Month: June 2021

This transcription was auto-generated by YouTube. I’ve only added minimal editing, so I apologize for any errors, run-on sentences, etc.

There’s a type of mindfulness based therapy called acceptance and commitment therapy. And an important concept in acceptance and commitment therapy is the idea of cognitive fusion and defusion.

Cognitive fusion describes those times when we’re so tightly stuck to our thoughts that we become fused with them. We can’t separate ourselves from our thoughts and so our thoughts become our reality. And when we’re in a state of cognitive fusion we can feel removed from the world outside our thoughts, and from what we’re doing, and from the people around us, and it can be hard to pay attention to anything outside our head.

The opposite of cognitive fusion is cognitive defusion. Cognitive defusion involves taking a step back from what’s going on inside our minds, and detaching ourselves from our thoughts. In this state of defusion we can observe our thoughts without getting caught up in or lost in them. And we can just allow them in and accept them and let them be and let go of them if we want.

One way we can practice cognitive defusion is to label your thoughts. Anytime you notice that you’re starting to become fused with your thoughts, you can simply take a step back from your thoughts by labeling them as thinking, or daydreaming, or worrying, or ruminating or planning—just labeling whatever type of thought you’re having with a one or two word description.

And doing this helps you take a step back from the thought and focus less on the content of your thought and more on just the fact that you’re thinking, or worrying, or daydreaming, or whatever the nature of your thought is. And this makes it less likely that you’ll get sucked in by those thoughts, or carried away by them, or become fused with them.

Or you can say to yourself: I’m just thinking, just worrying. And putting the qualifier just in front of the thought helps take away some of the power of that thought and makes it easier to let go. Or you can label the content of your thought as being “just a thought.” So if you’re thinking, “i can’t do anything right,” you can reframe this as “I’m just having the thought i can’t do anything right.”

Or if you’re thinking “this is going to be terrible” you can reframe that as “I’m just having the thought that this is going to be terrible.” Instead of “,nothing ever goes my way,” “I’m just having the thought that nothing ever goes my way.” And by prefacing our thoughts with the disclaimer that this is just a thought, we reinforce the idea that our thoughts are not facts. And every time we remind ourselves of this we take away some of the power that our thoughts have over us.

Or if you’re having trouble letting go of your thoughts you can imagine yourself writing down each thought on a balloon, and then releasing that balloon up into the air and just allowing that thought to float from your mind as the balloon floats away.

Now sometimes instead of just letting go of our thoughts, it can be helpful to look at the content of our thoughts, and just get a sense of how accurate or how biased that thought may be, and see if there may be a different way of looking at things and thinking about them that’s more helpful to you, which is something we’ll explore in the next video about reframing your thoughts and cognitive restructuring.

This transcription was auto-generated by YouTube. I’ve only added minimal editing, so I apologize for any errors, run-on sentences, etc.

We have tens of thousands of thoughts a day but most of them barely register. And the ones that we do notice often aren’t even related to anything we’re doing at the time. Usually the best way to deal with automatic negative thoughts is to not give them your attention in the first place.

They’re like a clickbait headline that looks like it’s gonna be really interesting, but once you click there’s really nothing worth seeing and the best course of action is to just not click on them in the first place. But sometimes we can’t resist and we click anyway. And then we find ourselves going down that rabbit hole and keep clicking on another and another and another, at which point it can take quite a bit of effort to pull ourselves back out.

And the same is true once we start following our automatic negative thoughts. A big part of mindfulness is about learning to let go of these types of thoughts and refocus our attention in the present moment. But that’s often easier said than done for a couple of reasons.

First we tend to believe that if we have a thought it’s somehow interesting or important and something we should pay attention to, so we don’t want to just let it go. But of our tens of thousands of thoughts every day, most of them are just noise in our head, mindless distractions that don’t need our attention at all. And once we come to terms with this it’s a lot easier to just allow these thoughts to pass from our mind without even thinking about them.

But secondly, the thoughts that we tend to notice are the ones that provoke an emotional reaction. And these are not as easy to simply let pass from our minds, because as we’ve seen once our thoughts and emotions start interacting together, they feed into and reinforce each other. And as a result thoughts that carry some emotional weight are much more difficult to just let go, as the emotion acts as a kind of magnet, and keeps pulling these thoughts back into our head.

One way to let go of thoughts is to treat them as if they were just sounds going on in the background. We generally don’t pay attention to these sounds or think about them very much, and we just allow them to pass in one ear and right out the other. And we can do the same sort of thing with our thoughts, not give them any undue attention and think about them or try to figure out what they mean, and just treat them like mental noise in the background allow them to pass into our mind and then right out again.

Another metaphor for this way of relating to our thoughts is to simply treat our thoughts as if they were clouds passing through the sky, noticing as a cloud or a thought passes into our field of awareness, sticks around for a while, and then continues to float through the sky or through our mind until it passes away.

