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There are many simple tools that can help you understand your thoughts better, as well as what they might be rooted in. It is important that you use and maximize them in order to fully immerse yourself in the treatment. In this chapter, we present you with some of the most common CBT tools and how you can use them better.

Think of journaling as a means of gathering data about your thoughts and your different moods. When writing in your journal, always try to expand on the mood or thought. Answer some of these questions:

This tool can help you better identify your emotional tendencies and thought patterns. Having a record enables you to look back and see everything from an outsider’s perspective. A journal helps prevent you from being in your head too much as well—this may lead to negative thinking if you’re not careful.

The idea here is to indulge yourself in an activity that stimulates positive feelings in you. For some, this could be a good book and a good cup of coffee, for others it could be catching up with friends. What’s important is that it must be an activity that’s healthy for you—so, no binge eating or smoking. These things might stimulate the pleasure sensors in your brain, but they can actually worsen your overall state of mind.

Sugar can cause energy crashes. Smoking can cause addictions.

A good option to try here is to create a regular exercise routine for yourself. Regular, as in, something you do quite often if you cannot manage to do it every day.

The Benefits of Exercising:

The physical and mental benefits of exercise have long been established. All experts agree that regular exercise can help fight against diseases and improve overall wellness. Exercise is not only good for your physical body, but for your mental health as well.

Numerous studies have shown that exercise can reduce fatigue, enhance overall cognitive function, improve concentration, and increase alertness. Regular exercise can also help you focus better as well as increase your energy levels. More importantly, it can help you manage your stress and anxiety levels.

When stress affects the brain, along with its nerve connections, the body feels the same negative impact. This is why you need to condition both your mind and body when you are stressed or anxious. Since your body gets pumped up with adrenaline during moments of stress and anxiety, you need to put this adrenaline rush towards physical activity, such as aerobic exercises, to make you feel better.

Furthermore, scientists say that regular aerobic exercises can significantly reduce levels of tension, improve sleep, boost self-esteem, and increase and stabilize mood. So, even if you are too busy with work and you do not have time to go to the gym, you can still exercise. You can perform exercises in five minutes and still reap the same benefits as you would when you spend half an hour to one hour at the gym.

There’s a wide range of benefits to this, but it is one of the most effective CBT techniques when it comes to dealing with AUTOMATIC THOUGHTS. It enables you to disengage from obsessing and rumination, allowing you to stay grounded. In this manner, your feelings and behavior would not be swayed by any of the negativity that may go on in your mind.

The Benefits of Mindfulness Meditation:

Numerous studies have shown that mindfulness meditation is effective in managing depression, pain, and anxiety. It is about training the brain to focus on the present moment instead of regrets from the past or anxiety about the future.

Whenever you worry, you focus more on what might happen in the future and what you have to do about it. This can make you anxious and stressed. Through mindfulness meditation, you can break free from these worries and bring your attention back to your present.

Mindfulness is about observing your thoughts and acknowledging them before finally letting them go. It refers to your ability to stay aware of your current feelings as well as moment-to-moment external and internal experiences.

When you practice mindfulness meditation, you are able to determine where your thinking causes problems. It also helps you get in touch better with your emotions. In essence, mindfulness is about acknowledging and observing your anxious feelings and thoughts, letting go of your worries, and staying focused on the present moment.

Mindfulness meditation can help you stay focused and calm in the present so that you are able to bring balance back to your nervous system. Mindfulness meditation has long been practiced in different parts of the world to reduce anxiety, stress, and depression among other mental health issues.

Cognitive reframing or restructuring is one of the core parts of CBT. It is also considered to be a very effective treatment when it comes to common issues that people face, including anxiety disorders, binge eating, and depression.

How to do it? It’s basically taking something that’s making you feel bad, and turning it into something that’s good.

When you reframe your anxiety as excitement, you are able to devote more resources and energy to the situation. According to Alison Wood, an assistant professor at Harvard Business School, the ideal way to deal with anxiety is to get excited. This finding is in contrast to the belief of most people, which is to keep calm.

