Table of Contents
- WHAT ARE NEGATIVE THOUGHT PATTERNS?
- HOW DOES NEGATIVE THINKING IMPACT YOUR LIFE?
- HOW DO YOU RECOGNIZE YOUR NEGATIVE THOUGHT PATTERNS?
- HOW DO YOU IDENTIFY CAUSES OF NEGATIVE THOUGHTS?
- HOW CAN YOU OVERCOME NEGATIVE THOUGHT PATTERNS?
- PRACTICE MINDFULNESS
- BE KINDER TO YOURSELF
- WRITING THEM DOWN
- ELIMINATE NEGATIVE INFLUENCES
- FIND NEW THINGS TO APPRECIATE
- EXERCISE AND MEDITATION
- STICK TO A ROUTINE
- REACH OUT FOR HELP
- SIMPLE STEPS TO OVERCOMING NEGATIVE THOUGHT PATTERNS: CONCLUSION
- REFERENCES
Sometimes, we can be our own worst enemy: the person holding us back, or holding us up to unrealistic standards - and if you aren’t already aware, this can be really damaging to ourselves.
We are subject to our own thoughts much more than anyone else’s, so our exposure to negativity can be constant, if your thought patterns are persistently negative. This can have a serious impact on your health, both physical and mental.
With a little care and effort, you can overcome negative thought patterns - not necessarily stop negative thoughts but, instead, gain control of your reaction to them.
WHAT ARE NEGATIVE THOUGHT PATTERNS?
Negative thought patterns are essentially unhelpful trains of thought - they aren’t negatively held beliefs that are ‘always with you’; negative thought patterns arise in response to a situation, keeping you stuck in negativity. (1)
HOW DOES NEGATIVE THINKING IMPACT YOUR LIFE?
Negative thinking can impact your life in a number of ways, none of which are good! These thought patterns will inform your responses to most negative stimuli, possibly even positive stimuli, turning an average daily hurdle into an ‘insurmountable task’. They can leave you feeling nervous, tense, anxious and worried.
If you were to make a mistake at work, for example, a negative thought pattern in response to this will actually reduce productivity and encourage more mistakes. Better to identify the thought, rationalise it and change your reflexive action into a thought-out response.
What caused the mistake? Are there steps that can be taken to avoid this mistake in future? What is the best course of action to rectify the current problem?
Family life and relationships can be impacted by negative thinking too; it can be easy to jump to conclusions when assessing other people’s behaviour. Without talking these things through, it can be a slippery slope into thinking ‘this person did X which means they think Y’ leading you to make assumptions about behaviour that is potentially unfounded.
Your own health is potentially impacted the most by negative thoughts and emotions. Research indicates that long-term depression as a risk factor for cardiovascular disease is equal to that of smoking. (2)
These negative thought patterns are likely to contribute to feelings of anxiety, too, as they often lead to self-defeating conclusions, e.g. ‘I made a mistake’ leads to ‘I never get anything right’ leads to ‘there’s no point in trying’.
As you don’t get anywhere in life without making an effort, these responses lead down the path of not putting the effort in, further cementing oneself in a situation that feels helpless, even though it isn’t.
To make matters worse, anxiety is potentially the most important risk factor for cardiovascular disease, indicating a huge importance of tackling anxiety and depression suffered as a result of negative thought patterns. (3)
HOW DO YOU RECOGNIZE YOUR NEGATIVE THOUGHT PATTERNS?
There are a number of common negative thinking patterns or responses that you may find yourself engaging in (4).
- BLACK AND WHITE or ALL OR NOTHING - You’re either perfect or a failure.
- OVERGENERALISING - One negative experience proves you always lose.
- MENTAL FILTER - You focus on one negative detail that colours the whole experience.
- DISQUALIFYING THE POSITIVE - Positive experiences are so uncommon or exceptional that they don’t ‘count’.
- JUMPING TO CONCLUSIONS - Assuming the negative without any supporting facts.
- CATASTROPHIZING - The bad is monumental, where the good is infinitesimal.
- EMOTIONAL REASONING - You feel it therefore it must be true.
- SHOULD STATEMENTS - ‘Should’ carries expectation, failing a ‘should’ means you see yourself as less, leading to feelings of depression.
- LABELLING - Attaching an emotionally loaded negative connotation that doesn’t allow for nuance, i.e. ‘this person did something inconsiderate therefore they are a bad person’.
- PERSONALISATION - Taking responsibility for an external event that you were not primarily responsible for.
If you know you have a tendency for one of the cognitive distortions listed above, make sure you pay attention in the present moment and identify if you are truly being objective, or are engaging in negative thought patterns. Just don’t punish yourself for it!
HOW DO YOU IDENTIFY CAUSES OF NEGATIVE THOUGHTS?
It may help to identify what causes the negative thoughts and patterns in order to realise when you are vulnerable to falling into them. This does require taking a step back and being objective, which can be tricky if you are already in a negative thought pattern.
Keep in mind a few of these ‘warning signals’ that should set alarm bells ringing - like using ‘should’ statements with regard to yourself, sweeping generalisations, seeing only the negatives, and all-or-nothing forms of thinking.
Things like regret and guilt can trigger these emotional states, other triggers may be built-in, like a habit of being overly self-critical.
If you find yourself using these, you need to take a step back and force yourself to consider the opposing argument - make a note of the situation, the topic of your thoughts, and where you think the negative thought pattern came from: something in the situation or a past experience.
