Get the Support You Need

Learn from thousands of users who have made their way through our courses. Need help getting started? Watch this short video.

today's top discussions:

logo

Smile....and don't shoot the messenger

Timbo637

2024-09-27 3:17 PM

Quit Smoking Community

logo

Site seems a little faster

Timbo637

2024-09-05 4:43 PM

Quit Smoking Community

logo

What are negative core beliefs?

Ashley -> Health Educator

2024-07-17 7:35 PM

Depression Community

logo

Creating a stress plan

Ashley -> Health Educator

2024-07-08 4:16 PM

Anxiety Community

This Month’s Leaders:

Most Supportive

Most Loved

Browse through 411.765 posts in 47.065 threads.

161,133 Members

Please welcome our newest members: istruggle4life, schcgtest1, FeelingD0wn, monopolygou4gm, qazxsw1

Challenge worry with thought stopping


10 months ago +2 11226 logo logo logo logo logo logo logo logo logo logo 2

Hi everyone,

There are a number of CBT techniques that are commonly used to help people challenge worry including: thought records, thought stopping, worry time, challenging the value of worry, problem solving, experiments to increase intolerance of uncertainty and cognitive exposure. Let’s take a look at them one at a time:

Thought Stopping: Thought stopping is a technique that can be used to stop worry when it occurs. 

For example, many people who work Monday to Friday start to worry about work (and all of their other problems) on…Sunday night. One worry seems to spiral out of control into worrying about everything. At such a time worrying typically doesn’t help people solve any problems. It just leads to a bad night’s sleep. At times when your worry seems like it is spinning out of control, you can try to use thought stopping to shock yourself out of the process. The basic idea is to startle yourself, so that you get out of the “worry loop” in your head. There are many different ways t do it but the basic idea is to imagine a big “Stop” sign in your mind and yell “Stop!” three times (If it is late at night or there are other people around, you may need to yell into your pillow or just imagine yelling the word). Believe it or not, some people this technique to be extremely helpful. Don’t knock it until you try it.

Please share your experiences with worrying.

Ashley


Reading this thread: