The 6 Most Important Types Of Negative Thoughts And How To Manage Them
Our mind is a place where all kinds of thoughts are projected in forms of ideas, images, opinions and beliefs that, like everything in this life, can be good, can be neutral and, of course, can be negative, very negative.
Negative thoughts are not something pathological nor should we think that anyone who has any of these thoughts throughout the day is a rather pessimistic person. No, they are part of our mind, but it is worth saying that sometimes they get out of control and bring with them a lot of discomfort.
There are several types of negative thoughts that we can identify thoughts in our mind that can trap us in a vicious circle of negativity but that, fortunately, there are ways to control them. Let’s discover what the main ones are and how to solve them.
Since we have the use of reason, all kinds of ideas and thoughts can pass through our heads. There are positive, beautiful and motivating ones, cogitations that present us with ideas or images that help us to be happy, to think about a great past and a promising future; But there are also negative, ugly, murky and disturbing ones that make us believe that we are worthless, that we do everything wrong or that if something has to go wrong, it will.
Giving a definition of what negative thoughts are is not difficult. We can define them as those pernicious ideas that appear in our heads without us looking for them and that produce all kinds of emotions that disturb us.
They induce negative emotions, related to psychological discomfort such as fear, anxiety and stress and, if they occupy too much of our attention and time, they can cause damage to our mental health.
Although negative thoughts have been addressed by many psychologists and psychiatrists throughout history, it is worth mentioning the work of one of the founders of cognitive therapies, the American doctor Aaron Temkin Beck, who defined them in the 1960s. For Beck , these types of thoughts very strongly determined our psychological well-being or, rather, they were a direct source of discomfort.
In his 1983 definition, Beck gives negative thoughts characteristics such as being rigid, inflexible, absolutist and having the form of “I have to” or “I must”, in imperative terms. On the other hand, positive ones are flexible, possibilistic, adaptive and acquire a structure of the type “I would like that” or “I would like that”, in more desiderative and open terms.
Beck believed that automatic negative thoughts sabotage the best in ourselves. and, if we do not have the slightest control over them, they will end up causing us emotions such as insecurity, anxiety and anger, feelings that are the fuel that fuels new thoughts of this type.
That is, negative thoughts cause a negative emotional reaction in our mind, the same as It causes more negative thoughts to appear and we fall into a vicious cycle from which it is difficult to escape..
Thinking negatively attracts more negativity, inviting things to go wrong. This is called a self-fulfilling prophecy which, if it occurs, will not be a matter of fate or bad luck, nor because we do not have certain characteristics or abilities, but because we have fallen into negativity, a negativity that invades our mind and affects us. our capacity for action.
The 6 most common negative thoughts
The negative thoughts that may come to mind can have any type of content, that is, they can be about very varied ideas, events or facts, varying enormously depending on each person. However, it is possible to make a classification where we find the main types of negative thoughts based on their characteristics and the type of idea on which they focus.
1. Dichotomous thinking
Dichotomous thinking is a type of rigid and inflexible thinking, without nuancescorresponding to what we would culturally say is thinking in black and white.
It implies being based on the assumption that with respect to a topic or issue there are only two categories, which are mutually exclusive, and the existence of intermediate elements or nuances is ignored. That is, it is thinking in extreme terms. For example:
“Either I do it well or I don’t”
“Now or never”
“You are with me or against me”
“I have completely failed.”
2. Fear of what they will say
The fear of what people will say is a type of thinking that we have all experienced. It is that psychological process that it makes us worry about whether people look at us with bad eyes because of the way we are dressed or fear that, when speaking in public, they will think that we are bad at it.
It is any thought that makes us more aware of what we believe others think and say about us than what we feel or how we are.
Although we are not sure of knowing what others are thinking, since we cannot read other people’s minds, this type of thinking can have a lot of power over us. Some examples:
Many people need complete certainty that things are going to turn out perfect, because if not, they simply won’t do it. Believing that something can go wrong is a very powerful, frustrating and sabotaging negative thought, an idea that will end up being supported by our mind and that will make us abandon our efforts, even before it has started. Some examples of this type of negative thinking are:
“I’m not good for this, so I’m leaving it.”
“I’m sure it’s going to go wrong.”
“It’s not worth trying”
“Since I won’t know how to do it well, I’d better not even try.”
4. Generalize the negative
Many people tend to focus only on the negative, which is why, When something bad happens, believe that it will become a universal norm, that is, they generalize the negative. They do not realize that on more than one occasion success comes after a multitude of failures and that is why we should never give up.
“I haven’t lifted a weight, so I’m never going to get in shape.”
“I have failed this exam, therefore it is not worth continuing to study”
“This date went badly for me, I will never find love”
“I don’t know how to combine clothes well, this fashion thing is not for me”
5. Minimize the positive things
It is also a negative thought to downplay good things. Minimize the positive things or attribute an external causality, that is, that it has occurred due to the action of other people or by pure luck, is usually a very common cognitive process in people whose minds have been invaded by negative thoughts, as is the case with depression. Some examples of this negative thinking are:
“I did well on the exam because it was very easy”
“I passed gymnastics because the teacher only values effort”
“I have won at chess because my rival let himself win”
“They told me that the interview went well out of pure pity”
6. Dramatize
Playing the victim and creating melodramas is also typical of automatic negative thoughts., appearing just after something bad has happened to us. For example, it is typical that, after a breakup, we think of “I will never find anyone the same again” or “What is going to happen to me?”
What to do to counteract negative thoughts?
As we have seen, it is easy to fall prey to negative thoughts, trapped in a vicious cycle that brings us negative emotions that, in turn, feed and manufacture new thoughts of this type.
To top, These types of dynamics are like snowballswhich start out small but as they roll downhill they get bigger, since negative thoughts can start with a small and innocent thought, released into our consciousness without any negative intention, but end up becoming a whole toxic ideology that corrodes inside.
Fortunately, there are a series of strategies to prevent negative thoughts from taking control of our mind and, consequently, our behavior. Let’s look at some of them.
1. Observe thought
As a rule, Negative thoughts are the product of cognitive distortions, irrational thinking patterns.. If we observe them as if we were a spectator, not letting them take over our mind, they will dissipate.
It is advisable to think of them as if they were leaves floating down a river, since sooner or later they will go downstream and we will lose sight of them. It is difficult to prevent these thoughts from coming to our mind, but if we let them go without thinking too much about them, we will not let them cause us any discomfort.
2. Reframe the idea
Rumination is excessive thinking patterns.. We can think over and over again about an idea, convinced that the more we think about it, the more capable we will be of solving it, even though this is a totally useless action that wastes our time and much of our energy.
Therefore, the best thing we can do is reframe the idea that is the object of our rumination, find out what is true in our thoughts and discard what we have created in our minds before starting to look for a solution.
3. Physically act on the idea
Since negative thinking is going to burn and anger us, why don’t we invest this psychic activation in physical exercise? Physically acting on the idea, although it is not a panacea, can help us turn it into something useful, at least in the short term..
The idea is not to recycle negative thinking, but to exhaust it, consume it through exercise, keep the mind busy making the body work and thus not fall into the trap of our own psyche. We can run, lift weights, do sit-ups… With the body in motion, thinking loses importance.
4. Avoid stimuli that trigger negative ideas
There can be many different stimuli that awaken those negative ideas in our mind. It is not easy to identify the triggers of our negative thoughts but, once we have found them, we can use the avoidance technique..
The ideal would be to get used to such stimuli to get our mind used to them being there and not awakening negative thoughts, but, if they are too intense and it is possible to avoid them without affecting our lives too much, avoiding them is a good option. .
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