Table of Contents
What are the 4 forms of negative thinking?
According to Mayo Clinic, there are four main ones to be exact: personalizing, filtering, catastrophizing, and polarizing. According to Mayo Clinic, there are four main ones to be exact: personalizing, filtering, catastrophizing, and polarizing. According to Mayo Clinic, there are four main ones to be exact: personalizing, filtering, catastrophizing, and polarizing.
What is the main cause of negative thinking?
Negative thinking has many different causes. Intrusive negative thoughts can be a symptom of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) or another mental health condition. Negative thinking is also symptomatic of depression (Negative Thinking and Depression: How One Fuels the Other). Negative thoughts can also occur because of stress. According to WebMD, people who are stressed experience constant worrying and being pessimistic or only seeing the negative side. Other symptoms of stress include racing thoughts, inability to concentrate, poor judgment, insomnia and headaches. Negative thoughts are cognitive components of negative psychosocial variables such as depressive symptoms, anxiety, loneliness, and hostility. Depressive cognitions, for instance, include thoughts of hopelessness, helplessness, and diminished self-worth. Some reasons for developing a negative mindset can be due to the unpredictability of life. These include illness and disease, past trauma, mental health predispositions to depression or anxiety, and being especially sensitive to the moods and experiences of others. Spiraling negative thoughts can be a result of overthinking. This tends to happen when we have few distractions – which is why lying awake at night churning things over in our mind is a familiar feeling to many. At the time, negative thoughts may seem completely rational and logical. So we believe them to be true. Negative self-talk can have some pretty damaging impacts. Negative-self talk has been found to “feed” anxiety and depression, cause an increase in stress levels while lowering levels of self-esteem. This can lead to decreased motivation as well as greater feelings of helplessness.