Susan has the belief that’s its good to spend money enjoying herself now since there are no guarantees she won’t be run over by a bus tomorrow.
Her partner Patrick has the belief that its important to delay gratification to build wealth to have more options later.
Susan and Patrick argue about money.
What do Patrick and [...]
I’ve previously written (e.g., here and here) about how people generally understand that
their Thoughts/feelings impact their Behaviour
But often fail to recognize how
their Behaviour impacts their Thoughts/feelings
In my experience, even very smart people need a lot of guidance to understand how these concepts relate to their own problems and happiness.
Here’s an example I frequently [...]
This post is a long one because it contains instructions for one of the most important Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) skills. You might want to print it – If you click on the blog post title you will find buttons for printing or emailing at the bottom of that page.
How to Use Disputing Questions to [...]
I’ve previously written about how people make mistakes in predicting how happy something will make them (The rate of divorces is a good example of this mis-prediction). Or to put it another way, people make errors in estimating the impact of their specific behaviors on their thoughts and feelings.
When you’re contemplating a behavior change [...]
Exercise is extremely helpful for reducing anxiety (its an important component of treatment for anxiety and depression).
People who are anxious sometimes avoid vigorous exercise because the physical sensations of exertion (consciously or unconsciously) remind them of anxiety.
e.g.
- increased heart rate
- awareness of breathing
- feeling hot and sweating
- tight chest
- tired or wobbly legs
How to Start [...]
I write a lot on this blog about balanced thinking skills.
The following is one easy experiment to try.
Step 1:
Think about something that causes you worry/anxiety. Pick a specific worry (e.g. how a particular other person might be thinking about you, or something specific you’re worried will go wrong). Pick something that you ruminate about [...]
A couple of weeks ago, I watched an interesting Fora.tv talk by Psychologist Dr Matt Walker (a Professor at University of California, Berkley).
Most of the talk was about how sleep affects learning and memory. This is well established stuff that gets taught in undergraduate psychology classes. Basically, adequate sleep before learning is necessary to get [...]
Something EXTREMELY important (and reasonably simple) you can do to improve your psychological health and coping abilities is to improve your ability to correctly identify your negative emotions.
Identifying what specific emotions you’re feeling is a psychological skill that people often don’t learn how to do very well in the normal course of growing up.
For [...]
I said in my last post that I would write some ideas for life experiments. There is also some info about reducing anxiety included later in this post (not particularly related to life experiments but you’ll see why I’ve included it here).
This list is mostly to stimulate your own ideas.
If these ideas seem boring [...]
A.J. Jacobs is a journalist/author who does “life experiments” and writes about his experiences. His third book was published last month and he also has a day job as an editor at Esquire magazine in New York. I decided to blog about his experiments because they very nicely illustrate some extremely useful general psychological principles [...]
Most people understand that their thoughts and emotions influence their behavior.
Thoughts/Feelings -> Behavior
For example,
Jane believes “I have to be perfect for people to like and accept me” (thought), feels anxiety, shame and loneliness, and therefore strives to do everything perfectly (behavior).
Jane develops a problem with perfectionism.
1) She feels very anxious when she can’t [...]
This is a tip for when it seems like things keep going wrong.
Try thinking of 3 or 4 things that went right in the last 24 hours.
When people feel unhappy or stressed these emotions tend to lead to thinking biases – we pay extra attention to negative events and overlook positive events.
When we pay extra [...]
Do you have secret (or not so secret) fears about yourself? Things you fear might be true about you? Or things you fear other people might think about you?
Common secret fears include:
I’m out of control
I’m weak
I’m defective
I’m needy
I’m fundamentally different from other people
I’ve failed a lot/made a lot of mistakes
I’m powerless
I’m vulnerable
I’m trapped/stuck
I’m unlovable
I’m ugly
I’m [...]
This post is for people who read or subscribe to my blog who might not have read all of the rest of my website (the blog is only part of the overall site – it’s the relatively informal part).
The links below are likely to be extremely useful for understanding and overcoming specific types of psychological [...]
Do you feel like the proverbial rat on the wheel (busy but not accomplishing much that’s important to you)?
I’ve written lots of on this blog about the psychological benefits of activities that provide a sense of accomplishment and/or mastery.
The flip side of this paying attention to your deeply restorative practices. Restorative practices help [...]
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