5 Thinking Traps & Tips
5 Common Thinking Traps and Tips to Overcome Them
We can sometimes find ourselves caught in thinking loops, thinking traps. This can lead to unhelpful thinking, self limiting patterns of behaviour and emotions like anxiety and low mood.
1. Catastrophising
Catastrophising or Awfulising happens when we assume that the worst will happen or that the situation will be worse than it actually is.
We jump to the worst case scenario.
For Example:
- Situation - You miss the train.
- Thoughts - I will miss the meeting, my boss will be angry, I will lose my job, I won’t be able to pay the bills, I will lose my house….
- Emotion – Anxiety. Body – heart racing, hot and sweaty, tight chest, unsettled tummy
- Behaviour – Distract self, avoid, panicked checking of train timetable
When we are anxious, our thoughts can spiral and can get stuck in loops. When we are anxious it is much harder to be logical and problem solve.
Overestimating can occur, of the threat, what will happen next.
Underestimating can occur, of our ability to cope with the threat.
Top Tips
Acknowledge that catastrophising is here, recognising it.
Take a few conscious breaths.
Acknowledge that difficult things and situations occur, life is a mix of good and difficult things.
What options do you have to manage the situation (problem solving)?
What is the best fit? Do you need to do anything, right now or later, at all?
What is the best case scenario, worst care scenario or most realistic scenario?
2. All or Nothing Thinking
All or Nothing thinking or Black and White thinking happens when we think in extremes. Success or failure, good or bad, busy or bored, happy or sad.
For Example:
- Situation – You would like to exercise daily for an hour.
- Thought – I don’t have an hour today, so what is the point, I won’t bother.
- Emotion – Disappointment, frustration, sad. Body - lethargic
- Behaviour – Distraction or Eating unhealthily (self defeating)
Top Tips
- Recognise this thinking is happening.
- Is this thinking helping you? What is unhelpful about it?
- Life tends to be more in the grey areas, life tends not to be black or white.
- What does the middle ground look like?
- If you can’t achieve 100%, what does 90% look like? 75%? 50%?
- How can you change your thinking so it is more helpful?
- Pen and paper – Write down the situation, list the possible outcomes you can think of, good bad, most likely or realistic. It can be therapeutic to write things down and move these thoughts out of our head.
3. Mind Reading
Humans are social animals, largely, we like to appear positively in the mind of others.
Mind reading happens when our brain jumps to conclusions about what others think of you, maybe assuming that they are thinking negatively about us with negative outcomes. Without concrete evidence!
Example:
- Situation - Walking down the street and see someone we know who doesn’t acknowledge us.
- Thoughts – S/he doesn’t like me, thinks I am weird, doesn’t want to talk to me.
- Emotions – anxiety, worry, anger. Body – tense, hot and sweaty.
- Behaviour – Look away, avoid eye contact
Part of the trap is that this can create a self fulfilling cycle, if you think or believe someone is thinking negatively about you, ones behaviour changes in accordance with this. (You may not interact positively with them, them respond to this and this gives more evidence to your thoughts)
Top Tips
- Recognise this thinking is happening
- Understand that we cannot read other people’s minds
- What other explanations are there? What other perspectives are there? (S/He didn’t see me, they were looking/thinking about something else, had headphones in etc).
- Recognise our own biases.
- Stay with the facts and evidence, we don’t have all of the information or facts.
4. Should’s, Must’s, Have to’s.
Demanding thinking can be rigid, inflexible and then lead to emotional disturbance. Life pressures, from work, family, personal can be very real. Our internal dialogue can be full of Should’s, Must’s and Have to’s.
Example:
- Situation – A busy day planned.
- Thought – I have to get xy and z completed today, I should call my friend, I have to get the shopping done. I must walk the dog/exercise etc
- Emotion – Stress, anxiety. Body – Tension, heart racing
- Behaviour – Keep doing, do more. (Cue burnout, overwhelm, fatigue)
Top Tips
- Recognising this type of thinking
- The To Do list can be endless, we can add to it endlessly.
- What can we achieve, realistically, within the resources and time we have?
- Ask yourself, Do I have to?
- What are the other options? Problem solving.
- What is another way of considering this, that is more helpful to me?
- Planning, if, then. (If x happens, then y is an option)
- Goal setting, Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time limited (SMART)
5. Overgeneralising
Overgeneralising is often indicated by words like always, never, every, everytime, none, these tend to be extreme words. It is then hard to shift our thinking to something more helpful.
This is a trap we get into when we think something negative about ourselves, other people, the world.
Example:
- Situation – I wasn’t asked for a second interview.
- Thoughts - I will never get a new job. This always happens to me. I will never progress in life.
- Emotions – Low mood, flat. Anxiety
- Behaviour – Avoid, watch TV. Don’t look for a new job.
Top Tips
- Recognising this thinking trap
- Understanding that this extreme view is unlikely to allow a realistic understanding of the situation
- Often, this stems from one or two, or maybe a handful of situations.
- Overgeneralising can lead to a vicious cycle (this always happens to me, so we behave in accordance to this and the undesired outcome is more likely to happen)
- Pen and Paper – What are the costs and benefits of this thought?
- Stay with the facts and evidence. What really, actually has happened, how many times? Not always? Or never?
- The court of law trick, would the evidence stand up to scrutiny?
- Does it automatically follow, that because we think something, it is true?
- Are our feelings appropriate and proportionate to what has happened? (X didn’t clear the breakfast dishes).
- Am I seeing this through a negative lens? What other lens can I try?
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