Recognize the mental noise that increases your stress

Automatic, negative, distorted thoughts that cause us stress are often known as “mental noise.” Do you know what to do with them?

Our mind constantly performs automatic routine patterns, it is an adaptive function. Thus, it recognizes our usual sleep time and the time at which we usually eat. Also, recognize and internalize our most frequent behaviors. On the other hand, these automatic processes can cause mental noise or “cognitive distortions”, that produce negative effects on our daily activities.

According to cognitive theory, despite what is popularly believed, We should not look for the true causes of stress in external circumstances, but rather it can be generated from these thought distortions.. Below we are going to identify some of them:

Recognize the mental noise that increases your stress

1. Dichotomous thinking

Mental attitudes direct our daily activities, they are part of our personality, and in the long term they determine our success or failure in life. A harmful “mental noise” is usually thinking about everything in terms of “black or white.” That is, not giving space to the grays, to the different tones in things. For example, when we believe that something we planned must be exactly that way or, otherwise, it will be a total failure.

2. Emotional reasoning

Another very common cognitive distortion is “emotional reasoning”. This is thinking that things are bad simply because our emotions tell us so. Reasoning based on emotions can cause us many problems in our lives. Robert Greene, the author of the “48 Laws of Power,” advises us to always seek to observe things as they are. Successful strategic thinking bases its reasoning without any emotion involved. Difficult, right? But that doesn’t make it impossible.

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3. Illogical reasoning

This type of mental argument constantly distorts our perception of what is happening around us. We may have tendency to overgeneralize the bad things that happen to us and think that everything bad has to do with us. Luck, according to the ancient Greeks, was for everyone, without distinction. It is as absurd as thinking that a cloud stops above us so that it rains only on us, just as it happens in cartoons.

4. Hasty conclusions or arbitrary inferences

Another common mental noise is rush to jump to conclusions. That is, when a situation is happening right now and we conclude – with little or no objective data – that it will end badly or will affect us in future events. The best thing we can do to combat this mental noise is to concentrate on analyzing the picture carefully, without ceasing, of course, to always look for a way out so that it does not happen to us.

5. Diffuse perceptions

This type of mental distortion occurs when we see in an exaggerated way what is presented to us. People who tend to maintain a catastrophic view of reality exaggerate the importance of bad or neutral things and how much they really impact our lives.

6. Personalization

We also have an error of perception known as “Personalization”. It means that we feel responsible for all the problems that happen around us. We confuse influence with control. For example, if the economy is bad, we believe that we are also doing something wrong.

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7. Negativism

Finally, Another “popular” mental distortion is seeing everything in a negative way. Whether it is local news or events happening around us, we always take the negative in the news and forget the advantages it could have in our lives.

The role of cognitive distortions as “mental noise”

Cognitive distortions affect our everyday reasoning and decisions. The best way to combat them is by creating a new attitude, for which we can help ourselves by repeating statements contrary to what we are reasoning.. If we hear ourselves making a negative comment, we should think: “However, it could be another way.”. Or, perhaps think: “it probably won’t affect me”and finally: “If I can’t change the world, I’ll have to change myself.”
Tony Robbins recommends doing positivity exercises with a friend: for 10 days don’t make any negative comments about anything or anyone and make a bet with your friend. The first person to make a negative comment must start their count again from day one.

And you, how often do you find yourself thinking negatively? What strategies do you use to fight cognitive distortions?