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Switch to a positive mindset for less chance of anxiety and depression
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Worrying is not necessarily negative. It helps you recognize any mistakes or threats so you can avoid them in the future. But if you continue to focus on the negative or incessantly rehash events, it can have a major impact on your mental and physical well-being. How do you put a stop to negative thinking patterns and make the switch to a positive mindset?
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What is worrying?
Ernst Koster, professor at Ghent University (Department of Experimental-Clinical and Health Psychology) conducts research into worrying. He distinguishes two forms: “The core is repetitive thinking about problems or negative matters,” says Koster. “On the one hand, you have anxious worrying, which is usually about the future: What if my boss discovers that I have made mistakes, what if something happens to my children?… In addition, you have more depressive worrying, in which you remain focused on the past. Rumination: How come my relationship failed, why does this have to happen to me? There is no sharp dividing line between the two forms. Anxious and depressive worries often go hand in hand.”
Get rid of negative thought patterns
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Worrying can be a logical reaction to events, but some people deal with negative situations more constructively than others. Professor Koster talks about contradictions: “An important contradiction, for example, is abstract versus concrete thinking. Worrying is a way to reflect on unpleasant situations and learn lessons from your mistakes. But then the thinking must be concrete enough. Now take a divorce. You may think: This is horrible, why does this have to happen to me, I never wanted this. There is little in those kinds of thoughts that can help you to approach things differently from now on. But you can also think: What could I have done differently? How do I ensure that I don’t end up at this point in the future?”
A second contradiction he mentions is zooming in on your emotions and making a distinction between them. This makes it easier for you to do something about it. “Thinking that you feel bad does not lead to a better analysis. But you can also differentiate: I feel alone, abandoned, perhaps also a bit disappointed in myself. This way you can focus on concrete things you can do to change the situation. If you feel alone, you can, for example, meet up with friends more often.”
How you see yourself also plays a role. The professor explains: “There is of course a great tendency to think about yourself in the first person. But you can also choose to think about yourself in the third person. This creates more distance, which helps you analyze the situation better. That also helps to soften the negative emotions and to think more problem-solving.”
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What can you do yourself?
The switch to a positive mindset therefore starts with awareness. “Our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors are all connected, so our thoughts influence how we feel and act,” says Rachel Goldman, psychologist and clinical assistant professor at NYU School of Medicine.
According to Dr. Goldman, psychotherapy can certainly help you change negative thoughts, but you can also learn how to change your thought patterns. Through mindfulness, for example. Mindfulness involves trying to see thoughts and feelings as objects floating past you. You can stop or observe them, or let them pass you by.
In addition to psychotherapy, you can follow targeted computer training to become aware of how you pay attention to your environment. Professor Koster explains: “We conducted research with strings of words that people were shown on a computer screen. By monitoring eye movements, we notice that some people automatically linger on negatively charged words, even when instructed to form a positive sentence. But by making the positive words light up when they looked at them, we were able to tone down that negative bias. That way they could break that spiral.” This makes people more open to positive, new information. The result is that psychotherapy will also be more effective.
Another effective training is memory training. This places a heavy burden on the worrier’s memory: he or she has to perform tasks that require the working memory to absorb information very quickly. “As long as they concentrate on that task, we see that worrying behavior decreases. And those effects are lasting: even three months after the training, this group appeared to worry less than the control group that had received no training,” says Professor Koster.
Finally, to calm your mind, you can exercise: yoga, dancing, or any other form of exercise that you enjoy. Research has shown that physical activity reduces stress.
Also read: Yoga helps (in the short term) against worry disorders
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Last updated: November 2023
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2023-11-19 23:03:39
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