hey there everybody I'd like to welcome you to this ten minute QuickStart guide to cognitive
restructuring this is another one of our short videos that we're doing in honor of
mental health month 2020 cognitive restructuring literally means changing your thoughts if you
are thinking of something as the worst thing ever cognitive restructuring would help you see it as
maybe the most exciting challenge ever cognitive restructuring can also help you look at the good
parts for example when it's raining outside I can see that as you know a bummer and I can
get all poochy about it because I'm gonna have a bad hair day I can't go running you know there's
things that are going to be irritating about it but I could also choose to see the positives that
God is washing my car for me I'm not going to have to water my garden because you know it's happening
already and it's gonna keep potentially keep it cooler outside so there are things that I can
look for in instead of focusing on the negative I can change my approach and sort of force myself
to look at the positives of the situation kovat 19:00 you know that's another one that people can
really stay focused on the negative and panicked and all that kind of stuff or we can change our
thoughts we can view this as an opportunity to maybe embrace some new changes that are better
for the earth you know remote working is reducing smog it's reducing how much we're driving it is
forcing businesses to look at the potential for letting their employees work from home you know
so there's a lot of benefits there it is allowing some families to spend more time together that
could be a good or a bad depending on the family but there are some positives that are coming out
of quarantine you know I I hate to say it but I am looking at you know some of the long term in
the short term it's really frustrating we're gonna we're having to change what we're doing which you
know you all know that I like my routine and I like my structure so this has been challenging
for me but instead of seeing it as you know an horrible awful thing for example that my
gym was closed for almost two months instead I used that time I said okay well I can't do
that so staying all pooched up about it isn't gonna do me any good so instead I'm gonna use
that energy that I would have used at the gym to you know increase the size of my garden to mop
the floor a little bit more often to wash the walls which I've been putting off doing for a
year and a half now I found a lot of things to do with that energy cognitive restructuring can mean
seeing things that are barriers or obstacles or you know problems seeing them as challenges seeing
failures as learning opportunities there are a lot of quotes that you can find online if you look for
quotes about failure that can help you change the way you view something instead of seeing
it as a devastation seeing it as an opportunity instead of seeing yourself as a victim seeing
yourself as a courageous survivor another aspect of cognitive restructuring includes unhooking and
unhooking is really very simple when we say I am something or I have to have something then we are
connected to it I have to have that when we put the phrase in front of whatever it is that I am
having the thought that I have to have this well I can change my thoughts you know if I'm thinking I
have to have that feels like it's imperative to my well-being if I say I I'm having the thought
that I have to have this then I can evaluate whether that thought is accurate or not when
for example somebody's trying to quit smoking you know they may think to themselves I have to have
a cigarette if instead they say I am having the thought that I have to have a cigarette then they
can they're distancing themselves and they're putting this idea out there is a thought and
deciding whether they want to attach to it or let that thought just float on by thoughts don't stay
with us very long most of us have had operations where we have you know gotten up to do something
walked into the kitchen and before we even got there we forgot what we were going in there for
that's an example of a thought just kind of going right back if we don't hook on to those thoughts
and hold on to them then they are going to float on by we need to unhook from things when we feed
thoughts when we keep perseverating all we're doing is hooking on to them so unhook from those
thoughts another cognitive restructuring tool is doing a cost-benefit analysis what is the
cost to me holding on to these negative thoughts to these distressful thoughts versus the benefit
of me holding on to these distressful thoughts what is the cost to me of continuing to be angry
it's gonna cost me energy it's gonna reduce my immunity it's going to make my sleep worse
it's gonna make me a grumpy Gus which is probably not going to go well and in my relationships it's
going to negatively infect my really affect my relationships let's look at the benefit
to me staying angry well if I stay angry then potentially I will won't be surprised by whatever
it is again and you know it protects me to a certain extent but is the cost worth the benefit
another way I encourage people to look at anger for example as what it is when I am angry I am
giving somebody else my power I am giving them my energy I am using my energy to stay angry at them
when it's not affecting them at all so what is the benefit to me staying angry at somebody does
it really impact them that much does it get me anything cost versus benefit what's the benefit of
holding on to the distressful thoughts most of the time there are very few benefits to holding on to
them and there are a lot more physical emotional and interpersonal costs another thing you can do
in cognitive restructuring is just dispute those thoughts dispute those thoughts using the facts
for example if you think that if you go to the grocery store that you are most certainly going
to get covet 19 and died well it's possible but is it likely if you are washing your hands if you are
in a low risk category if you are wearing a mask how likely is it that if you go to the grocery
store and follow social distancing and all those protocols how likely is it that you are going
to get sick what are the facts is it potentially scary for you maybe I am not denying the fact that
some people are terrified to go outside but it's important to look at the facts supporting whether
it is really that dangerous to start resuming your normal life assuming you're using appropriate
precautions another way you can dispute things is look at alternate explanations maybe Sally doesn't
call you this evening and she was supposed to so you start thinking well Sally must be mad at me
or maybe Sally got into a car accident is dead somewhere in a ditch or whatever well you know
those are possibilities what are some alternate explanations that are not quite so distressful
maybe Sally's phone went dead maybe Sally got called into work or got busy maybe Sally just
