Two Powerful Exercises Against Limerence: How to Break Obsessive Infatuation

In this article, you'll read about two small exercises that help you not forcibly stop limerence, but gently interrupt it. These are exercises for moments when your mind keeps spinning around your limerence person and your nervous system constantly feels “on.” You'll find recognition, an explanation of why perseverance is so important – because your brain needs to build new neural pathways – and a bridge to my theory book and workbook, where you can deepen this process step by step.

Short summary: two exercises on limerence

This blog describes two simple exercises for limerence: consciously postponing your thoughts and returning to your body through breathing and your feet. Both help to gently interrupt obsessive thoughts rather than stopping them with willpower. This gives your brain a chance to build new neural pathways that focus less on one person and more on your own life.

In How to stop limerence I'm describing the larger process of recovery; this blog focuses on two very concrete exercises you can use in the middle of that process as a first, achievable step.

My experience with panic, a busy mind, and an exercise that actually helped

In the past, I've had moments where my mind was so full that I was afraid of “going crazy.” I've also had anxiety/panic attacks: that feeling where your whole body is on high alert, adrenaline everywhere, and your thoughts just race faster.

One evening I was home alone. My husband was safe, but in a country at war. I was exhausted, tense, and afraid I'd have a panic attack as soon as I went to bed. The oxazepam was already on the nightstand, like an emergency brake.

I had previously learned an exercise from a breathing and relaxation therapist: moving my head very slowly from left to right while keeping the back of my head on the pillow, and very precisely feeling where my head touches the pillow's surface. Not thinking, but literally feeling: pressure, warmth, touch, small shifts.

Everything in my body screamed: “Run around, climb the walls, do *something*!” – anyone who knows panic attacks knows how unnatural it feels to just “lie peacefully in bed.” Still, I decided to do only that exercise for ten minutes. My deal with myself was that if it still wasn't working after that, I could take the oxazepam.

What happened? Hours later, I woke up; calm. I had fallen asleep without medication. And I was so proud of myself. Not because panic was suddenly gone from my life, but because I had learned something important:

I can guide myself with exercises. And sometimes that means doing the exact opposite of what my brain and body are screaming right now.

It works similarly for limerence. If your brain wants to fantasize about your LO, interrupt yourself for a moment. If you feel panic in your head and body, do a calming exercise. And if you “fall off the wagon” and start ruminating again, be gentle with yourself, talk to yourself as you would to a good friend.

This is also why I place so much emphasis in my theory book and workbook on small, repeated exercises and on returning to your body: because I know from my own experience that it's not a magic trick, but that it is possible to guide yourself through intense tension step by step.

Why are exercises important in limerence?

Exercises are important for limerence because they help you to spend less time in your head and return more to the here and now. In What is Limerence I'm explaining that limerence isn't just “intense infatuation,” but a pattern where you live a lot in your head: memories, conversations, scenarios, hope.

Limerence is almost the opposite of being in the here and now. Your brain goes back to the past through rehashed conversations, or forward to the future through fantasy and wishful thinking. Your body is often left behind: tense, empty, or checked out.

Repair requests that you:

• less food given to the fantasy loop;
• brings your attention back to your body more often;
• learn to interrupt without pushing everything away.

Exercises are not “tricks” in this regard, but rather ways to offer your nervous system a different route than the automatic loop: thought → fantasy → checking → more tension → even more thoughts. In The Limerence Cycle Can you describe in detail how that automatic loop of trigger → thinking → fantasizing → checking works?.

In Limerence is similar to addiction I describe how that loop of thinking, hoping, and checking feels like an addiction-like cycle – precisely the loop that these exercises create small breaks in.

A limerence exercise does not focus on “fixing the other person,” but on how you manage your own brain and nervous system.

How does the “I can think about it later” exercise work?

Many people with limerence try to quiet their minds by speaking sternly to themselves: “I have to stop thinking,” “I'm not allowed to think about him/her anymore.” This usually doesn't work – it actually creates more tension, and your thoughts don't become any gentler.

This exercise does something different: you don't say “I'm not allowed to do this,” but “I'm allowed to think about this later.” You acknowledge your thoughts but structure them instead of automatically following them. The “I'm allowed to think about this later” exercise is a cognitive technique to organize automatic limerence thoughts without pushing them away.

That's how it works

• Note that you are back in your head with your LO. This could be a thought, fantasy, inner dialogue, or analysis.
• Softly tell yourself: “I can think about this later.” Not: “I'm not allowed to,” but: “Not now, but later.”
• Set a fixed time with yourself, for example, every evening from 7:30 PM to 7:45 PM, as your “thinking quarter-hour.”.
• Jot down anything that comes to mind briefly – one sentence, a few words – on a piece of paper or in a note-taking app. Then get back to what you were doing.
• During the agreed-upon quarter hour, you will sit down and consciously write down everything that is swirling around: questions, worries, fantasies, anger, sadness.

Why does “procrastinating on thinking” help with limerence?

In your head, the limerence loop is often automatic: every trigger leads directly to thinking, fantasizing, checking. By saying “I can think about it later”:

• don't suppress your thoughts, but structure I am.;
• interrupt the reflex to immediately dive into the full loop.

You are building a new path: from “thought → immediate impulse” to “thought → note → later conscious choice.” This feels unnatural at first, but it's precisely the movement of: “I still feel it, yet I do something else.”.

