"Break mental spirals with the 5-5-5 time-travel trick When the mind spirals during a change, it is attempting to regain control by "outthinking" a problem — but this creates a false sense of progress while looping over the same unanswerable questions. Shankar recommends a quick mental time-travel exercise: ask yourself, "How am I going to feel about this 5 hours from now, 5 days from now, and 5 years from now?" This five-second exercise "reminds you that your current situation is transient and the problem, your current preoccupation, is probably going to feel less significant moving forward." If you still feel certain the worry will persist in five years, you can mine your own past for moments when you were equally convinced a spiral would never end — and turned out to be wrong. Source: Maya Shankar, The Mel Robbins Podcast, Life Takes a Turn"