Have you ever found yourself getting overly worked up or anxious about something before it even happened? Built up a scenario in your mind of what an event will entail—without any real proof of how it will turn out? This is known as a cognitive distortion.
Cognitive distortions are negative thought patterns that warp reality and influence your emotional responses. They might start small but can quickly escalate, leaving you feeling overwhelmed, anxious, or even hopeless. These irrational thoughts are common, but they often lead to unproductive or harmful emotional reactions. Fortunately, recognizing them is the first step toward addressing and overcoming them.
By identifying these distortions—essentially, tricks that our minds are playing on us—we can learn to isolate and overcome cognitive distortions using a tactic known as reframing.
Reframing, or cognitive restructuring, is a proven therapeutic technique that helps us shift our thinking and, ultimately, our emotional responses.
What are cognitive distortions?
Before we dive straight into reframing, let’s determine what, exactly, a cognitive distortion looks like. In simplest terms, cognitive distortions are irrational thought patterns.
Dr. Taylor Chesney, a psychologist in New York City who specializes in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and is the director of the Feeling Good Institute, does a lot of work helping her clients identify and overcome their own personal cognitive distortions.
Dr. Chesney highlights a landmark description of cognitive distortions broken down by Dr. David Burns, in his book Feeling Good. These include:
- All or Nothing thinking: Seeing everything in a strict success/failure binary. For example, declaring that you will never overcome anxiety after one coping technique didn’t work, rather than deciding to try a different one.
- Overgeneralization: Taking one or two coincidences to mean that something is always or never true.
- Mental filter: Fixating exclusively on one incident and ignoring other situations that might contradict it.
- Discounting the positive: Disregarding positive experiences in order to justify harmful patterns.
- Jumping to conclusions: Making assumptions about what will happen or what others will think based on minimal or no evidence.
- Magnification: Inappropriate or inaccurate emphasis on negative and positive behaviors or attributes. This could mean overemphasizing your struggles while minimizing your progress, or minimizing the harm of a behavior while overemphasizing the reasons for engaging in that behavior.
- Emotional reasoning: Coming to untrue or far-fetched conclusions based purely on emotion.
- Should statements: Setting yourself up to fail by idealizing unrealistic standards. For example, “I should always be able to control my anxiety.”
- Labeling: Conflating what someone did with what type of person they are. For example, labeling yourself as a failure because you didn’t meet a goal.
- Personalization/blame: Blaming yourself (or someone else) for an outcome that was not actually your fault or within your control.
“Most people think an upsetting event is what causes your stress or anxiety. Preparing for a talk? Stressful work meeting? Seems pretty straightforward that these anxiety-provoking situations cause your stress, right? Well, it's really not true. What we know is, that it's how you think about it that impacts how you feel!” says Dr. Chesney.
In other words, it’s not the presumably stressful event itself; it’s how we perceive and react to it. And if our automatic reaction is irrational, negative, and ultimately detrimental to our mental health? That, in a nutshell, is a cognitive distortion.
How Cognitive Distortions Impact Everyday Life
Cognitive distortions don’t just show up during major life events like job interviews or first dates. They also play a role in everyday experiences—from dealing with minor frustrations, like running late, to navigating more complex emotional landscapes, like relationships and friendships.
For instance, imagine you’re planning to meet up with a friend, and they cancel at the last minute. Your mind might jump to conclusions like, “They’re avoiding me,” or “I must have done something wrong.” These thoughts, while based on minimal evidence, can spiral into negative emotions like anxiety, frustration, or sadness.
When left unchecked, these distorted thoughts can create unhelpful thoughts and cycles of negativity. What started as a single negative event can snowball, affecting your mood, your relationships, and your overall mental health. The good news? You don’t have to stay trapped in these cycles.
Wondering how to stop cognitive distortions? Cognitive reframing offers a powerful tool to break free.
What is reframing?
"Reframing" is a technique often used in cognitive behavioral therapy that helps to stop cognitive distortions. It is the developed habit of consciously changing how you feel during detrimental moments of cognitive distortions.
“When we have intense, negative emotions – such as depression and anxiety – our thoughts are often overly negative. These negative thoughts can intensify and prolong feelings of depression and anxiety,” says Dr. Bradley Miller, an adult psychiatrist and neuroscientist in New York City who specializes in psychotherapy and medications for individuals with depression and anxiety.
Like a self-fulfilling prophecy, negative thoughts can perpetuate further negativity. But when you reframe the situation, you challenge those distorted thoughts, allowing yourself to cope more effectively and develop healthier emotional responses.
Through cognitive reframing, we can learn to recognize our negative thought spirals and cultivate more realistic and positive thoughts. Over time, this practice can lead to more balanced thinking, reducing the power of cognitive distortions in our lives.
Techniques to Practice Cognitive Reframing
If you’re wondering about the best way to start implementing reframing techniques in your daily life, it begins with awareness.
