How to overcome negative thoughts?

All of us can have negative thoughts at some point in our life, but these can become annoying or troublesome when we encounter them more often. Usually these negative thoughts are automatically generated and they don’t come with a stop button. These negative automatic thoughts can increase during a time of a crisis or emotional breakdowns. Few mental illnesses like depression, anxiety have these negative thoughts ruminating in our minds quite often.

What are negative thoughts?

Negative thoughts are basically automatically generated affirmative statements or in question forms that are usually fear inducing. These thoughts don’t actually serve any purpose but can make a person feel helpless and hopeless.

The common examples of these thoughts are:

“I am going to fail in my exam, my life is ruined”

“Nobody can help me, things are going to get worse”

“My family is probably ashamed of me”

“I don’t think my friends like me, I am stupid”

Can we stop negative thoughts?

We cannot actually stop negative thoughts but they can be modified. Stopping negative automatic thoughts is like trying to press a spring toy, the more pressure you put, the more it will bounce back. Similarly the negative thoughts cannot be stopped altogether. You can simply distract yourself for sometime or actually successfully modify them. Thought modification will help you decrease the importance of these thoughts and you will not the same impact.

How to overcome negative thoughts?

Identification: In order to overcome these thoughts, the first step is to identify and differentiate them from other usual thoughts. You can do this by writing down your thoughts in a diary and keeping a track of them. Do this as an activity during any time of the day. Take your time and understand the thoughts that start to make you feel worse and more negative. You can take time in identifying them; they are so automatic that you can actually skip them sometimes without realizing.

Picking out the triggers: Triggers are basically the activating situations, feelings, sensations or people. We might be doing just fine and we bump into an old friend and thoughts may start flowing, could be because of the negative association and history with that friend. The trigger can actually be anything. Once you are able to pinpoint a set of triggers, you have better control and you know what you could be expecting. It then becomes easier to handle the negative automatic thoughts.

Questioning the thoughts: As you know, we cannot stop these thoughts but we can modify and challenge them. There can be questions you can ask yourself after you have identified the thoughts.

What is the proof that what you are thinking is correct?

As you know automatic negative thoughts are usually baseless but still due to its intensity and fear inducing qualities we tend to believe in them. One way to modify or challenge these thoughts is to ask this question. If your answer is “I have no proof” then it is safe to say that there isn’t any logical explanation to the thought.

Is it based on fact or emotion?

There can be times in personal or professional front we may question ourselves or our worth, like “I am not good enough” “I do not deserve a raise” when one faces these kind of negative thoughts, it is important to understand the context and emotional reasoning behind these thoughts. A person who is sad may get these thoughts, here the emotion sadness is playing a major role in framing this thought. It is necessary to highlight that perhaps it is based on emotion and not fact.

Have I drawn conclusion prematurely?

“I have been rejected by girl, I am a loser” “I have failed in my mid terms, my career is ruined” these negative thoughts actually do indicated that a person has drawn a conclusion quite prematurely. One rejection or failure cannot define a person’s life or career.

Am I making speculation?

Speculations and assumptions are based on personal understanding and sometimes just guess work. There are no firm grounds of speculations. Thoughts like “My husband comes late at time, he must have lost interest in me” “I am sure the teacher is mad at me that is why she did not respond to my call”, both of these thoughts are based on mere assumptions, the husband might be having a busy schedule or the teacher might be busy.

What will I tell my friend if she comes up with a similar negative thought?

When we are experiencing these negative thoughts it becomes difficult to process and understand in order to challenge. Just remember this, if my friend came up with the same negative thought, what I will tell her. What if your friend tells you “I am not smart enough for this work, I don’t deserve a raise”, you may probably support her and then simply ask her “what makes you think this way” “Is there any reason that you shouldn’t get a raise” “Did someone tell you this or is this your assumption?”. Similarly, you can actually ask yourself as a second person to get better challenging questions for yourself.

Finding out alternatives: After you are done identifying the thoughts, triggers and questions, the next step is to seek alternatives of the thought process. What is the alternative explanation to it which is neutral and gives few options. For example, the negative automatic thought is “My wife is angry with me because she isn’t calling me back” the question to be asked here to yourself is “am I assuming, do I have a proof” after you answer, “Yes I am assuming and no I don’t have a proof” the next step is understanding what could be other reasons that she isn’t calling me back?, the answer could be “Her phone could be on silent” “She could be driving” “She could be busy” “She will call me back when she can”.

The bottom line

The best way to overcome negative thought is to manage them and not try to stop them. Start by identifying these negative thoughts through various other thoughts, then find out the trigger points or the situations that activate these thoughts. After doing so, ask these questions to understand the evidence and proof behind these thoughts. After you have successfully managed to do the above mentioned steps, seek alternative explanations to these negative thoughts.

One important thing to keep in mind that initially you will feel this activity to be very mechanical but with practice we can actually rewire our mind and this activity will become effortless! So give it a shot!