Or sitting back and observing our thoughts as if we were at the movies and watching our thoughts being projected on the screen in front of us, not actively participating or getting caught up in the action on the screen that is our thoughts, and just sitting back and watching them as they unfold.

But often it’s not that easy to just sit back and watch our thoughts, and in the next video we’ll learn some additional strategies and techniques we can use to help us step back from our thoughts and let them go called cognitive defusion.

This transcription was auto-generated by YouTube. I’ve only added minimal editing, so I apologize for any errors, run-on sentences, etc.

Sorry about the click bait title but i really do think that this tip is the best way to stop worrying. Now when i first heard about this strategy i was a little bit sceptical, but so many of my clients have benefited from it that it’s now one of the first things i suggest to anyone who’s experiencing excessive worry. And this tip is simply to postpone worrying. So let’s look at what that means and how we do it.

So whenever we notice ourselves starting to worry we have a few options. The first is to just become aware that we’re starting to have anxious and worried thoughts, acknowledge these thoughts, and simply let them go. If a worry passes into our minds, we just allow it to pass right out again without latching onto it and giving it our attention. And letting go of worries in this way is easier said than done but i have a couple of videos with strategies that can help.

Now the second thing we can do is to take a few moments and figure out whether our worrying is productive, in which case we can transition into problem solving. But if our worrying is unproductive, then we can either use the first option and let these unproductive worries go, or we can move on to the third option and postpone our worrying. So let’s look at how postponing worry works and why it can be so effective.

Postponing worry is a great option for when we’re trying to let go of whatever we’re worrying about, either because we’ve determined our worrying is unproductive and not getting us anywhere, or because even if we could do something productive regarding what we’re worrying about, we just don’t have the time or maybe not the energy to deal with it right now. So we want to stop worrying and put this out of our minds at least for now, but despite our best intentions we’re finding it incredibly difficult to not continue worrying about it.

So in order to postpone worrying, step one is to just acknowledge that we’re worrying, telling ourselves something like, it’s okay that i’m having this thought but i don’t need to do anything about it right now. I don’t need to focus my attention on it or let it distract me from whatever else i’m doing.

And then step two is to write down whatever we’re worrying about. So maybe if we’re worried about getting ready to move in a couple of months we’d write down something like: i’ve got so much stuff to do i don’t know how i’m going to manage; i don’t even have a new place yet; what if i can’t find anything?

Or if we’re worried about an upcoming job interview we might write down: i’m terrible at interviews; what if i blow it; what if i’m stuck in this crappy job forever; or it doesn’t even have to be that detailed/ we could just write down a few words like, i’m so anxious about moving, or i can’t stop worrying about the fight i had with my partner last night.

So we want to write things down because, first of all, sometimes just writing down what we’re worried about helps get it out of our heads. And that alone can reduce how much we continue to worry. But the main reason we write it down is because when we worry, even if we wish we weren’t worrying, there’s often something in the back of our minds that tells us we’re worrying for a reason, that we shouldn’t just ignore it and let it go, and that there may be something to our worries that’s important and needs our attention.

So we write it down so that if it is something important we’re not going to forget about it later, because sometimes only then can we convince ourselves it’s okay to stop worrying about it for now. And we can postpone worrying about it until a more convenient time of our choosing, rather than feeling like we’re forced to worry about it now just because it’s popped into our heads.

So after we write the worry down, step three is to simply set this worry aside for now.

And then step four is to refocus our attention back on whatever we were doing before we started to worry about something else.

Step five, which is optional but usually follows, is that the worry or thought we’ve decided to postpone worrying about pops back into our heads. We can’t control our thoughts. Thoughts are constantly coming into our minds automatically and spontaneously. And when we’re anxious a lot of these thoughts will be worries. So when these thoughts or worries come back up even though we’ve decided to postpone worrying about them, this isn’t a sign of failure, it’s just how our minds work.

So if it’s something we’ve already worried about and written down, all we need to do is add a tick to where we’ve written it down before. Or if it’s a new worry we can just write that down. And either way, then we simply set these worries aside postpone worrying about them and then return our attention back to whatever we were doing.

So that’s the first component of postponing worry: writing our worries down and setting them aside and postponing worrying about them until a more convenient time of our choosing that we’ve scheduled in advance.

So the second component of postponing worry is to schedule in a worry period later in the day, when we can come back to whatever we’ve written down during the day that we’ve been worrying about and give these worries any attention they may deserve. And when i first learned about this technique this was referred to as a worry period, but let’s call it a thinking period instead since the goal isn’t to worry unproductively during this time, but to think about what we were worrying about earlier in a more productive fashion.

So the goal of the thinking period is to use this time to look at whatever we postponed worrying about earlier and assess whether or not there’s anything we can do: either to change the situation we’re worrying about in order to reduce our anxiety; or to reassure ourselves about whatever it is we’re worrying about so that we’re less worried about it and less anxious.

