Welcome to the Very Well Mind podcast. We've interviewed over 100 authors, experts, entrepreneurs, athletes, to help you learn to care for your mental health. This episode is hosted by psychotherapist and best-selling author Amy Morin. Now let's get into the episode. You're listening to The Friday Fix. Today I'm talking about how to deal with unhelpful thoughts. So often people say that they need help dealing with their negative thoughts.
But not all negative thoughts are bad or inaccurate. Sometimes things really are that bad. Maybe your boss just delivered some bad news about the future of your company. Your thoughts about being unemployed might be kind of accurate. That's why I'm talking about unhelpful thoughts, not just negative thoughts. Negative thoughts that are true aren't necessarily harmful. It's the irrational, untrue thoughts that aren't helpful.
There might be times when you exaggerate how bad things are. Like when you're thinking everyone is upset with you about something. In reality, though, maybe just one person's mad. Or you might just be imagining that everyone is upset because of a choice you made, like you moved to a new city. In those instances, your negative thoughts are likely unfounded.
Similarly, you might be predicting catastrophic things for the future. When your boss sends an email that says, let's find a time to meet today, you might start thinking that your boss is upset you're going to get fired and without a job, you're going to end up homeless. Going down that trail of negative thinking isn't helpful because you're just making up the ending to a story that isn't based on reality. You don't even know why your boss wants to meet, and yet your imagination's running wild.
Clearly, your thoughts influence your feelings and your behavior if you let them. But they don't have to take over. You have choices in how you respond to your thoughts. In the therapy office, we call those initial thoughts that pop into your head automatic thoughts. You don't have control over them, but you do have control over how you respond to them. Let's take that example of an email from the boss.
One person who reads an email that says, we need to find a time to meet today, might think, my boss hates me, I'm going to get fired. Another person who reads that same email might think, My boss loves me. I'm probably going to get promoted. Same circumstance. Just two very different automatic thoughts. That's not to say, though, that one is better than the other. Unrealistic thoughts, whether they're overly negative or overly positive, aren't helpful.
But sometimes people mistakenly assume that positive thinking is always a good thing. Research shows otherwise, though. Let's take students, for example. There's a study where they asked nursing students how they thought they were going to do on an upcoming exam. Some students expressed concern that they weren't going to get a good grade. Other students were completely confident that they were going to ace the test.
Guess who did better? The students who had concerns over what kind of grade they were going to get actually scored higher in the end compared to the students who were completely confident that they were going to ace the test. Researchers found that the students who were overly optimistic about how well they would score didn't put in nearly as much time studying for the test. Clearly, overly positive thoughts can be just as detrimental as overly negative thoughts.
So when I talk about unhelpful thoughts, I'm referring to both the overly negative thoughts as well as the overly positive thoughts. Fortunately though, you don't have to believe everything you think. In fact, it's safe to say that much of the things that run through your head just aren't accurate. You're looking at the world through a specific filter that causes you to interpret events in a certain way.
Your emotions are a big influence on that filter. Let's say you're already feeling anxious about something. Like you're anxiously awaiting a call to hear news from a doctor about your loved one's health. If you get that email from your boss that says, let's meet today, when you're already feeling anxious, you're much more likely to assume that it's about something bad because your emotions affect the way that you think.
Similarly, if you're feeling sad and you send a text message to a friend who doesn't respond right away, you're more likely to think that person doesn't like you. If you feel happy when you send a text and they don't respond right away, you'll be more likely to think the person's just busy. Our life experiences also affect our automatic thoughts.
You developed beliefs about yourself, other people, and the world around you when you were a kid. And you'll constantly look for evidence that reinforces the things that you already believe to be true. So someone who developed a belief that they aren't good enough might be more likely to have automatic thoughts that other people don't like that.
or that they're going to be rejected, as compared to someone who believes that they're worthy. We also tend to overlook evidence that goes against anything that we believe. So if you believe you're not good enough and yet you achieve something really big, you'll probably chalk it up to luck or you'll convince yourself that people around you were just fooled into thinking that you were worthwhile.
Our beliefs greatly affect that filter of how we see the world and they're a driving force behind the automatic thoughts that pop up into our minds. Mental health issues also affect automatic thought. People with depression are more likely to have automatic thoughts that fuel a sense of helplessness hopelessness and worthlessness People with anxiety disorders are more likely to have automatic thoughts that overestimate the risk or the consequences that they face.
underestimate their capacity to cope. So it can be helpful sometimes to take a step back and recognize most of the thoughts that run through your head aren't true. Spend some time thinking about what sort of filters affect your automatic thoughts. What emotions and underlying beliefs cause you to see the world in a certain way? And keep in mind that you choose how to respond to those unhelpful thoughts.
There are lots of strategies about how to reframe those thoughts and how to respond to them with more realistic statements. One tactic involves what we call turning blue thoughts into true thoughts. It's a strategy that we discussed way back in episode 28. Essentially, it's about recognizing unhelpful thoughts, like, ugh, I'm going to embarrass myself today, and responding to them with something more helpful, like, all I can do is my best.
Another strategy for dealing with unhelpful thoughts involves talking to yourself the same way you talk to a friend something we talk about often on this show It involves just asking yourself, what would I say to my friend right now? And then giving yourself those same kind words. Using self-compassion goes a long way toward helping you build mental strength. Then when you have repetitive thoughts or you're stuck in a pattern of unhelpful thinking change the channel in your brain
That's something that we talked about in episode 30. It involves distracting your brain for a few minutes with an activity so that you can stop thinking about something that's upsetting and then you'll feel better. There are lots of other strategies. I've worked with people who imagine a stop sign in their brains when their thoughts are headed down an unhelpful path or when they're caught up in a loop of catastrophic thoughts.
I've also worked with people who develop a mantra to drown out the unhelpful thoughts, something that we discussed in episode 119. It might involve repeating a phrase to yourself like, not helpful, every time that you notice your thoughts aren't productive. So those are just a few things you can do to deal with unhelpful thoughts.
Remember that most of what you think isn't true. Consider the things that cause you to filter your circumstances in a specific way, like your emotions and your life experiences. And experiment with strategies that help you respond to those unhelpful thoughts in a healthy way. Like talking to yourself like a trusted friend or changing the channel in your brain. Remember that your brain is programmed to look for the negative.
That's a strategy that worked really well when we lived in primitive times and had to constantly be on the lookout for danger so that we didn't get eaten by a hungry predator. But your brain doesn't need to do that in modern times.
So it's important to respond to those automatic thoughts that aren't helpful in a healthy way. If you're struggling to cope with unhelpful thoughts that keep running through your head, see a therapist if you can. A therapist can help you identify strategies that can help. And keep in mind that certain mental illnesses make it difficult to manage unhelpful thoughts. A mental health professional can help you discover what will work best for you.
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