Mental Health Support: Changing Negative Thoughts For The Better

Negative thought patterns contribute to common challenges that we can experience with our mental health such as depression and anxiety. Negative thoughts can perpetuate and sustain poor mental health while also impacting on our behaviour, causing us to isolate, avoid everyday life and lack motivation. We can begin to work on our negative thoughts by perhaps asking ourselves, what life experiences have caused me to think this way? Perhaps make a list.

1. _________________________________

2. _________________________________

3. _________________________________

With these life experiences in mind, we can then begin to identify our negative thoughts and start to unpack them. Negative thoughts that we experience often can be called, Repetitive Negative thoughts (RNT). Why not write down three negative thoughts that are repetitive. 

1. __________________________________

2. __________________________________

3. __________________________________

Have a look at the below descriptor characteristics. Which of these would you describe your RTN’s?

Repetitive, Negative, Intrusive, unshakable, uncontrollable, abstract, passive.

Triggers.

Next we can attempt to understand our triggers. We can best do this by keeping a negative thought record. Ove the course of a week or two why not use the below table to keep track of your negative thoughts and begin to understand the context in which they occur and triggers that can provoke these thoughts. Ask yourself when do they occur? around whom? and during which context?

Date	Triggers: Situation, Context, what happened?	Triggers experienced: Intrusive Thoughts, Feelings	Memories: intrusive memories

Evaluate

Ask yourself, Do I notice any patterns? Do I react more to some situations that others? Am I particularly sensitive to certain comments from other people? Is my repetitive negative thinking often triggered by an unwanted intrusive thought?

Take note of your evaluation by writing it down.

Have a look at the below diagram that highlights some of the common consequences of repetitive negative thoughts.

This diagram illuminates how RTN’s can go on to impact our behaviour and our feelings. Being aware of this can assist us in avoiding falling into the trap of rumination and cyclical behaviour and emotional patterns. 

The control paradox 

To begin your journey of letting go and changing your RNT’s we can begin by learning to let go.  The control paradox argues that greater mental effort equals poorer mental control. For example, trying to forget RTN’s and squash them away takes a lot of effort, which shows poorer mental control. 

Letting go of control.

Sometimes distressing thoughts can be challenging to let go of. Here are some reasons that might be relevant to you.

• We naturally pay more attention to emotional thoughts.

• Trying not to think takes a great deal of effort.

• RTN’s deal with consequences that matter to us.

• RTN’s Grab our attention more than other thoughts.

• RTN’s co-exist parallel with how we feel at the moment and therefore have greater staying power in the mind.

Take note and observe how much effort you are putting into controlling your thoughts. You can keep a record on paper perhaps score your efforts into controlling your thoughts from 1-10.

Some strategies might work better for letting go of RNT’s than others. Here is a list of strategies that might be effective followed by ineffective when letting go. 

Effective strategies

• Replace with another thought.

• Engage in activities to distract yourself.

• Just accept the thought and let it float away without force.

• Try to view the thought in a more positive and helpful manner.

• Try to relax, through meditation and slow breathing (mindfulness).

• Find humour in how you are thinking.

Ineffective strategies

• Trying to reason with yourself.

• Criticising yourself for your thoughts.

• Seeking reassurance from others.

• Telling yourself to stop thinking this way.

• Analysing the meaning of why you are thinking like this.

• Looking for evidence that refutes the RTN’s

• Trying to reassure yourself that everything will be fine.

• Performing a compulsive ritual.

• Avoiding situations, objects or people that might trigger the RNT’s.

Rethinking your goals.

Sometimes when we are consumed with RTN’s we lose track of our goals. 

Why not revisit what your goals are in life. Where do you want to be and how you can get there. 

Revisit your past goals and come up with alternative goals and realistic strategies for getting there. Take note of these and write them out with a plan.

Moving from ‘Why’ to ‘How’.

Rumination often involves asking ourselves lots of ‘why’ questions. Why did this happen to me? Why doesn’t my life get better? Why am I being punished?

Watkins (2016) suggests that we can interrupt rumination by following these steps.

1. Identify when you are slipping into why thinking.

2. Relace why questions with corresponding how questions.

3. Practice shifting from why to how during periods of rumination.

Essentially, we are trying to shift our focus on activity. By setting goals goals and putting our attention on life and in the moment experience we shift our focus away from RNT’s.

Giving up avoidance behaviours.

When stuck in a cycle of negative thinking we may also begin to feel depressed and anxious which can then cause us to avoid situations or people that trigger such thoughts and feelings. You can work with a psychotherapist to explore ways to overcome difficult situations. By voluntarily exposing ourselves to triggers with a goal in mind we can then learn to challenge our assumptions about the events and outcomes. Why not set yourself a challenge to approach a triggering situation using this strategy of setting a goal to learn something? By deploring courage and challenging yourself you can begin to feel more in control of the situation. In my clinic for psychotherapy in London, setting goals and tasks with clients is commonplace and it helps when evaluating triggers and perceived threats, while also helping to build strength and courage in the client. 

Understanding rumination.  

Rumination is a type of regretful thinking which involves repetitive self-blame about outcomes of an event. While ruminating, one’s mind might be dominated with “should’ve, could’ve” type thinking which can lead to self-deprecation.

Risk of repetitive regret might be increased by the following processes:

• Experiencing a significant and enduring negative outcome due to a past decision.

• Focusing on failure to act.

• Imagining a better alternate scenario to what actually happened.

• Believing that a past decision can still be corrected.

• Being unable to justify the bad decision

• Believing that you were solely responsible and in control of making the decision.

• Experiencing self-blame after making the decision.

If we can identify and stop the above processes as and when they occur, then we may avoid the repetitive negative rumination. If you are experiencing rumination and regret, why not test your options by setting realistic alternative pathways for improving your current situation? This help can correct our perception of a lost opportunity or failure. Re-evaluating the past decision can also help us to justify our past perceived poor choices and is critical to moving beyond regret. 

If you are looking for Mental health support such as depression therapy or think you may be struggling with other complex mental and emotional challenges why not contact us at CMH Counselling for a free consultation. We can also assist you just as effectively online if you are not local to our London Psychotherapy clinic.