So the rules for the thinking period are to plan a time in advance when we’re not going to be distracted by other things, and set aside no more than half an hour. And there’s no reason we need to use this full half hour, but anything more than half an hour and we’re almost certainly back to worrying unproductively about the issue rather than thinking about it productively.

Now early evening is often a good time to schedule the thinking period, maybe after dinner and before whatever we do in the evenings to relax, because we don’t want to leave it too late so we have some worry-free or relatively worry-free time to unwind before we try to fall asleep.

So then we start our thinking periods by looking at the list of worries we wrote down earlier, and go through them one by one ,and ask ourselves is this something that still seems important? Is it something that’s still bothering me? Am i still worried about it? And if the answer is no we can just cross it off our lists and move on. And if we cross everything off our lists without having to think about them anymore and are done in a couple of minutes, well that’s great: not only did we postpone worrying about them during the day, but we’re not worrying about them now, so we’ve been able to have a relatively worry-free day.

And if a worry is still bothering us or seems relevant or important, then we go through the steps to determine whether it’s a productive or unproductive worry that we looked at in another video. And if it’s productive we transition to problem solving, also covered in another video. And if it isn’t productive we either just try to let go of the worry, or we can use a worry record worksheet to engage in cognitive restructuring to change our perspective about the situation in ways that reduce our anxiety and worry. And again there’s a whole video that covers how to use the worry record worksheet, and you can find all of these videos together on my site selfhelptoons.com so please check that out.

And then when we’re finished with our thinking period, it’s great to have something planned to distract ourselves a bit so we don’t fall right back into worrying. So that’s why before whatever we do in the evenings to relax is a good time to schedule the thinking period. And if worries creep back into our minds after our scheduled thinking period, we just write them down and postpone worrying about them until tomorrow’s thinking period.

In addition to an immediate reduction in how much we’re worrying, there are some other benefits to postponing worry. Worry can be like an itch: the more we scratch it, the itchier it gets, and the more we feel we need to keep scratching, and we can end up scratching and scratching that itch all day long.

Well the more we worry, the more worried we get, and in a sense the more itchy our worries get, and the more we need to keep scratching or worrying about them. And we can end up worrying and worrying, scratching that worry itch all day long.

But if we postpone scratching an itch for a while, that itch often just goes away. And if we set up some scratching time for later in the day, when that time comes we’re not itchy anymore, and so we don’t need to scratch. And the same is true of worry. If we postpone scratching our worry for a while—in other words we allow a worry to be in our minds without reacting to it, without scratching it by worrying even more—once we’ve postponed scratching that worry itch for a while, the worry often just goes away on its own. And then when it comes time for our thinking periods the worry no longer needs to be scratched.

One of the reasons we worry is that we think we’re accomplishing something by worrying, and that if we keep worrying, eventually we’ll figure out a solution that allows us to not feel anxious anymore. And postponing worry not only doesn’t prevent us from doing this, it makes us more efficient. Setting aside a dedicated time for thinking about our worries or whatever we’re anxious about makes it more likely we’ll come up with solutions. It’s more effective than constant unfocused worrying throughout the day, while we’re also trying to go about our lives and get other stuff done. So postponing worry makes us more productive both in dealing with whatever we’re worrying about, and also in managing the other stuff we have going on in our lives, because we’re not constantly getting sidetracked by worrying.

Another reason we worry is that we think we just can’t help it. We think our worry is uncontrollable. When we’re anxious we worry, and maybe even when we’re not anxious we worry. We’re just a worrier. It’s what we do. We don’t have a choice. And that’s basically the first two criteria of generalized anxiety disorder: excessive anxiety; and worry occurring more days than not about a number of activities—the individual finds it difficult to control the worry.

But when we’re able to postpone worry, we start to get a sense of control over the worry. We learn we don’t always have to worry, and that even once we start to worry about something we can set our worries aside for a while. And the more we practice doing this, the better we get at it, and the less we see worry as something unavoidable that we can’t do anything.

About so there are a number of benefits to postponing worry until the thinking period later in the day. So give it a shot for a couple of weeks and see if it helps. And remember you can find all of my videos about worrying together on my site selfhelptunes.com along with a number of worksheets that can help you implement the strategies described in the videos.

This transcription was auto-generated by YouTube. I’ve only added minimal editing, so I apologize for any errors, run-on sentences, etc.

One of the main premises of both cognitive behavioral therapy and dialectical behavior therapy is that our emotional reactions start with a situation or event, that leads to certain thoughts and behavior, and it’s these thoughts and behaviors that are responsible for the emotion we feel. And we focus on changing these thoughts and behaviors in order to change the way we feel.

But if our thoughts are accurate and reflect reality, and our behavior is appropriate for the situation we find ourselves in, then there may not be much we can do to change our thoughts and behavior in order to help ourselves feel better. Or maybe our thoughts about a situation aren’t that accurate and we haven’t been acting in the most effective way to try to cope with things, but we’ve tried changing our thoughts and behavior and just haven’t had much success. So instead we focus on changing the situation that triggered these thoughts and behaviors in the first place. And we do this by problem solving and then coming up with an action plan.

