Catastrophizing: How to Stop Expecting the Worst

do you ever find yourself expecting the worst possible outcome from a situation so then you're probably familiar with the concept of catastrophizing another word for catastrophizing is magnifying because we take small events and blow them up into something far bigger catastrophizing can affect anyone in any area of Life an accountant who makes a minor mistake at work and imagines herself losing her job her income and her home a student who gets a slightly below average grade on an exam and decides to quit school because he thinks he's destined to fail anyway a woman who has a continuous headache for a week and diagnoses herself with a brain tumor a man who takes one small thing that his partner does and blows it up into a relationship-ending crisis form of cognitive distortion in which the Mind twists what we see it's common in people the depression and anxiety and unlike worrying which can help to protect us against realistic threats it involves intense rumination about situations that are almost certainly not going to happen not only does it cause us to overestimate the likelihood of bad outcomes but it also makes us underestimate our ability to cope this thinking style can become so automatic that we don't even notice we're doing it to others our worries can seem disproportionate they might tell us that we're making a mountain out of a molehill but we don't see it that way because we can't see the molehill only the insurmountable Mountain we've created in our mind because the worst case scenario might seem terrible and unrecoverable we left feeling unable to cope with a much smaller problem in front of us from here it's easy to slip into a state of anxiety and hopelessness resigned to the worst case scenario as if it's inevitable [Music] sometimes we catastrophize as a way of protecting ourselves from disappointment or hurt if things don't go our way why bother asking someone out on a date if you think they're just going to say no why bother sitting exam if you think you're going to fail anyway in this way catastrophizing can be seen as a coping strategy to reduce risk and uncertainty in other words we can't be disappointed if we reject ourselves first although this offers comfort in the short term in the long term it erodes our motivation and robs us of the opportunity to experience joy and growth another coping strategy when faced with uncertainty is to do things that make us feel in control like intense reading about the thing that's worrying us but constantly seeking information and reassurance about future events that might not happen can also stop us from fully living in the present catastrophic thinking is often triggered by ambiguous or uncertain events like receiving an email from your boss which might not be negative but is vague enough to feed the fear in your mind that maybe you're going to lose your job another trigger is negativity bias which is the tendency to notice and dwell on negative events information or emotions more than their positive counterparts is the reason why one small negative comment can help balance lots of positive comments and ruin an otherwise good day it also makes us perceive negative events as more likely to occur than positive events so how do we stop catastrophizing the first step is learning to notice your thoughts and feelings and recognizing when you're catastrophizing you might notice yourself using words like fail never always or terrible my presentation is going to be terrible I'll never find love label these as catastrophic thoughts this can be difficult at first so you might want to enlist the help of a trusted friend to point out when you're using catastrophic language try keeping a record of your thoughts so you become better at noticing negative patterns in your thinking knowledge uncomfortable thoughts and feelings don't pretend they're not happening or trying to suppress them because that will make you think about them more techniques like imagining your thoughts coming and going like leaves on a stream can help you to take a step back and observe your thoughts from a distance reducing their power and reminding you that although you're having this thought it isn't necessarily true catastrophizing focuses our thoughts on the past or the future at the expense of living in the present mindfulness can help to ground your thoughts in the here and now try noticing small details around you including sights sounds smiles and Sensations this could be as simple as focusing on the taste of your food or naming the things around you that are different colors deep breathing exercises can also help to grind you in the moment [Music] challenge your catastrophic thought what's the is it possible that you're misinterpreting things if your fears did somehow come true could you handle the worst case scenario think back on all the times you've coped with Challenge and setbacks in your life you may discover that your ability to cope is better than you realize foreign

Channel: Mind Known

Views: 28,785

Keywords: catastrophizing, magnifying, cognitive distortion, negative thinking, worst-case scenario, worst case thinking, expecting the worst, depression, anxiety, animation, catastrophizing animation, psych2go, therapy in a nutshell, cbt, cognitive bias, anxious thoughts, catastrophising

Id: z76PqJeJUNQ

Length: 5min 13sec (313 seconds)

Published: Thu May 18 2023