Do you struggle with anxiety? If so, you are not alone. First of all, anxiety is a normal emotion. We all experience it. It helps us to perform and do our jobs or school work at peak level. It serves as a motivator to succeed. However, if there is too much anxiety, performance can go down. Perhaps you are prone to anxiety due to genetics, or you grew up with someone who was anxious and learned the behavior.
Many people who are anxious or depressed have some negative thinking patterns, or cognitive distortions. The way we think affects the way we feel. Most people think that an event occurs and it makes them feel a certain way. In reality, an event occurs, which leads to an automatic thought, which then leads to an emotion or a consequence. These thoughts happen so quickly, we are not aware of them. These thoughts occur based on our past experiences-how we know the world to be true. Sometimes these thoughts are distorted and lead to anxiety or depression. Once you become aware of these thoughts, you can work on changing them.
Here are some of the common errors in thinking.
Catastrophizing: You assume the worst is going to happen. For example, you may say to yourself after a test, “I failed that test, I won’t pass the class, and it will kill my GPA.”
Black and White thinking: Assuming things, are right or wrong, good or bad. Example: “If I’m not perfect, I’m a failure.”
Negative Mental Filter: You focus on the negative aspects of an event and ignore the positive aspects. Perhaps you made an error while doing a presentation, yet everything else went well and afterwards you can’t stop thinking about your mistake.
Mind Reading: Believing that someone is thinking something negative about you. Perhaps you say to yourself, “He doesn’t like me,” when you don’t know for sure.
Shoulds/Musts: Using terms such as should, must, always or never. An example would be, “I never get what I want.”
Personalization: Thinking that everything people do or say is some kind of reaction to you. When a mother saw her child’s report card, there was a note from the teacher indicating the child was not doing well in class. She immediately decided, “I must be a bad mother. This shows how I’ve failed.”
We do some of these to an extent. If you commonly make these errors, it can affect your mood. Learning how to combat these negative thinking patterns will change the way you feel. If you are feeling anxious or depressed and it is preventing you from doing the things you want to do in life, talking to a professional may be helpful. Give me a call at 713-304-6554 and I can help you get back on track.
Take care,
Debbie