So the first step in problem solving is to identify and then define or describe the problem or the situation that’s causing the problem. So for example, we’re feeling lonely or sad because we’ve just moved to a new city and we don’t really know anyone here yet. Now being lonely or sad in this situation is a natural way to feel, and so trying to change our thoughts about the situation probably isn’t going to be that successful or help that much.

And assuming our behavior isn’t contributing to the way we feel—for example we’re not just isolating ourselves and lying around on the couch when we’re not at work, we’re actually doing some activities and trying to meet people, we’re just not having much success—there may not be much about our behavior we can change that’s going to have an effect either.

So instead we need to engage in problem solving, and figure out a way to change the situation so we’re no longer feeling so lonely and sad. So the next step is to identify our goal in solving the problem and what needs to happen in order for us to start to feel better. And we want to keep the goal simple and realistic, and choose a short-term goal, because we want something that can start giving us some results right away.

Now if we think the solution is make lots of new friends here so I don’t feel so lonely all the time, well that’s a great goal, but it’s not something that’s going to happen right away. So instead, something like meet one or two new people here I can spend some time with. Then we come up with possible solutions or options to help us reach our goal. And we just brainstorm these, writing down as many things as we can think of without worrying about evaluating them yet.

And then we read over our entire list and select the best solution we’ve come up with. And if it’s not clear which option is the best solution, we can choose two or three and compare them with each other using a pros and cons list. So let’s say the solution we choose is to get involved with a group of people here with similar interests to our own and try to make some friends among them. So once we’ve chosen a solution to help us reach our goal we need to come up with a plan to implement that solution.

The key to creating a good action plan is to break it down into as many small steps as possible, so that each individual step is manageable. The biggest reason an action plan fails is that at some point, one of the steps creates a barrier we just can’t get around. And often it’s the first step that’s the biggest barrier, so make sure the initial step is really, really simple and manageable, because if this first step seems at all overwhelming, we can end up procrastinating and never get around to even trying to start on our plan. And just initiating this first step, no matter how small, often brings with it a sense of relief, because now we feel like we’re finally starting to do something about our problem, and we no longer feel so stuck or hopeless.

And when we come up with a plan we need to be specific about what each step entails and when we’re going to do it. We also want to anticipate possible problems or barriers that might come up, and have strategies ready to overcome them if they do arise. Otherwise it’s easy to get stuck and then just not know what to do next, or become so discouraged that we set aside our plan and stop working towards our goal altogether.

So let’s create an action plan to meet one or two new people where we’ve just moved who we can hang out with sometimes. So the option we evaluated as being the best solution is to get involved with a group of people with similar interests. So maybe we like playing board games and would like to get into a games night group. Or maybe we like sports and want to join a soccer or softball league. So step one is choose an activity.

And step two is to do some research and see what’s out there. Tonight when I get home from work, I’m going to spend an hour looking at the various options available to me. And then step three might be, tomorrow I’m going to evaluate the different options I found and select the one that looks most promising, as well as two others I can use as backup in case the first one doesn’t work out—so anticipating solutions to possible barriers we might face.

And then the next step might be this weekend I’m going to get in touch with a contact person or organizer and find out information about what I need to do to sign up and participate. And then after I hear back from the contact person. I’m going to write out the additional steps I need to take based on what i’ve learned from them. Leading up to the step where we show up at the first games night or practice.

And maybe we have a couple of other steps about strategies to connect with people once we’re there, or if for some reason it turns out our first choice isn’t an option. But we anticipated this barrier so we already have two backup options ready to go so we choose one of these and go back to the step where we contact the organizer and carry on from there.

Now one challenge with action plans is that they can seem really trivial—like do we really need a plan to figure out how to attend a board games night? But at the same time, in a lot of cases, as simple as the plan seems ,there can be issues like anxiety that get in the way of being able to complete it. If we’re an outgoing charming extrovert and want to meet people, maybe we can just show up to a games night and start talking to people and connecting with them. But if we’re more shy or introverted, when we get to the show up step, that can seem like an impossible hurdle to get over.

So part of doing all of the small steps is that it can help us become comfortable with the idea of doing something we’re a little apprehensive about. Each step gives us some exposure to the thing we fear, which can reduce the anxiety we experience when faced with the steps later on in the plan, which is something I talk more about in my video on systematic desensitization. But often we’ll get to the last step and still find it hard to follow through.

So we need to anticipate this barrier and try to have a solution ready. So maybe we could ask a friend to come visit us the first time and go to the board game night with us, so we don’t have to show up alone and we know at least one person there.

Or if we have a lot of social anxiety, maybe we’ve gotten ahead of ourselves, and before we can implement a plan to meet new people, we need to focus on an action plan to manage our social anxiety better. And maybe this entails working with a therapist for a while to learn strategies to overcome social anxiety, which as part of the therapy, could involve a plan to meet new people with the help of a therapist to support us through the steps.

