如何应对消极情绪?
There’s no reason to let pessimistic self-chatter dictate how you view the rest of your day. The more we let our negative thoughts occupy our mind without interruption, the more interconnected they will become. NEGATIVE THINKING COMES WITH WARNING SIGNS My negative thought warning sign: I start senselessly criticizing myself. For me, it was a sign that I needed to check in with myself about how I was feeling in regards to my goals and responsibilities. After some self-reflection, I found the problem: My to-do list had been piling up, and I was avoiding some tasks that needed to either be delegated or taken head on. Cue the negative thinking. That check-in allowed me to take early action. Your warning sign to negative thinking, however, might be different from mine. SUBTLE THOUGHTS AND BEHAVIORS TO LOOK OUT FOR ●Are you a nail biter? ●Self insulter? ●Impulse buyer? ●Emotional eater? In a lot of ways, these are all “self-soothing” behaviors, even if some of them can cause more problems than they solve. But they are also behaviors that we do often without noticing. One of these behaviors on their own might hardly be noticeable or not even considered negative. But when we pay attention to the timing and frequency of these types of behaviors, they could be early signs of depression. When we notice these subtle signs, we can better take preventive or healing actions. Another benefit of noticing these subtle signs: You may start to notice that they happen around certain people, at certain times of day, or even in certain places. If you are able to identify these triggers to your negative thoughts or self-soothing behaviors, you may be able to eliminate the trigger altogether. HOW TO STOP NEGATIVE THINKING ONCE YOU SPOT IT Well, using my previous example, you could do a check in with yourself and examine your current thoughts and expectations about how things are going. Or, you could also use a popular Dialectical Behavior Therapy technique called “Opposite Emotion Action”. The technique works as follows: 1. Identify your negative feeling In my case, it might have been self-loathing or disappointment. 2. Identify an opposite emotion For me, it might have been self-love or gratitude. 3. Act as if that is how you were feeling This might have caused me to think something like “I’m running really well today.” or “At least I got out of bed this morning to exercise!” This technique can shift your negative thoughts to more neutral or even positive thoughts, and will certainly help prevent them from getting worse. Spotting our negative thoughts before they turn us into a ball of stress isn’t easy–but when we pay a little more attention to our automatic thoughts and behaviors, we can start to see the future and prevent negative thoughts from taking hold. |