forgot you know it happens looking for alternate less stressful explanations to examine all the
possibilities it doesn't mean they're gonna be right but it's important to recognize that our
brain usually goes to the most dire consequences the worst possible scenario and it's important
for us to pick our head up and look and say what are other possible explanations for why this might
have happened another way of disputing stressful thoughts is to look for exceptions and we'll go
back to kovat 19 right now since that is so timely what are the exceptions you know if you think that
if I go outside it is dangerous it's dangerous for me to go in public right now because I'm gonna get
sick and then I'm gonna die okay let's look at the exceptions how many people have gotten sick
and not died and how many people have gone out in public even without a mask and not gotten sick you
know there are a lot more people out there who have not gotten sick and you know think about
your average flu season or let's think about a bad flu season like the one that we had in 2018
when like eighty-five thousand people died of the flu that was kind of a scary flu season and I'll
admit I altered my behavior a little bit we didn't go out in public quite as much but looking at the
exceptions yes eighty-five thousand people died that year from the flu and that is devastating
however how many people in the United States number one didn't get the flu and continued to
go about their daily life and number two did get the flu and recovered just fine so looking for
exceptions to that thought that if I go out I'm going to get sick and I'm going to die looking
for exceptions that may dispute that looking for exceptions in daily life like if I say you know
my dog wakes me up every single night he is such a pain in the butt okay well I can get frustrated
and you know irritable with my dog about that or I can look for exceptions and I can think all right
when has he slept with me and not awakened me and there are a lot of times when he has done
that and then I say okay what was different about those times oh hey I let him go outside at nine
o'clock before we went to sleep so looking for exceptions can also help you find ways to address
the current issue same thing with depression when if somebody thinks you know I feel like I'm always
depressed well let's look for exceptions to when you're depressed because you're not always most
people it's rare I have yet to find anyone in 20 years of counseling to find anyone who is
always a hundred percent of the time depressed they may be in a period you know in a depressive
episode where they're depressed you know most of their time that they're conscious but there are
times prior to this current episode where they weren't depressed so again what was different
what is different when they're not depressed what are they doing differently and what changed that
may have prompted this depression to kick in and how can we alter that situation to get back to the
environment and a situation where they weren't as depressed and finally alternate perspectives
sometimes we need to get out of our own head and if we think something is the worst thing
ever we want to step out of our own head and say how would my best friend describe this situation
what solutions might my best friend offer that helps us again unhook from those thoughts unhook
from those emotions a little bit and be that objective fly-on-the-wall that can help us
restructure the way we think about something even though if we're in our own head it feels like a
catastrophe if we can step out of our own head we may be able to see it with clearer eyes and make
more objective mindful decisions another technique is evaluating probabilities could something happen
certainly there is a always the chance that something could happen my best friend when he
retired from the Army you know he was sure that he wasn't gonna find another job and he was going
to be broke he was going to end up homeless and a drug addict on the side of the street and I'm
like okay how did we get there let's evaluate the probability that that's going to happen you've got
a hundred percent retirement from the military so given that what is the probability that you
are going to ever end up homeless and you know we actually were able to stop right there was
it the lifestyle he necessarily wanted to live no but the chances that he was gonna end up homeless
and a drug addict living under a bridge you know we were able to put that to bed pretty quickly
focus on what you can change some things and we'll go back to kovat 19 we can't change that right now
it's here it's with us you know we can't change that we can't make it go away what can we do we
can focus on our behaviors we can practice social distancing we can wash our hands we can do those
things we can focus on our emotional reactions to it we can either feed the fear and stir up the
terror and just keep perseverating on the negative aspects and the dangerous aspects or we can use
some of those other tools that we talked about a minute ago in order to help us feel a little
bit more calmer a little bit more secure a little bit more like survivors like we are going to come
out of this and we are going to be victorious another aspect of cognitive restructuring is
sometimes just having distressed tolerant thoughts recognizing that pain and distress is part of life
it happens so what we can do is recognize that with distress we often tell selves I can't stand
feeling this way or I'm not I'm feel like I'm losing my mind talking back to those thoughts
and developing distress tolerant thoughts such as this is difficult but I've gotten through worse or
this is challenging but I am determined to get through to the other side all of those are you
know distressed tolerant thoughts I remember when I was having my daughter there was one
point where I was telling the Midwife you know I can't do this this hurts too much I cannot do this
and she looked at me and she said well it's too late and yes you can and so I just kept telling
myself okay I can do this it'll be over in a minute and you know I got through it finally
ask yourself what you would tell somebody else if they were going through a similar situation or
having similar thoughts or fears and they came to you and they said you know I'm really I'm
struggling with this I'm really angry about this yada yada what would you tell them for example if
they came to you and said nobody would want to be in a relationship with me because I am too broken
well that is one thing that you can say let's take a look at that and what would you if your
best friend came to you and said that what would you say to them and then tell yourself those same
exact things sometimes you just need to step out of yourself and get a more objective look
on at what's going on I hope those tips helped a little bit and I will be back and a couple