And finally we evaluate the outcome and results of our action plan. And if it worked, that’s great. But if it didn’t, then we need to go back to step four and evaluate our possible solutions again and choose a new option, and come up with an action plan for that, keeping in mind the barriers we face this time, and trying to anticipate solutions to them so we don’t get stuck in a similar way next time around.

So action plans can seem really straightforward on the surface, but when it comes down to acting on the plan, it’s often not that simple. Let’s look at another example.

So let’s say we hate our current job, and the goal we’ve come up with is to find a new job. So we generate an action plan. What more do we need than step one, look at job listings; and step two, apply for jobs. But that’s a pretty common plan people use that often goes nowhere, because although it looks easy, just the thought of changing jobs can seem overwhelming, so we keep procrastinating. So we need to break it down into smaller more manageable gradual steps.

Step one: update my resume this Monday through Wednesday after work.

Step 2: Thursday and Friday after work find the best sites for job listings in my field.

Step 3: start looking at job listings this weekend and bookmark any that look promising and do the same thing every evening this week looking through any new job postings that come up;

Step 4: next week reach out to personal and professional connections to see if they know of any jobs available. I’m going to contact this person on Monday, and this person on Tuesday, and this person on Wednesday.

Step 5: I’m going to reach out to my references on Thursday and Friday next week.

Step 6: start applying for jobs I identified during the week. Apply for at least two jobs over the weekend, and at least two other jobs over the course of the next week.

And this is often where we hit a barrier. Maybe the idea of switching jobs is creating so much anxiety we can’t even bring ourselves to start applying. So then we need to come up with a strategy to manage our anxiety and realize that just because we apply for a job doesn’t mean we’re going to get it. And even if we do get it, that doesn’t mean we need to take it and leave our current job. And we can make that decision when we get there and we don’t have to worry about that yet.

Or maybe the thought of going to a job interview is too stressful and that’s what’s holding us back. So we need to back up and before we get to the apply for jobs step, we need a practice job interview step. So maybe step six, review potential interview questions, step 7 ask someone to do some mock interviews with us, and then step 8 start applying for new jobs.

And remember that changing problem situations is hard so try not to get discouraged if your plans don’t always work out exactly as planned. And if you ever get stuck always look for a smaller intermediate step you can take, even if this step seems trivial and insignificant, because when we hit a barrier or start to lose momentum, the best way to get going again is with a really small simple and manageable step.

This transcription was auto-generated by YouTube. I’ve only added minimal editing, so I apologize for any errors, run-on sentences, etc.

When we’re concerned or anxious or apprehensive about something we tend to spend a lot of time thinking about it. And often this thinking takes the form of worrying, which makes sense, because when we worry we’re trying to figure out a way to prevent potential threats or negative outcomes from happening and to be as prepared as possible in the event that they do occur. Now sometimes worry can actually be productive and it’s focused on identifying problems that we can take action on now and then coming up with solutions to these problems.

But usually when we worry it’s completely unproductive, because we’re focused on problems that just don’t have a solution. And we just go over these potential threats and negative outcomes in our heads, getting nowhere because there’s nowhere to get: the questions we’re worrying about don’t have an answer. But we’re desperate to find one, so we just keep worrying and hoping we can figure something out. And even if we decide that we don’t want to worry anymore, we continue to worry because once our minds start racing with worries, at this point it can seem almost impossible to stop.

So what makes a problem or question we’re worrying about unsolvable or unanswerable? Often it’s because we just don’t have enough information to be able to solve the problem or answer the question, and we don’t have any way of gathering the information we’d need in order to be able to answer it. For example, if we’re worried, “i wonder if i embarrassed myself last nigh,t what does everyone think of me?”Well we can’t read minds so we can’t answer that question.

Now maybe in some situations we could seek reassurance and ask someone who is there if we embarrassed ourselves, but how do we know they’re not just being nice to us and telling us what we want to hear? So in the end we still don’t have the information we need in order to be able to answer the question we’re worrying about.

Or maybe we’re worrying. Am i going to blow my presentation next week? Well we can’t answer that question, because unless we can see into the future there’s just not enough information available.

So after we’ve worried unproductively about an unanswerable question for a while, we can often turn these questions into what-ifs, and we start trying to solve hypotheticals. What if i embarrassed myself last night? What if i blow my presentation? What ifs are perhaps the most common way we worry. What if this bad thing happens? Or what if this other bad thing happens? Or what if that happens? What if? What if? What if? What if?

When we feel that things or events are outside of our control and we’re facing a lot of uncertainty, what-ifs are a way of trying to gain some control, by thinking about all of the bad things that could possibly happen, and then trying to come up with a solution for each one, so that no matter what happens we have a plan ready to go. The problem is there’s no end to the number of possible bad things we can imagine, so every time we answer one what if, instead of this giving us some relief, a new what if just pops up in its place.

