Is Anxiety Making You Catastrophize?

foreign we have all been there catastrophic thinking can be overwhelming and what is happening it's hard to focus on anything else but is it possible to retrain our brains so that we can overcome that's often challenging obstacle here to answer that question more psychiatrist Dr Christine lamb Dr Lam welcome to Med Circle thanks so much for having me Kyle always a pleasure yes it's so great to see you let's start with the definition of catastrophizing it's a word we've all heard but really what is it so catastrophizing is when we get up in our heads and our thoughts and we go to worst case scenario so um some of my younger patients will call it future tripping um and going to worst case scenario so it's thinking that when I engage in something the worst case outcome is going to come in so I don't leave any space for potential good outcome or even that I could navigate it it's going to catastrophic thinking often results in not just the bat the worst situation but there's nothing I can do about it so it can lead to hopeless senses of helplessness and hopelessness and really dump into depression it commonly comes up when we're anxious we get anxious thoughts that then can cause we can get stuck in these catastrophizing thoughts but really can be a slippery slope into depression because if all that we can think is catastrophic outcomes we can feel really stuck which is a Hallmark of depression a Feeling like I am trapped and there's nothing I can do about this that helplessness and hopelessness comes in is this is catastrophizing a type of cognitive distortion it absolutely is so in cognitive behavioral therapy we talk a lot about different types of cognitive distortions and catastrophizing is an extremely common one that is kind of tricky sometimes to see because we may be thinking that when we're in it we can really believe it to be true and we can think this no this has happened before it's going to happen again and our brains can kind of create unfortunately like a snowball effect that we not only are catastrophizing but we really believe in this thought so in cognitive behavioral therapy one of the key things that we learn is how to observe our thoughts to be able to see them for what they are and to create some space to notice oh there I am catastrophizing and when I have that space I may have the potential then to do something about it it was a fabulous series on cognitive distortions we go through 19 of them I will tell you that when we went through all 19 I raised my hand said yeah I've experienced all 19 of these and I think most people have throughout their life becoming aware of these cognitive distortions is a game changer so we'll link to that Series in the description of this video let's run through a hypothetical example of what catastrophic thinking looks like and how it would be different than just typical quote normal worry yeah so someone with catastrophic thinking may be perhaps in the workplace is about to go into a meeting and have a presentation the thoughts that they're gonna have in cat when they're in this catastrophic thinking are that everything is going to go the worst POs to the worst possible outcome so an example of that may be my powerpoint's probably not going to work um I don't know if I can speak everybody's gonna hate it um I'm gonna get fired right it it can snowball but as we have this catastrophic thought it can make us more anxious and bring in more catastrophic thoughts so it may start with is my PowerPoint I might have anxiety is my tech going to work it's probably not everybody's gonna hate me I'm gonna get fired and really can quickly spiral to worst case scenario and all of this is coming up because there's some kind of anxiety about presenting in front of other people and so getting very clear that often our catastrophic thoughts are just a signal that we're anxious is really really important so that we can then again intervene noticing when we're having these catastrophic thoughts what they look like for us so that we can then intervene on our own behalf my next question was going to be well what do we do to quote retrain our brain and stop catastrophizing but it seems though that the catastrophizing the catastrophic thinking rather is like you mentioned a way to look at our anxiety so if the way to notice our anxiety Then what is our next step after we know after we realize this was because I'm anxious well now what well so fortunately you're bringing up a great point that there's kind of multiple intervention points so we might initially first we have to notice we have to get clear I do this thing I catastrophize and I go to worst case scenario once I notice it there are some things that I can do just with that thought cognitive behavioral therapy gives us lots of options about reframing cognitive reframes working through and thinking about alternative options well what if my PowerPoint does work maybe they're actually going to love it do I have any evidence that shows that I've you know horribly flubbed every time I've ever have I have I been fired yet right all of the things that we can question the reality of this thought so that's working with the actual thought which is absolutely helpful and can be very useful the other thing that we want to acknowledge is that these thoughts come up in the context of anxiety so acknowledging that we're anxious can also help regulate and distract away from these thoughts so that we can actually pay attention to the physiological experiences of our anxiety that may be guiding us away into these different rabbit holes of catastrophic thoughts because likely there's some feelings that come up about presenting about past experiences we've had about presenting and so being able to create a real clear understanding that this isn't necessarily based in reality I can challenge these thoughts I can regulate my anxiety know how to take care of myself if I'm feeling popped and then get clear what is it about presenting that might have me get so anxious and then go to these catastrophic thoughts so that I can work through that and create an environment where presenting doesn't feel as anxiety evoking that I can create a safe environment for myself so that I can feel really comfortable presenting and doing the work that I need to do that make sense Dr Lam excellent as always and of course as Dr Lam mentioned these techniques are based on cognitive behavioral therapy or CBT we have a fabulous series on that we'll link to it below it features triple board certified forensic and neuropsychologist Dr Judy ho Dr Lam always great seeing you especially when the topic of anxiety comes up you always have something fabulous to say but thank you thanks so much Kyle thank you for watching make sure you subscribe to this channel for new videos each week remember you got this [Music]

Channel: MedCircle

Views: 28,936

Keywords: catastrophizing, catastrophizing anxiety, how to stop catastrophizing, how to stop catastrophizing anxiety, catastrophizing cognitive distortion, catastrophizing cognitive distortions, stop catastrophizing, cognitive distortions, catastrophizing thinking, what is catastrophizing, anxiety, mental health, cognitive behavioral therapy, how to stop worrying, catastrophic thinking, cbt, depression, cognitive distortion, psychology, how to stop overthinking, stop overthinking, medcircle

Id: -z9ySyQb344

Length: 7min 14sec (434 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 04 2022