When you're particularly stuck in repetitive, intrusive thoughts, you might Intrusive thoughts in limerence extra help to understand what's going on in your head while you practice this exercise.

This exercise helps with limerence because it loosens the automatic connection between each thought and the entire fantasy loop. You learn that you can think and feel without your mind immediately having to direct all its energy to one person.

Why does grounding help with limerence?

The second exercise is completely focused on your body. Recovery often happens through the body: spending less time in your head and more time grounded in your body. With limerence, the brain tends to solve everything through thoughts and fantasies; body-oriented exercises bring you back to sensation instead of analysis.

Body-oriented exercises help with limerence because they regulate your nervous system through physical sensation (breath, feet, movement), instead of through even more thinking. You don't stop feeling; you stop automatically sending everything to the same story about the same person.

In Limerence and your smartphone Do you see how your phone feeds the loop? You can apply the exercises from this blog very concretely to that, for example, after every “check-in moment,” return to your breath and feet.

That's how it works

• When you notice yourself ruminating again, decide to take one mini-moment for your body.
• Gently focus your attention on your breath: how does your chest or belly move? Without needing to change it, just notice.
• Stand up (if you can) and walk around the room you're in for a minute at a calm pace.
• As you walk, focus on your feet. Feel how they touch the ground, where the pressure is, how the floor feels. Are your feet warm, cold, heavy, light?

Why does this exercise help with limerence?

In limerence, it often seems like you get closer to a solution by thinking and analyzing even more. In recovery, the opposite happens: you get closer to yourself by living less in your head and planting yourself in your body more often.

This exercise:

• your nervous system a chance to regulate via physical sensation;
• helps you not to immediately follow every emotion towards fantasy or analysis;
• makes the step from “urge” to “just feel” very small and concrete.

By returning to breathing and feet, you create a micro-break in the limerence loop. You let your attention land in something that is truly here and now, instead of in a scenario that only exists in your head.

Why perseverance is so important: neural pathways

The neural pathways for overthinking, fantasizing, and living in your head didn't appear overnight, and they won't disappear in an instant. For years, your brain has been practicing:

• go back to memories;
• projecting into fantasies;
• Letting your mood depend on small signals from one person.

Every time you:

• a thought is noted and practice is postponed;
• a minute to your breath and feet;

you lay a small piece of a new path. That new path says:

“I still feel something, yet I don't have to finish the same loop. A different movement is also possible.”

At first, that often feels unattractive: less grand, less dramatic, almost boring. But that's not boredom, that's withdrawal. Your nervous system is used to peaks and valleys; it has to learn to live without constant activation.

That's why perseverance is so important. Not perfect, but trying often enough so your brain realizes:

• “Oh yes, we can feel and breathe here too.”
• “Oh yes, I can write this down for later, I don't have to go off into fantasy now.”

Each time you practice it, it becomes just a bit easier to not automatically take the same old route. Limerence recovery is not a one-time decision, but a process of repeated small exercises that build new neural pathways.

How these exercises connect with my theory book and workbook

In my theory book “Getting Over Limerence” describe extensively:

• What happens psychologically and neurochemically during limerence;
• why it feels like an addiction-like loop;
• how old pain and attachment play a role;
• And why recovery is almost never a straight line.

This book comes with a workbook in which I help you put everything you read into practice: with concrete exercises, check-ins, and reflections. My workbook contains several exercises to help you stay in the here and now more often. Some focus more on the cognitive aspect (recognizing thoughts and dealing with them differently), others more on your body (feeling and regulating tension), and still others on your behavior (boundaries, no contact, reacting differently).

This way, you can choose which exercises best suit your way of thinking and feeling, instead of there being only one right path. This blog focuses on two separate, accessible limerence exercises; in the workbook, you'll find a full set of steps to deepen and repeat them.

These two exercises – delaying thinking and returning to your body – were intentionally not taken literally from the workbook, so that this blog... free, low-threshold first step may be. In the workbook you will continue with:

• Mapping your personal limerence loop;
• practicing no-contact experiments and digital boundaries;
• Dealing with shame and self-reproach.;
• Investigating attachment and old patterns;
• and moving your energy towards things where you are the main character.

This blog will give you two separate exercises as an initial example; in the theory book and workbook, you'll find a whole set of here-and-now exercises with which you can calmly try out what works for you.

If you want to tackle this step by step, my workbook will help you go through these processes calmly and in a structured way. This blog is primarily intended as a safe first step: two exercises you can try today, without having to change everything at once.

Finally

You are not weak or a failure because limerence feels so big, or because it doesn't stop all at once. Your brain and body are doing exactly what they've practiced for years.

Recovery is almost never a heroic leap, but a series of small, brave choices: delaying one thought, focusing on your breath and your feet for one minute, being kind to yourself one time after a setback.

You don't have to do it perfectly. You can practice, fall, choose again, and build a life step by step where you don't just revolve around others, but have a place for yourself again.

Frequently asked questions about these exercises

About the author

Sidney C. Solace is a writer with a background in investigative journalism and years of personal experience with limerence and, more importantly, overcoming it.

She explores the psychological patterns behind obsessive infatuation and attachment, and writes for people who seem to function on the outside but feel completely consumed by one person on the inside. In Out of the Limerence Loop, she combines theory and practice to give readers more language, calm, and direction on their path to recovery.

Article photo: thank you Naeem Ad on unsplash.com