Are you being objective toward yourself, or are you holding yourself to an impossibly high standard? Are you being harsh on yourself?
HOW CAN YOU OVERCOME NEGATIVE THOUGHT PATTERNS?
Understanding that we can actively engage in these unhealthy thought patterns is half the battle - the question of ‘what to do when you realise’ remains.
PRACTICE MINDFULNESS
Practising mindfulness is the act of being present in the moment, being aware of your surroundings, and considering the occurrences that happen around us without overreacting or being overwhelmed.
If you have an active mind, then meditating in the morning may help you achieve this throughout the day. Responding more calmly to what’s happening around you, not overreacting to a situation or someone's actions, is going to result in more problems solved, not exacerbated.
BE KINDER TO YOURSELF
Many of us have a tendency to be harsh on ourselves, but quite often this does not help. Instead, treat yourself as someone you are responsible for helping. This altered perspective can be game-changing.
How would you respond to your best friend if they were being overly critical of themselves? Hopefully, you would point out they are being overly critical, and try to give a more realistic perspective! If you can do it for them, why not yourself?
WRITING THEM DOWN
Writing your negative thoughts or thought patterns down, much like talking to someone, externalises what is an internal dialogue. Much like talking about a problem can help without even resolving anything, writing things down can produce similar results.
There are more benefits to writing these things down, though - it can help establish an idea more solidly in your head - so if you have trouble catching yourself when you are in a negative thought pattern, writing down the things that can cause them could help you catch yourself when falling into the same trap in future.
ELIMINATE NEGATIVE INFLUENCES
Getting rid of other negative aspects in your life can help to produce more positive thought patterns because the act of eliminating a bad habit is progress, an achievement!
It’s not necessarily all ‘bad habits’, it could be spending too much time on social media, procrastinating instead of getting things done, tackling a substance addiction - like quitting smoking - or even cutting contact with someone that brings you down or makes you feel bad about yourself.
FIND NEW THINGS TO APPRECIATE
One way to find a little more positivity in your life is to put it there! All of us have things in life we’d like to try, some more feasible than others, but hopefully there’s a few ideas for new hobbies lurking in the back of your mind, or maybe an old hobby that you might like to take up again.
These provide an enjoyable distraction and an opportunity to achieve something while improving yourself - all positive stuff!
EXERCISE AND MEDITATION
Another way to improve your mental and physical wellbeing is to exercise. Even short bouts of moderate intensity exercise can help reduce anxiety, stress and feelings of depression - prime culprits for generating negative thought patterns.
Meditation and breathing exercises can produce a similar effect to exercise, reducing stress, anxiety and depression - but it also offers an opportunity to take a step back and ‘think’. It could help you be objective when you find yourself in a negative spiral, so don’t be afraid to use meditation or a breathing exercise to help you in the moment.
STICK TO A ROUTINE
Creating and sticking to a routine is an oft overlooked but powerful way to fortify yourself against negative thoughts, anxiety and depression. Sticking to a routine is an achievement in itself, and helps you achieve in other areas of your life - a way to start a cascade of good feelings, and puff out your chest with pride!
Our circadian rhythm is the twenty four hour cycle that describes physical, mental and behavioural changes over the day. Getting knocked out of the circadian rhythm can result in our bodily functions not performing optimally and can give rise to sleep problems.
We all know how bad sleep can make us slow, groggy and grumpy - a pretty hard position to start from when you want to feel positive!
REACH OUT FOR HELP
If you have tried many of these techniques without success, or are in a particularly dark place, then reaching out to a mental health professional for medical advice, diagnosis or treatment might be the right step for you.
Cognitive behavioural therapy CBT is a form of therapy that aims to help you manage your problems by adjusting the way you think and behave. CBT is often used to treat anxiety and depression, but can help with many other health problems. (5)
SIMPLE STEPS TO OVERCOMING NEGATIVE THOUGHT PATTERNS: CONCLUSION
Overcoming negative thought patterns is not an easy task, particularly if you try to keep it all in your head. Whatever challenges you face, seeking help isn’t a sign of weakness - it’s a sign of good sense!
If there is one ‘top tip’ in this article, it is to write these feelings and thought processes down - this will help to separate the negativity from yourself and help you look at what is happening as objectively as possible - this is an absolute must if you want to find a solution and break the cycle.
It is well established that smoking is associated with mental health issues, but the largest review of evidence to-date, conducted by Cochrane, found high-certainty evidence that E-Cigarettes are more effective for quitting smoking than traditional nicotine replacement products like the patch or gum (6) - so if you are a smoker, and find yourself experiencing negative thought patterns, make the switch to the SMOKO E-cigarette today and improve your health and wellbeing!
REFERENCES
(1) Negative Automatic Thoughts and Social Anxiety
(2) Depression Is as Bad as Smoking for Your Heart
(3) Anxiety as a risk factor in cardiovascular disease
(4) Identifying Negative Automatic Thought Patterns
(5) NHS: Overview - Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Written by Dan Overgage
Dan Overgage – is a former smoker of 10 years until he became a client of SMOKO E-Cigarettes. Dan started working with SMOKO 5 years ago after successfully quitting using our e-cigarettes and works across our Customer Service and heads up our content creation and research with a strong focus on all things quitting smoking. During his tenure with SMOKO, Dan has written countless blogs and consults with countless clients every day to help them to stay smoke-free.
