Know How To Identify Toxic Thoughts

Do you know how to identify toxic thoughts? There are some ideas whose main utility is to make us feel bad. Whether for their content, the way they are raised or their consequences, some ideas are better keep them away from us to continue our daily functioning without any problems.

Know How To Identify Toxic Thoughts-Sexual Health News

However, not only do people with clinically significant problems have toxic thoughts. They also appear in people who have no psychiatric condition. These sometimes interrupt our day to attack our self-concept, our feelings of self-esteem, self-efficacy, or the perception of our own self-worth.

Therefore, and even if they do not create the roughness of our thinking, it is important to know how to identify these ideas to ensure a good performance of our social, psychological, work and family activity. Here are some keys to identify them.

What is a toxic thought?

In psychology, toxic thoughts are recognized as irrational thoughts. In fact, great therapeutic tools, such as cognitive restructuring or rational emotional therapy, deal with irrational thoughts as a way to work with anxiety, depression, or any disorder with cognitive elements - they are practically all.

Treatment of irrational or toxic thoughts is of utmost importance for advancement in medicine and attainment of objectives. Many times this happens, who not only maintain the bars of our cell, but also those who have locked us in it.

Characteristics of toxic thoughts: know to identify
Toxic or irrational thoughts are characterized by a series of aspects that include the opposite in rational and healthy thoughts. To know how to identify them, it is important to put that idea on the table and mark their characteristics. If most of them mention the following, then we are facing irrational thinking.

The intensity of the emotional response

Typically, there is an emotional response from the point of view of irrational thoughts that is very intense. It is not that an idea reminds us of something, removes a certain indifference to the holidays or allows us to have an internal dialogue. They are thoughts that provoke an emotional response that is too intense that can produce very negative results.

Thus, after toxic thoughts, we do not feel afraid, but excessive terror; We do not feel melancholy, but a lush and deep sadness; We do not feel angry, but uncontrolled anger. This does not mean that thought cannot make us feel fear or anger, but the intensity of that response is excessive.

Know How To Identify Toxic Thoughts-Sexual Health News

Toxic thoughts not based on evidence

Another feature of irrational thoughts concerns the veracity of what they say. Thinking of something is not something that can make us very angry or sad, as long as the content of that idea is real.

The memory of the death of a relative, the thought that it is not something we have to do, the recapitalization of mistakes made on a stage ... If those events have already happened and are clear, then we think about toxic thinking Will not talk

However, some of them are not based on evidence, namely, they deal with things that have not been confirmed, which may or may not have been through arbitrary conclusions.

For example, a teenager may have a venomous thought: "I have been the reason for divorcing my parents" and feel guilt that overwhelms him.

As we can see, this view is nothing more than a covalent bias, as its behavior cannot be related to the divorce of its parents, and there is also no evidence that this was the cause. This would be a toxic idea.

Another example can be found in a woman who thinks: "The boss seems annoyed, and it ensures that I am due to the poor presentation I made yesterday." While this may be true, and the boss is not really very proud of his performance, it is a toxic idea because it is not based on evidence either.

The boss may have argued with her partner, slept badly ... However, the thought that this is not being confirmed, without knowing that the woman's mind is causing fear What to do with her if anything happens to her boss.

Absolute approaches: the construction of thought

To identify toxic ideas, one must also look at how, grammatically, they are written. Although this does not seem to be a priority, the major difference between an irrational idea and a rational thought lies in the use of absolutes.

Thus, it is not the same to say: "I always postpone all my exams"; To say: "I postpone this examination." In the first view, venomous, which uses the adverb "always", take the given things, which do not have to be real, just to use that verb.

The boy who has suspended the examination is useless because he always suspends everything, nothing ever happened. This is not true, because suspending one exam or five is not always equivalent to suspending. The use of absolutes makes the presence of that emotional response so intense and negative.

Other examples of absolutism in toxic thoughts are: "I never do something right," "I'll always be sad," "I'll never get a job."

Customization in irrational thoughts

Another feature that can help us identify toxic thoughts is what it does and what it is. Toxic thoughts identify an action, a project, a training, a workday, a conversation… outcomes with self worth.

Thus, if a girl loses a game of tennis, she may think "I am worthless." She is useless to lose a match when she has lost only one match. It has nothing to do with your ability or worth as a person.

In another example, a father might have an argument with his son, and think "I am a bad father." It is not that way because an argument with a son does not prove a man's worth as a father.

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You should in toxic thoughts

Finally, many of the toxic and irrational thoughts we usually have with self-imposed demands are that we feel we need to be happy. This group of ideas is needed.

For example, these words might include: "I have to be happy when I am with my partner", "I must work hard to be happy", "I have everything under control", " I want my children to always be available, etc.

While there are certainly obligations under which you can use ("I must complete this work for Monday as it is the day of delivery"), many of them to achieve happiness and to be happy. What to do? Out of those people, you should do homework because that's how we want it.

Therefore, it is important to distinguish between those who really need to have a clear duty, and those we put on the road in search of happiness. Ideas of verbs "like," "should be," is "," can be a great movement to stop things we don't know if we will be able to accomplish, and that we don't even really have to do.

Conclusions: the Cartesian doubt in toxicity

Toxic thoughts are not just ideas that make us feel bad because they are. In fact, they have a morphology and distinctive characteristics that make it interesting and possible to work with them in medicine. Also, these characteristics can help us differentiate between toxic thoughts and thoughts with common negative emotional accusations, and act accordingly.

One does not have to trust what irrational thoughts he has been told, and even if they come to our head, it is useful to observe them thoroughly - especially in situations of discomfort. - Before believing them and acting accordingly.