The Vicious Circle of Negative Auto-pilot Thinking

When we are stressed and anxious, our Negative Automatic Thoughts (NATs) assault us involuntarily… the thoughts go round and round… they become more and more unhelpful and destructive – they cause us to ‘feel’ distressing emotions – this prevents us from doing things we wish we could/would – and of course procrastinating gives us even more time to think about all the NATs – this helps to confirm the NATs – and so it goes on and on and on… in a vicious circle…

Task: take a moment to consider the diagram below…

Stressed and anxious and depressed people tend to think thoughts that increase their anxiety in everday situations – these are known as ‘automatic negative thoughts’, and have the following characteristics:

• They are not realistic or logical
• They are thoughts which increase negative feelings such as anxiety, low self-esteem, and stress
• The are self-defeating
• They are ‘hard-wired’, and happen ‘automatically’ (automatic thoughts).

Think of how a specific automatic negative thoughts of yours bring you on this circular journey…

Check which common thinking errors you have, and make a decision to work on challenging and replacing them with new healthy thinking with Cognitive Behavioural Therapy!

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