What is Anxious Thinking? A CBT Approach
CBT Group call April
1
What is Thinking?
- Thinking is not Feeling
- What to do with Thinking
2
Brains Think Negatively and Nonstop
- You have a Reptilian Brain
- It's for survival – so it's negative
- It never stops scanning for problems
3
Thinking Pitfalls and Problems
- You think thoughts are logical, rational, true
- You can't stop thinking
- You are scared of your thinking
1. What is Anxious Thinking
https://www.cbtabudhabi.ae/blog/2017/2/3/how-to-watch-your-thoughts
Principle:
Understand your Brain
Thinking is words and bits of language.
It has no meaning until you put meaning into those words.
For example, what sort of meaning do you associate with the word 'candyfloss.'
Do you have a different meaning and association for a word such as 'hospital'?
If you can see your thoughts as words rather than absolute truth, you can easily change them.
Thinking is not Feeling.
Thoughts and Feelings are two different processes.
They often get mixed up, and it can be hard to separate them.
https://www.cbtabudhabi.ae/blog/vicious-cycle-of-thoughts-and-feelings
It's important to separate them because then you can manage them.
Here's an easy way to tell the difference between them:
Q. Where do you go inside yourself to discover what you are thinking?
A. My brain
Q. Where do you go inside yourself to find out what you feel?
A. Go to the end of this document to see if you got the right place
And read why you need to know the difference.
Thoughts are powerful.
So powerful that they cause us to feel certain ways most of the time.
Here's the CBT question (ask this question of your brain whenever you feel a feeling and you aren't sure why).
What am I thinking right now?
What did you say to me, Brain?
What just crossed my mind?
What to do with your Thinking
There are hundreds of ways to manage thinking.
Here's how to start:
Notice what you are thinking – you can't do much with thinking unless you notice that you actually are thinking.
So, you will need to build your awareness of what your head is saying and practice listening to it.
This can be frightening if you have a scary head – and many people find it challenging to do.
If you can notice your thinking - then you can try these strategies:
Ask the CBT question: "What are you saying to me, Brain?"
Label the thinking. Say, "Brain, you are thinking again. That's okay".
Take a big sheet of paper and write down all the thoughts that your brain is worrying about. Empty your head.
Give your brain a new thought that is more upbeat to use
Let your thoughts go – distract yourself and go and do something else
2. Brains Think Negatively and Nonstop
A small part of our brain is old and reptilian.
It's focused 100% on survival, which means it's only interested in things that might harm you.
Reptilian brains focus on what might go wrong and what might be hiding in the undergrowth (maybe a snake or a tiger).
Reptilian brains have zero interest in positive information because this doesn't keep you alive.
To stay alive, you must be focused on what will possibly hurt or kill you (no, it probably won't happen in 2022).
A survival-based brain is negative.
It doesn't like:
- Uncertainty (maybe it could be something dangerous)
- Unpredictability (again, you could get hurt)
- Ambiguity (it needs to know if it's a snake or a stick)
Brains talk non-stop.
Have you tried to stop thinking?
Try now – see how long you can go. Your talking mind is like a ping-pong ball that just keeps going
Have you noticed that a lot of that thinking is just chatter?
We call this thinking: Mind Chatter or the Monkey Mind.
Or Negative Automatic Thoughts.
Your brain thinks automatically.
Just like everything else you do automatically, you also think automatically.
This isn't very helpful because you repeatedly think the same old thoughts.
What's the biggest problem when brains think negatively all the time?
Answer: We start to believe what our brain says.
When you know how your brain behaves and why - you'll be able to manage your thinking effectively.
3. Thinking Pitfalls and Problems
You think that your thoughts are true and correct
In case you thought that brains think logically and usefully, take a look at brain biases
https://www.verywellmind.com/cognitive-biases-distort-thinking-2794763
All this biased thinking means that much of your thinking is just words.
You can check on your thinking by looking for evidence.
For example, if your brain tells you: "You won't be able to pass this exam".
Then, have a look around for the evidence.
Do you typically fail exams? Do you often worry that you won't pass them and then end up working harder (which is a good thing?). Have you done sufficient preparation?
Most of our negative thoughts have little or NO evidence to support them.
For example, how often do you think “I just can’t do this anymore” and then somehow you can
You just can't stop Thinking
Often brains talk, chatter, and worry all night as well as all day. This is exhausting
Brains that don’t stop talking can mess up your sleep, your career and friendships.
The best solution for brains that just won’t stop talking is to use a Worrytime.
A Worrytime will help you retrain your brain to “Worry Well and Worry Once”.
https://www.cbtabudhabi.ae/blog/worry-time
Sometimes you can soften the thinking by singing your thoughts out loud, talking reassuringly to your brain or even just labelling the thinking as ‘thinking’.
You may be scared of your thinking
We all have thoughts that are too dark to think about at times.
If we have too many dark thoughts, we can get caught up in anxiety and depression.
If you are scared of your thinking, then you are scared of yourself.
That’s a very difficult place to be – because you can’t run away from yourself.
So - make friends with your scared brain.
Soothe it, sing to it and reassure it – just as you would with a little child.
Remember, thinking is just words.
Please don’t run away from your thinking.
Questions you asked:
Question: What are some ways to prevent burnout?
Answer:
Always start with the basics – make sure you are getting enough sleep, eating well and doing some exercise.
Then look at some ways to manage your thinking – so you are thinking thoughts that equip you to cope with challenges and difficult situations. Similarly, manage your feelings and behaviour – when you are angry and frustrated, know how to express and move on from these and when you feel reactive, know how to redirect your behaviour.
Finally, some quick ideas – use the 80/20 rule to be efficient and lessen perfectionism, learn to say ‘no’ to too much work and delegate when possible.
Question: When facts aren’t real, how do you deal with a situation which repeats and thus reinforces the belief?
Answer:
This is hard to answer without understanding exactly what is happening. I can answer it generally by saying:
Brains are biased when it comes to noticing facts anyway. Look up “Selective Attention”, and you will find that brains will often only see what they want to see.
Selective attention tells us that brains will pay more attention to information that
Agrees with what you already believe
Makes you feel better
Is related to people
Is new information
This biased behaviour from your brain means that you should mostly choose which ‘facts’ you’ll believe and which ones you won’t.
Question: How to overcome anxiety and speak with confidence?
Answer:
When you speak in front of others, focus on what is happening in the room and around you. Use your five senses to keep you anchored in the world. Try to keep out of your head – so that you don’t hear your thinking or feel too much of your anxiety. These skills will be easier to practice when you have learned CBT.
You can visualise your speaking engagement. Visualise doing a wonderful job and visualise things not going so well. If you visualise problems and mistakes, make sure to fix the problems in your visualisation, so your brain knows what to do when things go wrong.
Practice, practice, practice. Each time you do this – you WILL get better at it.
Question: How to deal with thinking in the night that won’t stop?
Answer:
Clear your mind one or two hours before you go to sleep. The best way to do this is to take 10 minutes and write out all your worries. You can use a Worrytime.
Label your thinking as just “thinking’ and don’t engage in worries or problems.
Reassure your worried brain that you can solve all these problems in the morning when you are fresh and enthusiastic.
Find some breathing exercises and practice them regularly.
See you next month :)
Q. Where do you go inside yourself to find out what you feel?
I hope that you said you said near your heart or somewhere in your body.
Because feelings don’t live in your head – they live in your body.
We need to manage them separately because:
Thoughts are mental processes
Feelings are physiological (body) processes
These two processes function very differently, and if you want to manage them, you need to know the difference between them.