How to stop catastrophizing

Everyone knows what it's like to wake up on the wrong side of the bed. Some days, you might feel like nothing is going your way, and this can impact your mood and motivation. But people who struggle with catastrophizing tend to have an overly negative outlook on life most of the time. Instead of being hopeful about the future, they often expect the worst-case scenario to happen. 

While everyone can occasionally get stuck in a cycle of negativity, frequent catastrophizing can impact your ability to live a full, balanced life. But fortunately, it's something that you can manage with the right support, as Rula explains.

What is catastrophizing?

Catastrophizing is a negative, hypervigilant mental state that can affect how you view yourself, the world around you, and your emotional response to everyday situations. While it can vary from person to person, it typically shows up in three main ways:

1. Helplessness: This is an unfounded belief that bad things will continue to happen to you or the people around you, and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it. 
2. Rumination: This is an overwhelming fixation on your problems or challenges coupled with a limited ability to acknowledge the positive aspects of your life.
3. Magnification: This is a tendency to amplify small problems and constantly worry about something terrible happening in the future. 

For some, it might be easy to brush off this sort of thinking as something that's "just in your head." But research shows that catastrophizing can have a significant impact on a person's well-being. For example, one study found that people who have catastrophic thoughts about pain are more likely to experience severe pain.

How to stop catastrophizing in five steps

Catastrophizing is a distressing experience that can take a toll on your mental health. But you can learn to interrupt your negative thoughts using the following steps.

1. Identify catastrophic thinking. Increasing your self-awareness is an important first step in overcoming catastrophizing. Start to notice when your catastrophic thinking occurs. What makes it worse? What helps you feel more at peace? 
2. Try reality testing. When a catastrophic thought arises, consider whether you have evidence that the negative experience you're envisioning is likely to happen. Try to differentiate what's possible versus what's likely. 
3. Replace negative thoughts. Keep in mind that it may take some time to shift your outlook. But when a negative thought arises, see if you can replace it with a positive, realistic one. For example, if you think "I'll never be any good at this," you can say to yourself "This feels hard now, but with some practice, I know I can improve."
4. Practice self-care. Your physical and mental health are deeply connected. So try to make time for exercise, eat a balanced diet, get adequate rest, and spend time doing activities that reduce stress.
5. Look into cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). This form of therapy can help you identify and replace unwanted thought patterns. CBT can also help address symptoms of mental health concerns that can sometimes accompany catastrophic thinking.

Examples of catastrophizing

Catastrophizing can take many forms, depending on the person. But there are some common examples of the ways it can show up.

• Excessive worry about health symptoms: After waking up with a slight headache, you immediately fear that something is seriously wrong. You start searching the internet for symptoms of brain tumors, cancer, or other life-threatening diseases. 
• Fixation on negative feedback: During your annual performance review at work, you get mostly positive feedback from your boss. But they also mention one area where you could improve and offer some tips to help you get on track. When the meeting is over, you're terrified that you're about to lose your job and you'll soon be in financial ruin.
• Fear about social isolation: The pandemic took a toll on your social network, and you're finding it hard to make new friends. So you make an attempt to reconnect with an acquaintance. When they don't respond to your text right away, you believe it must be because they think you're a loser, and you regret sending the message.
• Distress about routine travel: You have to fly frequently for work, and it causes you extreme distress. Before boarding the plane, you always picture the plane crashing or the pilot losing control. This leads to intense anxiety about a necessary aspect of your job.

Why do people catastrophize?

We don't have a full understanding of what leads people to catastrophize. For some, it could be a coping behavior they learned from their family of origin. Or it could be the result of experiencing a life-changing or traumatic event. For others, it could be related to a mental health condition like an anxiety disorder. 

Catastrophizing may also be the result of a person's unique brain chemistry. Specifically, it may be related to changes in the areas of the brain that control your fight-or-flight response, memory and recall, and complex thinking. Thankfully, there are many treatments that can help you address your catastrophizing, no matter the underlying cause.