Our Mental Health Mini Series

'I only Lost 1 lbs This Week!', 'Does She Think I Am Fat?', 'Why Does This Always Happen To ME?! Any of those sound familiar, have you said them or heard other people say them? All this week we will be shining a light on our negative thoughts with help from Tara O'Brien a Clinical Associate in Applied Psychology and part of the Train Team with the latter being far more impressive than the first :) (Jokes). We hope it helps you and we want to know if we missed any that you feel, so please don't hesitate to get in touch. Your way of doing things could really help someone else in our community.

When trying to make changes to our behaviours, whether that’s increasing exercise, losing weight, or even trying to cut down on a well-established habit like drinking, smoking or overeating, the way we think can interfere with our efforts. 

This is largely due to the fact that based on our previous experiences; the brain takes what is known as a cognitive shortcut. As with anything that requires effort, we invariably try to conserve energy, for example driving rather than walking, using a suitcase with wheels rather than carrying. A cognitive shortcut is simply the brain’s effort to save energy by thinking the same way as we did before, rather than having to come up with new ways to think. 

Over time, certain patterns or habits have emerged in the way we think, and for the most part we may not even be aware that these patterns are there. But when we bring our conscious attention to these thinking patterns, we can both change how we think and also how we feel and even how we behave. These are the foundations of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy – that by looking at the way we think about things, and the way we behave, we can change how we feel. 

Over this next week we are going to share with you some of these thought processes to help you identify the way you think about things and how that can influence our emotions and our behaviours.

'All or Nothing thinking' (also called Black and White thinking)

In this thinking pattern we tend to see things in extremes. Things are either great or awful, perfect or a complete failure with nothing in between.

Here are a few examples of this type of things with some options of different thoughts to apply.

Negative Thought: I’ve gone over my planned calories for today so I may as well say “F*** it” and have pizza, cake, chips and 8 beers! Does this sound familiar that one wee treat and then the flood gates open? If this is you, and you recognise this thought process stop and really think about the big picture.

More helpful thoughts after realising this might be: “Ok, I may have gone over my calories, but I can choose not to make it worse by thinking it’s either all or nothing. There are shades of grey and in-between. If I pause now rather than continuing I can step back from this, draw a line under it and start afresh tomorrow”

Or: Negative Thought: “I didn’t achieve my personal best today so it was a complete failure”

More helpful thought: “It may not have been the result I wanted but that doesn’t mean I failed, I turned up and done a job/workout etc. I have come a long way and tomorrow might be the day I achieve it so keep going.”

So what really happens if you go over your calories....... Nothing really. Draw a line under make a small change to the rest of the week to account for the calories and by the end of the week you can still make your target.

We have all been here, Thinking that the worst thing will always happen, or imagining the worst case scenario with ever event in our life. Sometimes life takes over and we miss things so we immediately jump to the worst case scenario.

Negative Thought “I’ve overeaten / not done enough exercise, so I’ll gain 10lbs this week”

More helpful thought: “It’s unlikely that it will be anywhere near as bad as I think. This is just me catastrophizing. Even if I gain I can always work hard to get back on track.”

Things are never usually as bad as we imagine they will be. If things do go wrong we can always learn from them and adjust in the weeks ahead. with something like weight loss it's never a straight line. Look back on what has been done and where improvements can be made and put it into practice for the future.

This is when we think that just because something happens once or on occasion, that it will always/never happen, or that just because someone else has achieved something that we will never be as good as them.

Just like in the photo! So you tripped and dropped your ice cream, That sucks! but does that mean every time you have an ice cream the same thing will happen? Here is a few more examples and different ways to think of them.

Negative Thought: “I’ve gained a pound this week – therefore I’ll never reach my goals”

More helpful thought: “Gaining a bit of weight doesn’t mean I will never get there. This is just a small setback. Nobody said it would be easy. Maybe this will even make me more determined” Remember the post from yesterday weight loss is not a straight line. We all have setbacks now and again but we look at where we could improve and implement the planning for the future.

OR Negative thought: “ I'm a terrible speaker and always screw up”

More helpful thought: "I'm more prepared and ready to give a great speech." The re framing to positivism can counter your social anxiety and help you get through the presentation. Look at experiences that cause you anxiety as a challenge rather than a threat.

Put simply this is where we think that we know what someone else is thinking, even though we don’t have superpowers to do that! although would that be a gift or a curse if we could? Things like:

Negative Thought: “He thinks I’m fat" OR "She thinks I’m useless”

More helpful thought: “I do not know what other people think, even if I think I do. It’s unlikely they are thinking that and more a reflection of my fears of what they are thinking.”

Unless someone tells us exactly (and truthfully) what they are thinking, we can never know but we waste time and energy assuming that we know and allowing that to dictate how we feel. So unless you have some super powers don't waste your time & energy trying to second guess what people are thinking and put that energy into something positive.

This is when we look at a situation and focus only on the negative, even though there might be several positives (or even neutral information) that we are totally overlooking or dismissing because we are trapped in this thinking pattern.

Negative Thought: “I’ve only lost one pound this week” (and not acknowledging that you have lost rather than gained)

More helpful thought: “I will focus on the positive and be glad I lost a pound rather than gaining. A pound is still a significant amount and gets me closer to my goal”

OR “I’ve not achieved my goal of walking 3 miles today (whilst dismissing the fact that you walked 2 miles).

More helpful thought: “2 miles is better than not walking at all, I am still doing well”

We need to celebrate the little victories. When setting our goal if we know it is a stretch to go to the gym 5 times a week then we can scale that back to 3 which we know we can definitely do and have 3 good sessions. rather than have 3 good sessions but be kicking ourselves for missing two. So celebrate all the little wins!

Shoulding & Musting is where we put unnecessary pressure on yourself to be a certain way.

Example “I should weigh under 10 stone” or “I must stay under 1500 calories today” or “I should have bigger muscles”.

More helpful thought: “There are no rules, just my own preferences and expectations of myself. Perhaps if I relaxed these rules a little I wouldn’t feel so anxious or down.”

There are no rules apart from the ones we set for ourselves and these are often very strict and rigid with no consideration of personal circumstances or other factors that could get in the way. Making unreasonable demands of ourselves often just sets us up to fail and feel worse & nobody wants that!

We really hope you enjoyed this series of posts on Negative Thinking. These are just some of the patterns of thinking that can be detrimental for our mental health. Often if you notice a change in your mood it is possible to identify negative thoughts that have contributed to this, perhaps unknowingly, and often we can identify patterns in our thoughts.

If we can notice when this happens, and ask ourselves “How valid are these thoughts?” “Do I have evidence to suggest that these thoughts are actually true?” and “If my best friend was having these thoughts, would I agree with them?” we can start to break the habit of negative thinking and thus change what we do and how we feel.

Always remember you never have to go it alone.

Team Train