Go on a fact finding mission.
There is a robust body of evidence to demonstrates that CBT, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, is an effective way to treat anxiety. Worrying is a normal and often helpful human emotion. Sometimes however, our anxiety and worry can get a tight grip on us and seems to control our thoughts and behaviors, keeping us in a rigid, cortisol pulsing, stressed-out mindset. Our thoughts can speed through our heads in rapid succession without us pausing to apply any challenge, objective, or critical thinking to them. Our thought-lens can become narrowed in our anxiety.
There is another tricky aspect of human nature; our thoughts are often formulated in a way to support a worry. This is called confirmation bias. We tend to seek out information to support our beliefs. It’s an attempt to soothe our anxiety but it often feeds it, limits outcomes, and can lead us to short sighted decision making.
When you are trying to manage worry, remember that your thoughts are just thoughts and they are often based on feelings, not necessarily facts. Our thoughts are powerful and directly influence our feelings and we often act and behave from these feelings of anxiety, so it's important to understand and give respect to how powerful our thoughts can be. That said, our ability to change our thoughts and reduce the uncomfortable feelings surrounding anxiety and excess worry is possible as well!
FACT FINDING:
When you feel you are on the hamster wheel of worry and anxiety, try to challenge your thoughts by questioning them. Take them to court so to speak. Create some space within your thoughts and allow other, more positive possibilities to exist in your mind. Ask yourself: Is there evidence for or against this thought? Am I basing this thought on facts, or on a feeling? Am I engaging in black and white or all or nothing thinking when the truth often lies somewhere in the middle gray? Reality and humans can be more complex than we give them credit for. To challenge your negative thought, ask yourself, what assumptions am I making? Am I engaging in the tendency towards confirmation bias? When we challenge our anxious thoughts, we are more open to new information that can eventually lead us to less worry and better decision making. Challenging your thoughts is a process that takes practice.
Try it out!
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