Breaking Free from Mental Loops and Anxiety Loops: How to Stop Preoccupation, Return to Flow State, Reclaim Focus, and Unlock Self-Mastery in a Distracted, AI-Generated World

By Sarah El Nabulsi, M.Sc.,M.A.,M.A.

DHA-Licensed Clinical Psychologist & Medical Director

We’ve all been there: staring at the same email, rereading the same sentence, circling around a single thought you can’t shake. This mental state has a name: preoccupation.

Unlike ordinary distraction, preoccupation hijacks the present moment. It consumes your mental bandwidth, making you feel paralyzed even when you want to focus. The harder you push the thought away, the louder it grows.

Self Mastery is a crucial skill, and attention is our most precious resource in today’s AI-driven, distraction-saturated world. That's why, my new book Self-Mastery in the Age of Chaos: Neuroscience, Ancient Wisdom, and Daily Systems to Thrive in a Distracted, AI-Generated World (coming soon) is all about this topic.

Preoccupation drains attention and we all know what that looks like; You keep finding yourself replaying the same thought on loop; a conversation that didn’t go right, an problem you are trying to solve, or an upcoming test result? You can’t stop thinking about it, even though you know worrying won’t change the outcome. Flow restores your attention.

Here are a few approaches from my book to learning how to pivot out of loops, not just for performance but to protect your mental sovereignty. Using neuroscience we will interrupt this loop and return to a flow state, a mental zone of effortless focus, deep productivity, and clarity.

What Is Flow State (and Why It Matters)?

Flow is not just productivity. It’s when your mind feels clear, your actions feel natural, and time seems to dissolve. Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi called it “optimal experience.”

When you are in flow, your prefrontal cortex quiets down, reducing self-doubt and overthinking, while boosting creativity and performance. Decisions feel easier. Stress is lower. You perform at your peak.

Preoccupation blocks this state. To reclaim or develop it flow, you need specific strategies that work with your brain; not against it.

3 Evidence-Based Ways to Break Free from Preoccupation

1. Use the Salience Swap

When your brain is stuck looping, don’t force yourself through abstract “push work” (like writing a report). Instead, pivot to pull work; tasks that naturally draw you in (a client call, responding to a colleague, or a concrete to-do).

Research shows this pivot buys your brain time. As your salience network recalibrates, the emotional intensity of preoccupation decays. Later, you can return to your main task with clarity and focus. Try this for a week and let me know how it goes!

2. Try Temporary Overengagement

Counterintuitively, one way to stop looping is to flood your day with structured activity. Behavioral activation research shows that overengagement; when done in short, time-bound bursts; prevents mental paralysis.

For example: double your meaningful output for 7–14 days. It’s a sprint, not a marathon. By keeping your mind fully occupied with purposeful action, you prevent preoccupation from colonizing your attention. This is a longer strategy but super effective, let me know if this is what you will go with.

3. The easiest and most effortless one of all is: Anchor in Restful Alertness

Tactical tools help, but the strongest protection is a steady baseline. Transcendental Meditation (Learn TM with me in U.A.E.) cultivate what researchers call “restful alertness”; a unique state where the body is deeply relaxed while the mind remains awake and clear and the great news is it strengthens you Mindfulness capabilities and just wires it effortlessly in your neurophysiology so that you attention is naturally yours and your prefrontal cortex grows stronger everyday with your TM practice. I teach TM and it has helped my clients tremendously.

More than 700 scientific studies on TM show that it lowers anxiety, strengthens attention, and supports higher brain integration. With regular practice, your nervous system learns to stay stable, even in the face of stress and uncertainty.

Hope this helps!

Sarah El Nabulsi, M.Sc.,M.A.,M.A.

About the author:

Ms. Sarah El Nabulsi, M.Sc., M.A., M.A., is a DHA licensed clinical psychologist based in Dubai, UAE. For more than 15 years, she has worked with adults and professionals who are navigating anxiety, high performance demands, and the challenge of staying grounded in a noisy, distracted world.

Want More?

This article is adapted from my upcoming book: Self-Mastery in the Age of Chaos: Neuroscience, Ancient Wisdom, and Daily Systems to Thrive in a Distracted, AI-Generated World.

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References

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. New York: Harper & Row.

Jung, M. (2024). Behavioral activation and brain network changes in reward circuitry. Journal of Clinical Neurology, 20(1), 1–10. https://doi.org/10.3988/jcn.2024.0148

Mahone, M. C., Travis, F., & Dillbeck, M. (2018). Restful alertness during Transcendental Meditation practice: fMRI evidence of frontal and cingulate activation. Brain and Cognition, 123, 30–38. https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/688412

Menon, V. (2010). Saliency, switching, attention and control: A network model of insula function. Brain Structure and Function, 214(5–6), 655–667. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00429-010-0262-0

Orme-Johnson, D. W., Schneider, R. H., Son, Y. D., & Nidich, S. (2006). Neuroimaging of Transcendental Meditation practitioners shows reduced brain reactivity to pain. NeuroReport, 17(12), 1359–1363. https://doi.org/10.1097/01.wnr.0000233104.70821.52

Seeley, W. W. (2019). The salience network: A neural system for perceiving and reacting to important stimuli. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 13, 1133367. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2019.00023

Travis, F., Haaga, D. A. F., Hagelin, J., Tanner, M., Arenander, A., Nidich, S., Gaylord-King, C., Grosswald, S., Rainforth, M., & Schneider, R. H. (2009). Effects of Transcendental Meditation practice on brain functioning and stress reactivity in college students. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 71(2), 170–176. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18854202