Here are some helpful techniques that will help you reframe your negative thoughts:
- Ask yourself a series of questions: Start by challenging your automatic thoughts. Ask yourself, “What is the evidence that supports this thought?” and “What’s the evidence against it?” Are there alternative explanations for what’s happening? By answering these questions, you can start to break down biased thoughts and see the situation more clearly.
- Practice mindfulness: Being in the present moment is key to catching cognitive distortions before they spiral out of control. Mindfulness techniques like deep breathing or grounding exercises can help you become more aware of your thoughts and prevent negative thinking from taking over.
- Use a thought record: A thought record is a useful tool to track your automatic thoughts and the emotional responses they trigger. Write down the situation, your thoughts, and the feelings that resulted. Then, review the situation later to see if your initial thoughts were accurate or distorted. This practice can help you identify patterns in your thinking and address them proactively.
- Try visualization techniques: Visualization can be a great way to practice reframing. Imagine yourself in a challenging situation—whether it’s a stressful situation at work or a difficult conversation with a friend—and picture yourself handling it in a calm, constructive way. This practice can help reduce anxiety and prepare you for real-life situations.
How Does Cognitive Reframing Work?
Cognitive reframing involves a few key steps that help you address your distorted thoughts in a more structured way. The first step in cognitive reframing is identifying your own unique cognitive distortions. You then evaluate the evidence of said distortions, and—rather than embracing the negative thoughts—practice compassion towards yourself. Let’s break it down:
1. Practice Noticing Your Cognitive Distortions
Every time you’re experiencing a distortion, point it out to yourself. Dr. Chesney gives a common example: feeling anxious before an exam.
Perhaps you predict you’re going to do poorly on the exam, so you focus on what materials you don’t know. You think everyone else will do better than you. And you start to fill your head with negative self-talk, like “I’m so stupid.”
When you notice yourself thinking something bleakly negative like that, stop the thought mid-flow by verbally saying “Stop!” out loud. This verbal interruption can disrupt the automatic flow of negative thoughts, giving you a moment to reassess your assumptions. From there, see if you can come up with a positive or neutral replacement.
2. Evaluate the Evidence
Making a pros and cons list is a great exercise for all things in life, but try taking it a step further.
When a negative thought enters your mind, make a column of all the evidence that proves that notion, and a column of evidence that doesn’t. Does the thought have sufficient evidence to be true? Or are you making assumptions based on biased thoughts?
For example, back to the exam scenario: Have you studied hard? Reviewed the material in question? Instead of assuming you’re going to fail, be objective about your own dedication and hard work. This type of thought record helps you recognize when you’re giving in to irrational thoughts, such as overgeneralization or emotional reasoning.
3. Practice Compassion
Speaking kindly to yourself seems simple, but making a genuine effort each day to build yourself up with positive self-talk is crucial.
When getting ready for that test, tell yourself: “I’m smart, I’ve worked hard, I’ve studied the material I need to.” Your anxiety levels should start to go down as you reinforce positive thinking and balanced thoughts. Over time, this habit can become a new way you approach anxiety-provoking situations.
“Over time, you develop more realistic and helpful thoughts, and these thoughts help to improve your mood,” says Dr. Miller.
What are the goals of cognitive reframing?
Cognitive reframing has short term and long term goals. In the short term, focusing on daily and balanced and positive thoughts is an incredible way to move your mindset from the negative and ultimately improve the way you think.
In the long term, Dr. Miller suggests repeated practice is the best way to shift your overall mood. “Cognitive reframing can lead to a long term shift in your thinking, and more balanced and positive thinking becomes automatic,” he said.
Regardless of where you are at in your cognitive reframing journey, be gentle with your thoughts. Be mindful that the negative ideas you are having can be reversed – and when possible, practice compassion with yourself.
Not sure how to implement reframing techniques into your everyday life? Working with a therapist who uses CBT in their approach can help you 1) identify negative thought patterns as they arise, 2) learn strategies and techniques to replace them, and 3) eventually empower yourself to overcome negative thinking.
Final Thoughts on Reframing
While self-practice is an excellent start, sometimes it’s helpful to seek guidance from mental health practitioners. These professionals can offer personalized techniques, guide you through difficult moments, and help you explore deeper thought patterns that may be holding you back. If you struggle with more persistent or intense negative thought patterns, working with a therapist trained in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy can provide additional support.
In addition, CBT techniques like reframing are a helpful way to reduce the stigma around mental health conditions. By learning to challenge and replace negative self-talk with more positive thinking, people can feel less shame around their mental health struggles and take proactive steps toward healing.
Remember, reframing is not about denying your feelings or pretending that difficult situations aren’t challenging. It’s about training your mind to see the full picture and consider a new perspective before jumping to conclusions. With practice, you can develop a more flexible, resilient mindset that helps you manage stress, anxiety, and other mental health challenges more effectively.