How to Avoid Toxic Thinking And Improve Your Mental Health
It probably comes as no surprise that when life gets us down, one of the first things most of us do is look for the easy way out. In fact, for our brains, the easy way is the preferred way. The path of least resistance, the fast route to calm and peace, and the road more often traveled is generally the preferred path—even if we know, it’s not what’s best for our mental health.
For me, it explains why when I come home from a hard day—when I have spent an unusual amount of emotional capital—I would much rather avoid further confrontation, turn my mind off and escape into the television. It feels good at that moment, but in the long run—the thing that will restore my mood and improve my overall mental state is certainly not the TV. Instead, the TV sends my mind into an endless cycle of searching for instant gratification and relief.
However, this cycle does more than just cloud my mind and burn up perfectly good brain cells. It begins to create the necessary conditions to make a bad day worse. Dr. Julie Smith, in her book, Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before, provides some great insight on how we unintentionally and yet dangerously amplify certain thought biases—taking an already low mood and making matters worse.
I Know Exactly What They Are Thinking
Our minds are in a constant state of analysis of what other people are thinking. Remember that hilarious story you told the other day? As you began to lay out every comedic detail, you found yourself performing advancing facial recognition analysis, trying to decide if the other person understood you and is seeing it as funny as you did.
Basically, you’re trying to read their mind. Even though you can’t. When our moods are down, and our mental health is struggling. A blank stare turns into more than just, “They didn’t like the story.” It becomes amplified into, “They don’t like me."
Nothing Ever Goes Right For Me
If you’re alive and breathing, then you have had “one of those days.” The kind of day where nothing goes right, you feel like the world is against you, nothing is going right, so you might as well just go back to bed and try again tomorrow.
While it’s completely normal to experience the kind of day Alexander Cooper has in Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. Because some days, it might just be better to go back to bed. But those should be the exception, not the norm. But when we feel down, when our mental state is subpar, we can find ourselves trapped in the kind of thinking that perpetuates into days becoming worse than they really are. We overgeneralize one lousy moment into an entire day. If we fail to recognize those moments as simply a moment, it can lead to unchecked toxic thinking.
It’s Important To Me, So It’s Important To Everyone
We all have our own personal standards of behavior. Some of them are etched into your subconscious as unbreakable rules. To circumvent such authority is likened to blasphemy. Such an attitude is generally no trouble at all. But what happens when you judge others based on the rules you live by? Let me give you an example.
I learned that when it comes to punctuality, on time is late, and early is on time. Again, this is a reasonably good policy to live by. But I also had to be taught that such a view is not a universal moral imperative, and I ought not to hold others to the same standard and proceed to judge them when they fail. The unhealthy mindset would easily and naturally conclude that the other person does not respect or like you. Their lack of adherence to your standards is a commentary on their direct feelings toward you—even when such a viewpoint is entirely untrue.
I Feel It, Therefore It Must Be True
You might be surprised how easily we can fall victim to believing that what we feel is an accurate representation of reality. The truth is that our emotions are purely information. But when that information is loud, intense, powerful, and influential, our emotions trick us into believing them to be true.
When our mood is low, we are much more susceptible to an inaccurate emotional response to the world around us. It’s the conversation you are confident didn’t go well, the test you “know” you failed, or the presentation that you know was a complete disaster. Any one of those may have been just fine. Still, the stress and exhaustion from the moment leave your brain vulnerable to believing otherwise.
Everything I Do Must Be Absolutely Perfect
The pursuit of perfection affects people differently. Some of us believe that no matter the task, project, or pursuit, perfection is more than the goal—it’s the only possible and acceptable outcome. Obviously, to some degree, there is nothing wrong with the desire for perfection. But when that desire collides with unrealistic expectations, we can easily send ourselves further into a downward spiral of negative emotions. So even the smallest hiccups and failures can feed the lies that we are never enough, will always fail, can’t do anything right, are worthless, etc.—the list goes on.
Click Here to Learn More About Perfectionism
It’s Ruined!
One of my favorite moments while dating my wife is one of our first fights. We were eating a nice quiet spaghetti dinner when she dropped a tiny bit of sauce on her shirt. She lost it. The shirt was ruined, all was lost, and the night was over. I tried, although in vain, to quiet and comfort her—to reassure her that her shirt would be ok. Despite my best efforts, she would not listen to reason. My next move would go down in marriage history for all time. I picked up a handful of spaghetti, slammed it onto my shirt, and rubbed it in. My shirt was ruined.
There was clearly something else going on in her mind. Something I wasn’t aware of. So what was just a simple accident literally turned into the end of the world. I admit that my reaction was just as extreme as hers. However hard we may laugh at it now, at the moment, I clearly made the wrong move and made things worse. But when our mood is off, even just a little depressed, our thinking can quickly become toxic over the simplest of things.
We have a saying in my house. “The thing is not the thing.” It is a reminder that however, we might react or the words we use in any given situation, something else is likely going on in our minds leading us to think toxic thoughts. It’s the first step in helping us to think differently—recognizing our thoughts for what they are.
