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 [...]
Let’s say you’re trying to lose weight.
Its after dinner. You’re not exactly hungry but you really want some ice cream. You know you have some ice cream in the fridge and the urge to eat it is very strong.
My advice of what to do in these circumstances is to “urge surf”.
Ask yourself how strong [...]
When people start Cognitive Behavioural Therapy treatment for depression, low self esteem, or stress, they often start to feel better within the first few sessions. (It’s been widely shown in research studies that many people experience rapid improvement in their problems and feelings when they start CBT).
While people are experiencing this general improvement they usually [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
This is a Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) activity that might be useful for people to do as a self help activity.
It’s usually used as part of depression treatment but is potentially useful for anyone who wants to better understand their moods.
The activity involves doing ratings once an hour (which can be inconvenient but will [...]
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 [...]
Fitness Life Magazine have provided a free copy of the feature article I wrote for their July issue for aliceboyes.com readers.
You can read the full article here – It’s the Thought that Counts: Psychological Tips For Dieting Success. (To download a copy, Right click on link and select “Save link as” and the file will [...]
Continuing the pie chart theme from my last post, this post is about a different type of pie chart that’s commonly used as part of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) for Eating Disorders. Although its mostly used in eating disorders treatment it’s useful for anyone, especially people with low self esteem.
In eating disorder treatment, clients are [...]
Difficulties with time use are common in people with high anxiety/worry, because anxiety and worry suck up a lot of time and energy. This basic activity is often useful for people with high anxiety or who just want to get some perspective about what they spend their time doing.
Daily Time Use
The activity will only take [...]
