Why does mind go blank

You won't always have time to use them while you're conversing one-on-one, but might be able to if the other person is speaking a lot. Focus your attention outside your mind. When we're anxious we often get caught up in our heads. Observe your surroundings instead. One way to do this is to pay attention to the physical objects around you What color is everyone's shirt?

How does the couch you're sitting on feel? You can also try to really, really tune into to the conversation, rather than half-listening while you worry. Take a few deep, calming breaths. As long as you don't do it in an exaggerated way, no one should notice. This article goes into more detail about anxiety-reducing breathing techniques. Just give the anxiety time to fade on its own.

Even if you don't use any techniques you'll often naturally start to feel more comfortable after a few minutes. If you have some pre-planned questions or statements, you can fall back on those if your mind is empty. For example, if your thoughts tend to freeze up when you meet people at parties, you could memorize a handful of standard getting-to-know-you questions like, "How do you know the host? I suggest only preparing a small number of canned questions or answers.

If you try to remember too much then you're likely to get stuck trying to figure out which of your eighteen possible lines to use. Keep it simple so you can recall what you need quickly. On the link below you'll find a training series focused on how to feel at ease socially, even if you tend to overthink today. It also covers how to avoid awkward silence, attract amazing friends, and why you don't need an "interesting life" to make interesting conversation.

Click here to go to the free training. If your mind goes blank in a one-on-one conversation it will lead to a silence. That may make you even more worried and clammed up, because now you feel like the interaction has gone off the rails and become awkward. You'll feel more secure if you know some ways to address any dead air. The biggest tactic is mental: If you keep your cool, maintain your outer poise, and don't treat the silence as a disaster, then it won't be one.

You can simply come up with something else to say and move on. This article goes into more detail about the topic:. Sometimes people feel like their minds are blank, but if they looked closer they'd realize they are having thoughts. They're coming up with possible things to say, then quickly rejecting them for being too boring, generic, weird, random, or whatnot.

People sometimes become paralyzed in conversations because they put pressure on themselves to only say amazingly witty and interesting, but also sensitive and appropriate, things. None of what they think of seems good enough, so they feel like they have nothing to say at all. You can learn to get past this flavor of blank mindedness by getting in the habit of not filtering yourself so much. If something pops into your head, and it's not ridiculously strange or offensive, then just say it.

Don't fret if it seems somewhat unoriginal or uninspired. At first it may feel hard to speak in such an off the cuff way, but it will get easier. Some types of worries can hinder your ability to come up with things to talk about.

Other causes include epileptic seizures, syncope due to anxiety psychogenic pseudosyncope and other rare causes of faints. Other causes of blacking out may be due to low blood sugar hypoglycaemia and lack of oxygen hypoxia from a variety of causes.

Most often it occurs in young adults as a result of stress or anxiety. However, the link between blackouts and stress may not be obvious. In most cases a psychogenic blackout is an involuntary reaction of the brain to pressure or distress.

Earlier studies have shown that under high stress, the brain tends to shut off the cortical networks involved in creativity, contemplation, planning and thinking abstractly. It is possible to turn off your mind at night. The use of distracting relaxation techniques may further help during the night. You can do it.

The link between overthinking and mental health problems is a chicken-or-egg type question. Does your mind ever go blank in stressful situation, such as during an exam, an interview, or giving a speech? Having a brain freeze can happen to anyone. This frustrating reaction to pressure is actually caused by anxiety interfering with your memory and performance.

The feeling of your mind going blank under stress happens when hormones, such as cortisol, flood our systems. As a result, our methods for factual retrieval and recall methods are disrupted.

Our ancestors needed this reaction in the body to help them fight predators or escape dangerous situations. This shift in brain focus causes you to forget the information you need to take that test or make your speech, which in turn causes even more anxiety, turning the situation into a vicious circle which can be hard to escape. There are steps you can take to help prevent this from happening, and ways to deal with the situation if your mind does go blank at an inopportune moment.