You see, your emotions occur at two levels: arousal and valence. Arousal refers to the physical sensation that occurs in the psych world while valence refers to the way you interpret this arousal mentally.

Whenever you become anxious, your heart rate soars. When this happens, you experience high arousal, and that is a negative valence. So, whenever you feel anxious, you have to reframe it as a feeling of excitement instead of dwelling upon it with feelings of dread. By reframing it, your heart rate soars, but with it comes positive feelings instead of restlessness.

Every day, you have to recognize that you are doing alright. During random moments of your day, take a pause and congratulate yourself on being fine.

Rick Hanson, a neuropsychologist who writes for Psychology Today , says that your instincts for survival make you constantly fearful and unsettled. While these instincts protect you by preventing you from letting your guard down completely, they also make you anxious.

Are you feeling anxious? Tell yourself that everything is alright and that it is okay to be feeling this way. It’s only natural—after all, you’re doing something huge and EXCITING. Do not let the feeling dictate negativity in your mind. Use it instead as a fuel by reminding yourself that you’re doing just fine.

This may seem similar to reciting positive affirmations, but there is one distinct difference and that is THE TOPIC OF YOUR AFFIRMATIONS. This exercise centers on you as an individual and on your core values—ones you may have formed during childhood. These are the ones that have the strongest association with feelings of positivity, especially if they are somehow related to your family.

For example: If you find yourself having a bout of anxiety before presenting a new idea to the company, tell yourself “My mother always taught me that there are no big challenges, only people who are not up to the task.” Repeat that thought until the negative thought is gone and you’re only filled with these encouraging words.

Always make sure that you affirm core values before any challenging situations, especially if you start feeling terrified or plagued by thoughts of failure and rejection. By doing this, you can stay positive in any situation.

So, the next time you go to a job interview or face a difficult situation, pause for a while and remember your core values. Take a deep breath and recall the values that you grew up with.

These core values may be about your family, relationships, creativity, or career success among others. Select one of these values and determine why it is important for you. Get a piece of paper and write down your reasons as to why it is important. Be as vivid as possible.

Psychologists and researchers agree that this can help reduce stress and anxiety. In a study that involved eighty-five undergraduate students, it was found that writing about core values helps reduce stress levels.

The participants were told to give five-minute speeches as members of the audience yelled at them to speak faster. Before they gave their speeches, however, the participants selected the value that they thought to be most important as well as the value that they thought to be quite irrelevant. Then, they wrote about such values.

This exercise involves you recalling a recent memory that produced an intense feeling of negativity within you. Now, once you have it in mind, analyze the situation.

For example, say you found yourself in a distressing situation at work where you ended up arguing with one of your officemates. They might have said something hurtful that left you reeling and completely out of it.

Yes, the exercise might bring back some of those feelings, but try focusing on the purpose at hand instead of those emotions. Remind yourself that the situation has passed and now you’re merely studying it to gain a better understanding of how you reacted.

Next, label the thoughts and emotions that you went through during the conflict. Identify and write them down.

How does this help? Well, by visualizing this situation, it can actually help you take away its power to trigger the same emotions in you. Exposing yourself again to those negative feelings and urges will take away some of its ability to affect you once more.

For this exercise, you will be testing out the validity of your thoughts. Basically, this involves gathering and then analyzing any evidence for and against a thought you might have. What this enables you to see is a fact-based conclusion on whether said thought is valid or not.

For example, you might think that your boss thinks badly of you and that they find you inadequate for the job. You would need to gather all the evidence that makes you believe this is true, such as “He wasn’t smiling as I was making my presentation and he asked many questions as if to embarrass me.” Then think of evidence that is against this belief, such as “He did give me a pat on the back after the presentation” and “He also told me to keep it up. If he thought ill of me, he wouldn’t have encouraged me in that way.”

The goal here is to create a more balanced picture in your mind, as well as get rid of the unreasonable negative thoughts that you have formed prior.