A 5-Minute At-Home Therapy Technique For Anxiety Sufferers
What therapists repeat time and time again
to patients suffering from stress and anxiety is that by changing the
attitude to one’s own thoughts one is able to alter their emotions and
overall mood. Being in a good mood and not experiencing negative
emotions, in turn, will help you avoid the seemingly never-ending cycles
of pointless self-loathing, anger and self-torture.
This key therapeutic concept teaches you to
be critical of your own thoughts and reactions and to stop reacting to
them passively. Sounds easy, right? Well, the catch is that it’s easier
said than done, as it often is, and my 3-year long struggle with
generalized anxiety is a living testament to that statement.
The sad but realistic truth is that recognizing the harmful patterns of
your own behavior, which are called cognitive distortions in psychology
lingo, is a lifelong project. But there are several great therapy
methods that can help you make and maintain progress.
One of these methods is the 5-minute triple
column technique, which is easy and yet very effective at targeting
your cognitive distortions and teaching you to see them for what they
really are. In 2012, a large-scale scientific analysis proved that this
technique was an effective treatment of anxiety, stress and anger
management.
Cognitive Distortions
Before we jump into the technique itself, we first need to understand
what cognitive distortions look like and what different kinds of
distortions exist.
The 10 most common types of distortions are the following:
1. Polarized thoughts: thinking in extremes, ignoring all sides of a
situation. A person with all or nothing thinking would say “I failed the
talk I gave at work yesterday” ignoring that it was their first talk
ever and a typical first-time performance.
2. Overgeneralization: when a single, unpleasant event is treated as a
never-ending pattern of defeat. For example, when a person goes to 1
swimming practice that doesn’t go well and assumes that they will never
learn how to swim.
3. Filtering: taking a single detail of in a situation, clinging to it
and letting it influence everything that follows. For example, dwelling
on a minor unpleasant remark said in your address and letting it ruin
your entire day.
4. Disqualifying the positive: when any proof of success is seen as a
mere coincidence or as not a success. So, getting an A+ on an exam
doesn’t count because it must be an accident and surely not a result of
hard work that paid off.
5. Jumping to conclusions: it is exactly what it sounds like. It’s when 1
negative remark is taken to describe the entire dialogue, relationship
or situation. Example: “He forgot to clean the dishes, so he must be mad
at me for something”.
6. Magnification and minimization: when
you’re exaggerating your mistakes and other people’s successes while
ignoring your virtues and accomplishments at the same time. So, when you
think that you will never be as perfect as this or that actor/actress,
for example, you are exaggerating their success and ignoring your own
accomplishments.
7. Emotional reasoning: your emotional state defines what you think
really happened. For example, when you think everyone saw how nervous
you were before speaking in public.
8. Should statements: when you criticize yourself for not behaving
otherwise in the past, e.g. "I should have known that was a mistake".
9. Labeling and mislabeling. Based on 1 mistake, you label yourself or
another person as something negative. For example, "I can’t get along
with Jim so I think he's stupid".
10. Personalization: when you take things personally when in reality
they have nothing to do with you. Example: "He was grumpy all evening
because he was with me", though in a situation where you had nothing to
do with his emotional state.
The 5-Minute Triple-Column Technique
You can do this exercise daily, weekly or whenever you feel like you’re
stuck in a rut or notice that you’re anxious, angry or beating yourself
up.
This exercise doesn’t have to be written, but many people believe that
doing it in writing is more effective. Mix and match and see what works
best for you.
Step 1. Make 3 columns on a sheet of paper
or whatever device you’re using.
Step 2. In Column 1, you have to write down the negative thought that’s
bothering you without editing it and with no self-analysis. If your mean
inside voice is telling you “I look ugly in these jeans and I that’s
why I hate myself and everyone else should too”, that’s what you have to
write down.
Step 3. Read the statement in the 1st column and try to spot one or more
of the cognitive distortions we mentioned above. In our example, there
are a few, like overgeneralization, jumping to conclusions, and mental
filter. Write them down in the 2nd column.
Step 4. Having analyzed your negative thought, write down what you think
about it now taking into account the distortions that you spotted. For
example, “I don’t think that these jeans flatter my body shape today,
but that is just a minor detail that shouldn’t ruin my day. This minor
detail is not an objective reason for me to stop liking myself or for
other people to do so.”
Of course, you will have to go through each negative thought
individually, so you are free to do more than one every day. You can
also keep a log and look back at your past negative thoughts from time
to time. Personally, I like doing that because after a while these
thoughts often seem very silly, which reaffirms the idea that our
thoughts are not who we are and not a valid reason for a day, friendship
or life ruined. We truly hope you will find this technique useful and
benefit from it.