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Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is essential in today’s world that is filled with sad and depressed people. These techniques are meant to help you recalibrate your brain to give you more control over your thoughts by reinforcing new patterns. They help one easily recognize those negative thoughts in their heads, leave them behind and live free.

Now, let us discover a few of the most effective Cognitive Behavioral Therapy strategies and techniques. The techniques are plenty and vary depending on whether they are administered by a professional or patients themselves.

Cognitive restructuring techniques help patients identify their thinking patterns that are usually responsible for their negative thoughts, moods and ineffective behavior. There are numerous cognitive restructuring techniques available, with the most common one involving the tracking of dysfunctional thoughts. This is done by recording one’s thoughts on a thought record; from there, healthier and more flexible thinking patterns are devised based on the records obtained.

The exposure technique helps people approach the things they fear the most, systematically and harmlessly. Fear is what hinders people from getting into a particular situation, and avoiding what you fear increases your chances of developing anxiety.

Systematic exposure helps people tackle their fears by helping them master their feared situations and tackling them one by one. When one level is tackled, the next level of exposure is more complicated. Eventually, a person will gain enough confidence for them to face that which they fear the most, which often is the root of their negative thoughts and anxiety.

This technique has an effectiveness rate of 90% with some cases of anxiety disorders.

The activity scheduling technique was designed to help people master the behaviors that they should be doing more. The technique works by first identifying the behaviors that are beneficial to a person, then coming up with a schedule that dictates the number of times that behavior should be repeated. The behaviors or practices are simple tasks such as meditation, working on specific projects or simply going for a walk.

This technique has proven to be quite helpful in helping depressed people complete tasks due to procrastination.

A successful approximation is yet another technique that helps get people get tasks done. It is used on people who find it difficult to get tasks done either due to the feeling that the task is overwhelming or simply because they are not familiar with the task at hand.

With this technique, a person gets to learn and master a task that is similar to the one they are supposed to accomplish, but less difficult. Accomplishing the simpler tasks prepares them to complete the more complex tasks with ease.

This Cognitive Behavioral Therapy technique is particularly effective for people who suffer from Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. This is a common disorder that is characterized by compulsions and obsessions. With people suffering from OCD, their compulsions and obsessions are more debilitating and prevalent than in normal people.

For this technique, you practice exposing yourself to a situation that would normally spark compulsive behavior in you. Your task is to refrain from that behavior and then to write down your thoughts. This method, combined with journaling, can help you understand how you feel about the changes you are making while tracking your progress over time.

The interoceptive exposure technique for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is meant for treating people who suffer anxiety and panic attacks. The body is exposed to sensations that are feared, in order to elicit the feared response. It then activates any unhelpful beliefs that are associated with the response and creates room for new learning about that sensation.

In simpler terms, a person who is exposed to this therapy technique is brought to understand the symptoms of a panic attack. At the same time, even though this can be very uncomfortable for them, they are not dangerous.

This is yet another Cognitive Behavioral Therapy technique that is meant to help those who suffer from fear and anxiety. The individual undergoing the therapy is taken through a thought experiment. They are required to imagine the worst-case scenario of a certain outcome. By doing so, they get to understand that even with the worst-case scenario occurring, they are still most likely to come out of the situation alive and well.

This technique, basically, teaches you that that monster you are scared of right now is not a monster after all.

This therapy technique requires you to relax one group of muscles in your body at a time until your entire body relaxes. The technique can be helpful when you are trying to meditate and when you are practicing mindfulness. It allows you to control what goes through your mind and what does not.

Functional analysis is one of the most popular and effective Cognitive Behavioral Therapy techniques. It helps you learn more about yourself, particularly the things that cause you to behave in certain ways and the consequences of those behaviors.

With this technique, it is much easier to know whether particular behaviors that a client exhibits are adaptive and drive the client towards their set goals, or whether those behaviors are self-defeating and destructive.

The fact and opinion technique for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is very helpful when it comes to recognizing thoughts and beliefs that are true and those that are not. The technique is based on the simple reality that thoughts are not facts.

It can be a bit hard for someone to see sense in this or even accept that some of their thought and beliefs are flawed. But through this therapy technique, it becomes much easier for you to gain clarity and know what exactly are facts are what are not.

Talking to a therapist or a friend can give you a revelation of the true cause of your negative thoughts and depression. Once you have figured out the cause, jot it down. Write down a sentence that is simple and clear that states what the main cause of your problem is. Now shift your focus to brainstorming on ideas that can help you to overcome that problem.

The belief that things cannot get better is usually the hallmark of depression. By writing down the things you can do, you get your mind to believe that there is actually something you can do about it and that there is still hope for you.

It is also important to try and actualize the solutions you have listed. For instance, if you think you are lonely, you can sign up on an online dating platform or you can visit a club where you will meet new people and establish new friendships.

Another Cognitive Behavioral Therapy technique you can adopt when battling your negative emotions is giving yourself words of affirmation that counteract those negative thoughts. Remember these reaffirming words and repeat them often to remind yourself that you can actually overcome those negative thoughts. These words, with time, will create new beliefs in your mind and those negative thoughts will be replaced by positive affirming thoughts.

These self-affirming statements should not be far from the negative thoughts in your mind. The reason simply is that your mind might not accept it. For instance, if the negative thought that you want to get rid of is “I feel so depressed right now,” your self-affirming statement should be something like “Every life comes with its own challenges. Mine is no different” as opposed to “I feel happy right now.” You will no doubt have noticed the difference in the two phrases. The recommended one that is close to the negative thought brings a positive vibe to counter the negative thought, while acknowledging that indeed the negative thoughts are based on realities of life.

Sometimes affirmations can become too routine and might need to be refreshed. You do not have to tell yourself the same things over and over again in the same manner. You can rephrase your words or translate them into other languages to make them more joyful and exciting to hear and believe.