Or if we don’t find an answer to a what if, this leads to an escalating chain of what-ifs, each one more catastrophic than the last. My partner’s late getting home and isn’t answering my calls or texts. What if something happened to them? What if they got in an accident? What if they’re in the hospital? What if they’re really hurt? What if they’re dead?

Or what if i mess up my presentation next week? What if i lose my job? What if i can’t find another job? What if i run out of a savings? What if i can’t afford my rent?

So how can we tell whether our worrying is productive or unproductive? Well it comes down to whether we’re worrying about a solvable problem, in which case our worrying can be productive and we can transition into problem solving; or an unsolvable problem, in which case our worrying is unproductive.

Now there are three questions we can ask ourselves to determine whether or not a problem is solvable. Is this problem plausible or reasonable? Is this problem something i have some control over? And can i do something about this problem now? And if the answer to all of these questions is yes, then we quickly move from worrying about the problem to finding solutions to the problem and engaging in problem solving.

And if the answer to any of these questions is no we, can then see if there’s any way we can reframe the problem in order to make the answer yes, and then see if we can get through the rest of the questions also with yes and end up at the problem-solving stage.

But if we’re unable to reframe our unproductive worry and unsolvable problems as something productive and solvable, then the final step is to accept that our worry is unproductive, because we’re trying to solve a problem that has no solution, and so the only productive thing we can do is to find a way to stop worrying about it. And there are a number of strategies we can try to help allow ourselves to do this.

One is to just let go of our worries, which is often easier said than done, but i have a couple of videos with tips that can help. Another is to distract ourselves long enough to disrupt that stream of worries that’s racing through our minds, and this is often most effective when it involves some sort of physical exercise, which can really help us get out of our heads for a while.

We can also try meditating, or doing a relaxation exercise, and it can help to use something guided as the instructions give us something to focus on other than our own thoughts. And other options are to postpone our worrying, or to use a worry record, which is a type of thought record geared to worry, and i have videos that explain how to use these strategies.

So let’s look at some examples. So if we’re worrying, did i embarrass myself last night? Or what do people think of me? We ask ourselves: is this problem plausible or reasonable? Well sure it’s possible we embarrassed ourselves last night, so that is plausible or a reasonable thing to worry about.

So then we move on to the next question: is this something i have some control over? Well no it already happened so we don’t have any control over whether or not we embarrassed ourselves last night. Okay but can we reframe this problem as something we have some control over? Well no there’s really no way to have control over something that happened last night, so this problem is unsolvable and worrying about it is unproductive so we need to find a way to let it go.

I’m worried my presentation next week isn’t going to go well. Is that plausible or reasonable? Sure if i don’t prepare for my presentation it probably won’t go that well. And is it something i have control over? Well i have at least some control over it, the more i prepare for the presentation the more likely it’s going to go well.

And can i do something about this now? If it’s three in the morning, then no probably not. But if it’s during the day, then instead of worrying about it, i can move on to problem solving and start working on my presentation.

But if the worry is, what if i blow my presentation? Well that may not be that plausible or reasonable. But even if it is, and it is something we have some control over, the presentation isn’t until next week. So what if i blow my presentation deals with the future hypothetical that we can’t do anything about right now because it hasn’t even happened yet.

But we can reframe it into a problem that we can do something about now. I’m worried i’m going to blow my presentation next week. And now it becomes a solvable problem. We already looked at what can i do to prepare for my presentation and make it less likely that i blow it. And then we transition into problem solving and start working on our presentation.

Now let’s say we notice a bump on our skin and we start worrying, i wonder if this is something i need to be concerned about. So that’s a reasonable worry.

So the next question is, is this something i have some control over? Well we don’t really have control over whether or not it’s something to be concerned about, but we do have the ability to find that information. And can we do something about this problem now? Well yes we can either call the doctor to set up an appointment, or if their office is closed, we can make a note to set up an appointment tomorrow.

But if our worry is, what if this is cancer, well that’s really not that plausible or reasonable to be thinking about at this stage. So maybe we can reframe it as, i wonder if this is something that needs medical attention. And is this something we have control over? Well no we don’t have control over whether or not this bump on our skin needs medical attention. But we do have control over whether or not we find out if this bump needs medical attention. And we can do something about this now by calling the doctor to set up an appointment. And so we’ve moved on to the problem solving stage.

But once we set up the appointment there’s a good chance we’ll keep worrying about it until we see the doctor, and then maybe even keep worrying until we get some test results back. But these worries concern things that are outside of our control and that we can’t do anything about now. And so worrying about them is completely unproductive and instead we need to employ some strategies to calm our worries.

And if we’re worried that our partner has gotten into an accident, well that isn’t really plausible or reasonable: people are late all the time and nothing’s happened to them. So can we reframe this as a problem that’s plausible or reasonable? Well probably not. But even if we could it’s still not going to be something we have any control over, and there’s absolutely nothing we can do about it now. So our worry is completely unproductive and we need to focus on strategies to reduce our worrying.

