Thoughts that don't help you: how to work with cognitive distortions

Image of person looking out of window at skyline of city. Photo by Norbert Kundrak on Unsplash

Thoughts are powerful. You already know this but take a moment to consider a really challenging thought you struggle with. Consider the impact that this thought can have on your mood, feelings and behaviors. If you experience anxiety you probably have a running string of thoughts that cause you distress. Often we can notice patterns in our thinking, familiar ways we interpret situations, draw conclusions, and try to make sense of the world

A simple way to consider thoughts and thought patterns (and a basic premise of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy or CBT) is that your thoughts can influence your feelings which can influence your behaviors. If you can notice your thoughts, you can address them differently. This opens up the possibility of feeling and acting in new ways.   

Observe your thoughts to relate to them differently

Cultivating the ability to observe thoughts is a powerful skill. Our brains are wired to provide a running dialog throughout the day. While many of the thoughts we experience could be considered helpful for problem solving, sometimes thoughts aren’t helpful, are based in faulty beliefs or are colored by difficult memories. We don’t even notice we’re having them but we definitely are influenced by them! Being able to see a thought when it shows up and then being able to experience it as just a thought, literally as synapses firing in your brain, can take a lot of the power out of a thought. 

Meditation is a powerful tool

One useful practice for learning to notice thoughts and relate to them differently is meditation. In traditional insight or vipassana meditation, you focus your attention on your breath and watch your thoughts come and go. You can label them as thoughts and without any judgement about them bring your attention back to your breath. The goal is to observe your thoughts without buying into them. With practice you can build this skill and see a significant impact in your life.

Other ways to notice thoughts

Even if you don’t have a regular meditation practice you can still practice noticing thoughts. Simply labeling your thoughts can be helpful. Take a look at these examples:

Things never work out for me. 

I’m having the thought that things never work out for me. 

I notice myself have the thought that things never work out for me. 

Try saying these out loud and see what you experience. When you begin to label your thoughts as thoughts they can lose some power and you can create some space between you and the thought. 

There are other ways that you can loosen up your connection to your thoughts. Some of my favorite for dealing with a distressing or anxious thought:

• repeat the thought out loud really slowly 

• say it aloud over and over until it turns into meaningless sounds

• say it in a funny voice or sing it to a song like “happy birthday.” 

Give these a try with a particularly distressing thought and see if you notice the difference in how the thought influences you. 

Cognitive distortions: notice unhelpful thought patterns

In addition to noticing thoughts as they show up and seeing them as just thoughts, It can be really helpful to notice thought patterns you frequently experience. 

Often we get stuck in unhelpful thinking styles that aren’t based in facts but which are really influential. These cognitive distortions take some part of reality we are experiencing and filter it into something that causes us distress. Noticing these patterns can help you create some space from them and begin to change them.

Many of these patterns feel automatic - it’s like you don’t even try to have them, these thoughts just show up. But usually, these patterns lead to thinking errors and we take action without all of the facts at hand.

There are a number of cognitive distortion patterns that you can experience. Some of the more common ones include:

catastrophizing

Consider all the likely outcomes in your future. Catastrophizing happens when you automatically give the greatest weight to the worst possible outcome, even though other outcomes are just as possible.

I forgot to respond to this email. I’m going to get fired.

While getting fired is a possible outcome, it is only one of a number of possible outcomes of not responding to an email and there is no evidence of it being more likely that other outcomes. You don’t have a crystal ball to predict the future.

black and white thinking

Also called all-or-nothing thinking, these are automatic patterns where we see things in a binary. Everything is “either or” with no other possibilities, even though many possibilities may actually exist. You are either bad or good, you either do things perfectly or you have failed. 

We had a fight. Clearly he hates me and we can’t be friends anymore.

This thought misses out on all the gray area possibilities. It is likely that you can have a fight with someone and they can still care for you and won’t abandon you. There are a lot of gray thoughts between the black and white thoughts.

overgeneralizing

This is when we take some slim evidence and build a big story around it with lots of guessing and few facts. 

I am terrible at giving presentations at work. I always mess up and embarrass myself.

Maybe you did botch up your most recent presentation, but where is the evidence for having messed up every single one you have ever done and will ever likely do? Most likely you also had experiences that went OK.

jumping to conclusions

Similar to overgeneralizing, this is when we draw conclusions without evidence. We become mind readers. 

I was so terrible in that presentation. Clearly my boss thinks I’m incompetent.

Again, perhaps your presentation didn’t go as well as you liked. Can you be absolutely sure what your boss is thinking? How could you know this?

magnification and minimization

This thinking pattern happens when we give a lot of power and emphasis to one thing over others (magnification) or conversely when we minimize something that actually matters (minimization). 

Having lost this job shows what a failure I am.

Even though you’ve had a number of good jobs, you minimize these facts and magnify the one time you lost a job and use this as evidence about who you are as a person.

emotional reasoning

Something is believed to be true based on a feeling. Feelings aren’t facts. In fact, while emotions are important signals they don’t necessarily correspond to what is actually going on in a situation.

The fact that I am so angry right now makes me a bad person. I’m clearly a failure.

Emotions are faulty predictors of what is likely going on. Emotional reactions are automatic and hard to control. While an emotion can inform us of what might be happening in a situation, it isn’t the whole story.

Restructuring automatic thought patterns

What can you do about cognitive distortions? First, practice some mindfulness and try spotting automatic thought patterns when they show up. You can even label them. “I’m noticing black and white thinking.” “Those are catastrophic thoughts.”

You can also work on restructuring these thoughts. Restructuring is when you take a closer look at a thought for what it is and check the facts around it. You can then restructure the thought to something that can be more helpful for you (and has less impact on your emotions and actions!). You aren’t denying what you are experiencing but you are opening up to other valid possibilities.

For example, if you notice a black and white thought, you can try considering what the gray areas would be. Is there a more helpful way to think about this?

black and white thought:

We had a fight. Clearly he hates me and we can’t be friends anymore.

more helpful, flexible, gray thought:

We had a fight. He may be having a lot of feelings toward me right now and I may need to apologize for something I said. We’ve also had many good experiences together and I know he is capable of forgiveness. Repairing the friendship may feel uncomfortable but it is possible.

Therapy can help with unhelpful thoughts

Noticing your thoughts and thought patterns can be really helpful, as can working on restructuring challenging thoughts. If you notice yourself getting stuck in challenging thoughts or automatic thought patterns and feeling overwhelmed by them, therapy can be a helpful way to get unstuck as well. Working with a therapist can also help you to better understand what your unhelpful thought patterns are and how you can cope with them in healthier ways. Ultimately, changing how you notice and relate to your thoughts can lead to improved emotional experiences and more flexible and healthy behaviors.