Many people have a voice (or multiple voices!) inside of their head. Whether it’s a constant stream of thoughts, consciousness, images, or a combination of these, we all have an ongoing rumble of information going on between our two ears.
Most of us don’t pay much attention to what’s going on there, or have come to get used to those voices and images, even if the information they’re conveying is potentially unhelpful to our wellbeing.
Sometimes, without being fully aware of it, we get used to living in a headspace in which unhelpful thinking styles dominate. Of course, this isn’t a conscious choice we make – as humans, we’ve evolved this wonderful capacity to be “negatively biased”, which means that our mind attends to (as well as remembers, focuses on, and ruminates on) negative/bad information a lot better than it does positive or helpful information. From an evolutionary perspective, this makes a lot of sense, given the fact that being attuned to “threats” and thinking of worse case scenarios has helped us stay alive.
However, it goes without saying that often these negative thinking patterns (that we didn’t choose for ourselves!) keep us stuck or get in the way of our engagement with not only health behaviours, but generally the things that matter to us in life. Although we cannot control our thoughts, they often feel like they take control of us and can be the source of lots of distress and unhappiness, because our thoughts often impact on our behaviour (e.g., anxious thoughts about the gym = not going to the gym = feeling worse = eating to numb that feeling = feeling even more anxious at the prospect of going to the gym).
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy typically identifies the following unhelpful thinking styles – consider whether any of these feel relatable to your experience, with curiosity:
Unhelpful thinking styles
Mental filter: this refers to situations in which we focus solely on a small piece of information from a situation – which is typically negative – disregarding the full picture.
Jumping to conclusions: this refers to situations in which we make assumptions about others or engage in “mind reading” which is inevitably detrimental for us.
Personalisation: refers to instances where we blame ourselves for events we had no control over, and end up carrying that additional burden and self-blame with us, impacting on our mental wellbeing.
Catastrophizing: as the name would suggest, this refers to taking one localised event and completely blowing its consequences out of proportion, which can lead to us experiencing a high level of associated anxiety, as we might perceive that “small” events are very much the end of the world.
Black and white thinking: this is a very common way of thinking, particularly when it comes to health and fitness. We all seem to think that with one small mistake we’ve messed up our whole journey, when this is very much not the case!
Shoulding and musting:this unhelpful use of language can lead us to creating extremely rigid rules, full of judgement, around our journey. If you aim for perfection, you’ll never be good enough but if you aim for good enough you will always accomplish that!
Overgeneralising:this is often seen in weight-loss journeys, where you may have not been successful in the past but a small lapse leads you to tell yourself that you “always fail, can NEVER lose weight”. Is this true? Consider examining the facts and your interpretation of those.
Disqualifying and/or ignoring the positives: there is such a thing as being overly humble, which is often associated to low self-esteem (or British culture!). You may find yourself watering down positives such as brushing off a weight-loss compliment by responding that you still have a lot of weight to lose.
So, now that you’ve identified the unhelpful thinking style(s) that you may engage in, ask yourself this:
- Did you proactively choose to have those unhelpful thinking styles, or is it something that you simply notice yourself doing?
- Given that you probably didn’t choose to have unhelpful thinking patterns, what is it like to accept that maybe this is just the way your brain works? and what is it like to consider that just because you “have unhelpful thinking patterns”, that you don’t need to be “had by the unhelpful thinking patterns”?
- And finally, what is it like to simply allow yourself to notice and name that thinking style? E.g., “Ooh I am noticing that I’m applying my mental filter to this situation” – how does that impact on your experience?
The bottom line in my applied practice and view of psychology is that despite not being able to choose whether or not our mind produces these unhelpful thoughts for us, we do have a choice in how we respond to them. Accepting that your mind’s inner voice is at times concerned with predicting worse case scenarios allows you to acknowledge that it’s there, but choose how you react. You might not be able to rewire your brain, but you can certainly choose to not let your thoughts dictate your behaviour.
