Everyone feels sad sometimes — and that’s normal. Problems begin when sadness doesn’t go away for two weeks or more. In that case, it’s worth consulting a therapist.
In all other situations, when you feel sad from time to time, you need to let yourself feel it. Don’t suppress your emotions. And to support yourself in such moments, three techniques from Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) can help. They are aimed at understanding the causes of sadness and improving your mood.
Technique 1. Notice Automatic Thoughts
They strongly influence our emotions, but we don’t always pay attention to them. We expect the worst outcome; we exaggerate problems; we focus on the negative and ignore the positive; we think in extremes; we assume how we and others “should” behave; we overgeneralize; we believe that we alone are to blame for everything that happens to us. All these cognitive distortions worsen our mood and interfere with life.
How to Deal With Them
The first step is to learn to notice them. For this, it’s important to know what automatic thoughts can look like. For example: all-or-nothing thinking, overgeneralization, negative filtering, mind reading, personalization.
Once you know what to look for and learn to catch automatic thoughts, you need to check them. You can ask yourself:
- How likely is the outcome that worries me?
- Do I have evidence that this will happen, or is it just a thought?
- Are there other explanations or possible results?
- Is there evidence that supports alternative views of the situation?
- What would I say to a friend if they were thinking the same way I am?
Replace automatic thoughts with more positive or neutral ones. For example, instead of:
“I’ll make a mistake at work, and everyone will see that I’m a failure.”
Think:
“I’ve been doing a good job for a long time, and even one mistake won’t be a disaster. Everyone makes mistakes, and that’s normal.”
Start keeping an automatic thoughts diary where you write down your negative thoughts alongside neutral or positive alternatives. To turn this activity into a daily habit, make it as fun as betting on your favorite sports via 22Bet or playing on your PC. In this case, get a beautiful diary, purchase stickers, and turn on some pleasant music in the background.
And don’t worry if it doesn’t work right away — that’s normal, it takes time. Over time, you’ll learn to track and replace automatic thoughts. The very act of paying attention to yourself, your feelings, and your thoughts will teach you to think more flexibly, better understand yourself, and treat yourself with more care.
What Does an Automatic Thoughts Diary Look Like?
Here’s an example of how a filled-out diary might look:
- What happened: I forgot to complete an important task
- What I felt: Anger, sadness
- Automatic thoughts: “This always happens to me. I can’t do anything right! I can’t be trusted with serious tasks.”
- What confirms them: “This isn’t the first time!”
- What disproves them: “This rarely happens. In fact, I usually complete tasks and assignments well and rarely put them off.”
- Alternative neutral or positive thoughts: “I handle most assignments well. Most of the time I’m a reliable and responsible employee. Everyone forgets something now and then, and that doesn’t make me worthless, stupid, or a bad person.”
- What I feel now: Relief, calmness
Regularly keeping a diary will help you cope with automatic thoughts, and cognitive distortions won’t have such a strong effect on your mood.
Technique 2. When You Feel Both Sad and Anxious
We can’t completely get rid of anxiety, just as we can’t control everything. Anxiety is important — it warns us in the face of real danger. But sometimes it’s unreasonable and excessive. This affects mood and the ability to enjoy life. In such cases, the “worry time” technique helps.
The idea is to set aside a specific time during the day — say 10-15 minutes — just for worrying. It may sound strange, but it works: you learn to experience unpleasant anxiety not throughout the day, but only in the set time. Over time, the anxiety fades and stops interfering with daily tasks.
If you feel overwhelmed with worries during the day, remind yourself that you’ll think about them at the designated time — not right now. And when the time comes — worry.
It’s also helpful to write down your anxious thoughts. This helps you see which problems you can influence and which are outside your control. Try to recognize and accept what you cannot control.
Writing down anxious thoughts also helps you create an action plan. It should be concrete, with answers to questions like:
- What can I do?
- How can I do it?
Physical exercise and meditation can also help with anxiety. They ground you in the present through sensations of your body and breathing.
Technique 3. Self-Support
Self-support and self-help skills help you get through difficult times.
- Remember your strengths and positive qualities. Think about what you’re good at. It doesn’t have to be something big. Maybe you’re great at supporting loved ones, or you cook well, or you do your job reliably. Everyone has their own strengths.
- Recall the challenges you’ve overcome and how you dealt with difficult situations. Think about what that experience gave you, how you evaluate it, and what it says about you.
- Don’t forget about your strengths in other areas of life and consider how you can use them.
- Don’t forget to treat yourself to something pleasant. It could be spending time with friends, painting, reading, walking — anything that brings you joy.
In the End
It’s normal to feel sad from time to time. The important thing is to allow yourself to feel it rather than suppress or deny the emotion. But if sadness becomes frequent or is accompanied by anxiety and other symptoms — use CBT techniques and seek professional help, especially if it lasts more than two weeks.
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