plunge into the world of obsessions, from which it is very difficult to get out. As a result, bad premonitions appear more and more.

One bad feeling can lead to another,

which can provoke a hysteria in a healthy person and a feeling that the whole world is against him.

Panic attacks, insomnia, suspicion, eternal fear of any event, person, life - this is what accompanies a person who cherishes his bad foreboding.

If you want to figure out how to get rid of a bad feeling, find an activity that is guaranteed to distract you from your own thoughts. It can be a dive into some new and complex project where 100% return is required.

In terms of physiology, sports and creativity help. Creative processes, moments when you create something, help to establish biochemical processes in the brain, to create new neural connections. As a result, you will get out of the vicious circle of thoughts, when the habit of worrying about something has already been developed.

Premonition of trouble or the habit of looking for a negative connotation in everything?

If up to this point your life cannot be called happy and successful, then you will surely fall into the trap of a bad feeling. After all, if until now everything was not too good, then the brain adapts to reality and invites you to perceive the future with caution. Since you have already suffered, then where is the guarantee that in the future everything will not happen again? Something terrible must happen, because up to this moment it had happened!

You are actually in a situation where you don't recognize the good things that are happening. In the life of any person there are upheavals, troubles with loved ones, difficulties in personal life, failures and falls. The question is how exactly do you perceive everything. Some people endure a lesson and take note of some things, while remaining happy and cheerful, others cherish memories of negative moments and are afraid to take the next step, because they understand that dangers can lie in wait for them everywhere.

It is like children learning to ride a bicycle. Imagine that after the first or second abrasion, no one would continue to try to learn how to ride it.

Even if there was a negative experience and something happened in the past, you can't live with it all the time. First you need to learn how to release energy and direct it to the positive, to what brings joy.

If you have a bad feeling and you do not know what to do, first of all you need to try to pull yourself together, and then learn to be distracted and focus on something good, pleasant. It helps to keep a gratitude journal at the end of the day, where you can write down all the good things that happened to you during the day. This will help you switch from negative thoughts that give rise to a bad feeling of foreboding to a positive wave. At first, it will not be so easy to switch, but it is quite possible if you practice daily journaling.

When getting rid of a bad feeling, it is important to understand that it did not come from outside, but you are its creator. By realizing and accepting this, it will be easier for you to cope with bad feelings and save yourself from unnecessary worries.

What is a bad feeling and can it be trusted?

Almost everyone has experienced a bad feeling in one way or another: either inspired by another unhappy news report, or resulting from watching disaster films too often, such a feeling can both make you waste time by changing your affairs, and really save from something terrible.

Skeptics and opponents of all kinds of pseudoscience deny in every possible way that such a premonition can save someone from certain troubles: people who are not inclined to believe in mystical signs consider such a premonition to be nothing more than a game of the subconscious.

But is it really so? Maybe a bad feeling is still a useful thing, which, for its own good, is worth listening to at least sometimes? We have found the answer to this question: find out how the bad feeling mechanism works and whether it should really be trusted.

Bad feeling: what it really is and how it works

Let's start with the principle by which such a familiar thing as a bad feeling works. Many believe that a bad feeling is either excessive suspiciousness or mysticism. Such a feeling is completely neither one nor the other.

Despite the fact that belief in omens and mysticism is an integral part of a bad feeling (a skeptic simply will not believe in it), there is another component: the games of our subconscious, sometimes acting unnoticed by us.

A bad feeling, as a rule, arises from the fact that some information, day after day, accumulating in the brain, suddenly adds up to a whole picture, leading you to special suspicions.

For example, you decided to skip a couple of your not-too-favorite subjects and fulfilled your intention, and later found out that it was on that day that there was a test that no one was warned about. Is it worth praising yourself for the ability to "feel" the danger? Yes and no.

In a case similar to our example, several factors contributed to success at once. A student who accidentally skipped an unloved couple, on which the test was conducted, could notice that the last couple was asked more than usual, and he could hear a couple of random phrases that theoretically hinted at an early test. Chronic unpreparedness for an unloved subject completed the job.

Is it possible to trust a bad feeling

Although a bad feeling is justified logically, you should not trust it too much: the subconscious mind often makes mistakes, misleading us. But if you already have a negative mood, and there is an opportunity not to go to this or that event, don’t go: a bad mood, unless you can improve it, can easily ruin everything. For people who are prone to negative, preconceived expectations, the reality is often very close to their gloomy thoughts.

As you can see, there is no mysticism in a bad presentiment: as a rule, such a presentiment and the corresponding mood are just a cocktail of good observation skills, the game of the subconscious and the presence of certain character traits

it may also happen that your subconscious mind will wrap you around your finger.

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