So whenever we find ourselves worrying, first we want to determine whether or not our worry is productive or unproductive by asking ourselves these three questions. And if it’s productive we want to transition as quickly as we can into problem solving. And if our worry is unproductive and we’re not able to turn it into something productive, then we want to engage in some strategies to reduce our worrying. And you can find my videos on these topics on my site selfhelptoons.com along with a productive or unproductive worry worksheet.

This transcription was auto-generated by YouTube and formatted by ChatGPT.

I asked ChatGPT to make a self-help video about anxiety, and I was pretty impressed with the result.

The first step in managing anxiety is to recognize our thoughts and beliefs that trigger it. These thoughts and beliefs are often negative and unrealistic, and they contribute to the anxiety. Cognitive-behavioral therapy teaches us to challenge these negative thoughts and replace them with more positive ones.

Now, I don’t really like the term “positive thoughts,” so I asked for some clarification. Positive thinking alone is not a cure for anxiety. Furthermore, simply telling yourself to think positively can actually be unhelpful and even harmful in some cases because it can lead to a sense of pressure or failure if you’re unable to just think positively. It’s more important to recognize that negative thoughts are a normal part of the human experience and that it’s okay to feel anxious or worried at times.

The goal of therapy isn’t to eliminate all negative thoughts or emotions. It’s not about forcing yourself to think positively, but about developing a more balanced and realistic way of thinking, which can ultimately lead to greater emotional well-being.

So, here are some examples of common negative thoughts we might have if we’re feeling anxious and how we can try to modify them:

“This is going to be a disaster. I can’t handle it if things go wrong.” Instead of catastrophizing, try to take a more balanced and realistic approach by reminding ourselves that things rarely go as badly as we imagine they will. We can also try to focus on what we can do to prepare for potential challenges, rather than dwelling on worst-case scenarios. For example, “I’m feeling anxious about this situation, but I’ve handled difficult situations before, and I have coping skills to rely on if needed. I can take things one step at a time and come up with a plan to manage any challenges that arise.”

“If I don’t do this perfectly, I’m a failure.” All-or-nothing thinking can be very black and white and can lead to feelings of pressure and self-criticism. Instead, try to acknowledge that there is a range of possibilities between perfect and failure. “I don’t need to be perfect in order to succeed. Making mistakes is a natural part of the learning process, and I can use them as opportunities to grow and improve. I can be proud of myself for doing my best and taking action.” I have a whole video that addresses all-or-nothing thinking that I’ll link to in the description.

“I know they’re judging me. They probably think I’m incompetent.” Mind-reading can be very anxiety-provoking because it’s based on assumptions rather than facts. It’s important to challenge these assumptions by reminding ourselves that we don’t actually know what other people are thinking or feeling and that there may be other factors influencing their behavior. “I’m feeling self-conscious in this situation, but I don’t actually know what other people are thinking. It’s possible that they’re focused on their own concerns or that they have positive opinions of me that I’m not aware of. I can try to focus on the present moment and on being myself rather than worrying about others’ opinions.”

“I always mess things up. I can never do anything right.” Overgeneralization involves making sweeping statements about ourselves based on a single negative experience or very limited data. This can lead to feelings of hopelessness and self-doubt. It’s important to challenge these thoughts by recognizing that everyone makes mistakes and that one negative experience doesn’t define us as a person. “I’ve had some setbacks in the past, but that doesn’t mean I’m incapable or incompetent. I can learn from my mistakes and use them to become stronger and more resilient. I’ve also had many successes and accomplishments that demonstrate my capabilities.

They canceled our plans. It must be because they don’t like me. Personalization involves taking things personally and assuming that other people’s behavior is the direct reflection of our worth as a person. We can challenge this by recognizing that other people’s behavior is often influenced by factors outside of our control and it’s not always about us. It doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t like me or that I did something wrong. These are all examples of cognitive distortions and I have a whole video that covers these and other cognitive distortions in more detail.

In this process of changing and modifying our negative thoughts is called cognitive restructuring and it’s one of the main strategies in cognitive behavioral therapy. I have a number of videos about how to do cognitive restructuring that I’ll link to in the description. Then, I ask about one of the common challenges with cognitive restructuring. What if I don’t actually believe these modified thoughts or I think that they’re wrong?

It’s common to feel skeptical or doubtful of positive or modified thoughts, especially if you’re used to thinking negatively. This can be especially true when you’re feeling anxious, since anxiety can make it harder to see things in a more balanced or realistic way. The goal of modifying negative thoughts is not necessarily to eliminate negative thoughts altogether, but rather to shift the balance towards more positive and helpful thoughts.

Even if you don’t fully believe the modified thoughts at first, it’s important to keep practicing them and reinforcing them over time, which can help gradually change your thinking patterns and reduce the impact of negative thoughts. Mindfulness is also an effective technique for managing anxiety, and instead of changing or modifying our negative thoughts like we do in CBT, we simply notice our thoughts.

