Throughout our daily activities, we all experience a continuous flow of quick, evaluative thoughts. These are called automatic thoughts. Automatic thoughts are not a deliberate choice but emerge spontaneously. Our minds are flooded with these thoughts continuously.
‘Why is this lady talking so loud?’
‘I love this song.’
‘I need to wash my car.’
Automatic thoughts pass through our mind quickly, often without our awareness. When we are aware of them, we tend to accept them uncritically. And, friends, that is when we get into trouble!
It is crucial that we consider the validity of these thoughts rather than just accepting them as truth. This is because we all have automatic thoughts that are unhelpful or inaccurate. These are called cognitive distortions and there are many different types (see a list of cognitive distortions). Those who struggle with depression or anxiety tend to have a lot more of these cognitive distortions than the average person.
Take a moment to think about the automatic thoughts you experienced as you moved through your day yesterday. Can you identify any thoughts that made you feel troubled? Such as sad or threatened in any way? Perhaps they were something like:
‘Why did she give me that look? She thinks I’m dumb.’
‘If I didn’t eat that second cupcake, my jeans wouldn’t feel so tight.’
‘This mole looks suspicious. Maybe it’s cancer.’
‘What’s that noise? Is this plane going down?’
‘I can’t believe I slept in until 10am. What a lazy bum.’
Write down all the thoughts you can recall that were troubling in some way. Now look at your list. Let’s do some evaluating. Pick one of your thoughts. Ask yourself a few questions about this thought. Depending on the nature of your automatic thought, some of these questions may apply and some may not.
- What is this evidence that your thought is true? What is the evidence that it is not true?
- What is the worst that could happen? How could you cope with that if it did happen? What is the best that could happen? What is the most realistic outcome?
- What is the effect of believing this thought? What could be the effect of changing that thought or thinking?
Here is the big idea: by learning how to critically analyze your thoughts, you will start to realize that some of these thoughts are not very accurate or realistic. This realization can take the power away from thoughts that are causing a lot of unnecessary anxiety.
It is important to note that I have oversimplified the process of addressing troubling thoughts to give you a brief overview. This step involves several additional tasks that can further help you practice and solidify new skills to manage anxious thoughts. Adequately addressing anxiety takes time and effort. It can be especially helpful to have a skilled therapist guide you through this change process. Next week I will write Step 2 of the Reduce Anxiety Series: How to Boost Emotional Tolerance. Stay tuned!
