How to stop catastrophising
Why does my brain keep telling me to be scared? 3 simple steps to stop catastrophising.
Don’t be scared of your own future
I don’t like watching horror movies. They trigger primaeval reactions and throw my imagination into negative overdrive. I’m too skilled at turning shadows into monsters, scary ones that freeze my mind and chill my soul to the bones.
Mind you, when the beasty’s finally revealed in all its glory, it’s always an anti-climax. No matter how realistic it is, it doesn’t live up to the nameless terrors I conjure up in my head. And that’s a clue to a neat way to defuse those nightmare scenarios that can plague an anxious mind.
Want to know how to stop catastrophising? Then this is for you.
We humans are good at catastrophising. We take in a set of signals from our environment and project them into the future to guess what might go wrong. It’s likely we evolved this skill to make sure we anticipate danger and deal with it before it kills us.
Your mind wants to make sure you take notice so you stay alive. That’s why anxiety comes ready-made with feelings that’re really hard to ignore. Not only that, they’re deliberately unpleasant to make damn certain you do something about it.