We become aware of them as they arise and just observe them without having to do anything about them. When we don’t judge our thoughts as good or bad or positive or negative, because thoughts aren’t inherently good or bad or positive or negative, they’re just thoughts. We just let them be whatever and however they are. Just because we’re having a thought doesn’t mean we have to do anything about it. We can have thoughts without reacting to them.

In fact, it’s our reactions to our thoughts that often cause us anxiety. We react to a thought, and that leads to another thought and then another and another, each new thought making us more anxious, and eventually, our minds are racing with anxiety. But when we’re being mindful of our thoughts, we’re not reacting to them, not getting caught up in them. We can just let our thoughts come and go, just watching them as if they were clouds passing through the sky and simply noticing them as they pass into and through and out of our awareness.

Or, instead of focusing on the content of our thoughts, we can simply label them. For example, as thinking or worrying, or we can add the qualifier “just” to our thoughts. “I’m just thinking,” “just worrying,” just obsessing about why they haven’t gotten back to me yet.” Labeling and using the word “just” helps take away some of the power our thoughts have over us and gives us some distance from our thoughts, which helps us observe them more objectively. It makes them easier to let go before we get caught up in them and they start causing us anxiety.

Now let’s look at behavior.

People with anxiety tend to engage in specific behaviors that can make their symptoms worse. If we don’t take steps to mitigate these behaviors, they can create a vicious cycle that makes us even more anxious. For example, avoidance is a common behavior associated with anxiety. But the more we avoid things that make us anxious, the more anxious they make us. So, instead of avoidance, it can be helpful to take small steps to gradually expose ourselves to the situation. For example, if we have social anxiety, we might start by attending a social gathering for just a few minutes. Once we start to feel comfortable with that, we can start gradually increasing how much time we spend in that type of situation. This is known as exposure therapy, and there are a couple of ways we can practice exposure that I’ll talk about in detail in a video I have coming out soon.

We might also engage in compulsive behaviors, such as checking and rechecking things like the stove, door locks, or our phones. In general, the more we check, the greater our anxiety becomes. And once we start to reduce how much we’re checking, we’ll usually start to experience a reduction in anxiety as well. So, it can be helpful for us to set limits and boundaries for ourselves. For example, we might set a specific time of day to check our phones or limit the number of times we check them.

Over planning is often common. We might obsess over details, creating multiple to-do lists, planning our days to the minute, or rehearsing a conversation in our heads over and over. But this leads to a vicious cycle. The more we plan and try to control every aspect of our lives, the more things we find we need to plan for and try to control, which creates even more anxiety. And when we can’t control something, we start feeling even more anxious.

If we find ourselves over planning and obsessing over details, it can be helpful to practice mindfulness and stay in the present moment. We might try mindfulness practices like deep breathing or meditation, or going for a mindful walk. Or just focus on the task at hand and do it mindfully, staying in the present moment without getting lost in worries about the future.

We often experience anxiety in our bodies through physical symptoms or unpleasant or uncomfortable body sensations, such as a rapid heartbeat, dizziness, shortness of breath, or tightness in our throats or chests. These sensations can be uncomfortable and at times even feel intolerable, but they’re not dangerous, and there are strategies we can use to help manage them. One way is with deep breathing. By taking slow, deep breaths, we can slow down our heart rates and help ourselves feel more relaxed. And slowing down our breathing calms our sympathetic nervous systems, which are responsible for the fight-or-flight response that can lead us to feel panicky.

Mindfulness techniques can also be helpful for managing body sensations. By focusing on the present moment and becoming more aware of what’s going on in our bodies, we can learn to accept these symptoms and sensations and respond to them without getting caught up in them in ways that lead to worries or fear. So, instead of reacting to these sensations, we can simply breathe with them, using our in-breath to bring our attention here as we inhale, allowing the sensation to just be however it is. And then we imagine our breath exhaling out of this sensation, so breathing into the sensation and then breathing out of the sensation, and seeing if it begins to soften or relax as we exhale. The three-minute breathing space is a great way to practice this.

Another way to manage Body Sensations is through physical activity. Going for a walk, doing some yoga, or engaging in other forms of exercise can help release tension and calm our bodies down.

What if these symptoms and Sensations are so strong, I can’t believe they’re just a result of anxiety? When we’re experiencing intense physical Sensations, it can be hard to believe that they’re just a result of anxiety. However, it’s important to remember that anxiety can cause a wide range of physical symptoms, and that these symptoms aren’t harmful or dangerous. In fact, anxiety is a very common experience and many people struggle with similar physical Sensations.

So with just a few prompts, Chat GPT did a great job identifying and explaining the best strategies to reduce anxiety. And I go into more depth about most of these topics in the videos I link to in the description and in my free self-help for anxiety course at selfhelptoons.com. So please check those out.