OVERCOMING COGNITIVE DISTORTIONS THROUGH YOUR EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONS: Thinking Your Way to Better Living

Your brain is constantly processing information, 

and does so with lightning speed. 

It quickly decides what stimuli to attend to and what to ignore. 

Emotions play a large role in the brain's filtering process. 

How the information is processed will determine the degree to which you 

feel focused, serene, calm, anxious, stressed, and/or discombobulated.

Your executive functions are key to critical reasoning and problem solving. 

Critical reasoning and problem solving are negatively correlated with 

cognitive distortions.  

As one goes up, the other goes down. 

Everybody cognitively distorts!

You can't always think clearly, logically and productively.

But, you can help notice when thinking goes awry.

You can learn to mindfully halt a runaway thought process that is taking 

you down a dark and deep rabbit hole. 

You can learn to leverage your executive functions and mitigate 

cognitive distortions. 

The EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONs

The skills required for achieving success are interconnected, complex and coordinated. Collectively, they  are referred to as executive functioning . They are our control or supervisory center, located within the frontal and prefrontal lobes of our brain. They are our brain's top management team. 

The executive functions include task initiation, attention and focus, planning and organizing, flexibility in thinking, time management, self-control, and working memory. They also include critical reasoning and problem solving, which are relevant to mitigating cognitive distortions. 

Critical Reasoning: Involves the ability to objectively analyze and evaluate information. When critically reasoning, you are independently examining the information or situation, asking questions, and recognizing biases. By following these steps, you can feel confident that you are now ready to solidify your thoughts and/or make an informed decision.  

Problem Solving: Involves the ability to identify, analyze and effectively solve complex or challenging problems. When problem solving, you are conceptualizing the problem, seeking and generating potential solutions, assessing alternatives, and determining the best next action steps. 

Critical thinking and problem solving go hand-in-hand and are more sophisticated functions of the executive processes (or executive functions). 

The most important thing is not to stop questioning. 

Curiosity has its own reason for existing. 

-Albert Einstein

Cognitive distortions, or faulty thinking patterns, interfere with both critical reasoning and problem solving. They include internal mental filters, biases, and assumptions.

By allowing these distortions to run rampant, you increase the risk of  operating from inaccurate and misleading information about yourself, your environment and the individuals with whom you come into contact.  This can give rise to conflicts within yourself and with others. 

There are several types of cognitive distortions. Here are a few:

Jumping to Conclusions

This occurs when assumptions are made, and without solid evidence to support these assumptions, you may find yourself performing such acts as mind reading and fortune telling. For example, when mind reading, you may assume to know another's thoughts or intentions, and without engaging in constructive communication, you could potentially be making erroneous assumptions, leading to misunderstandings and hurt feelings. You may interpret a friend's tardiness in returning your text or phone call as your friend being dismissive or rejecting of you when all along this person was   tied up with commitments and unable to get back to you in a timely manner. 

Fortune telling, or attempting to predict the future, with little evidence to go by, has led many down the neurotic path of worry and anxiety. While jumping to conclusions creates funny sitcom skits, they wreak havoc on real-life relationships and situations. 

All-or-Nothing Thinking

This is also known as POLARIZED thinking. It is thinking in extremes, seeing things as this way OR that, and not as somewhere in between. Depending on perspective and visual angle there are times when both conditions can be correct. A perfect example is when two individuals disagree as to whether the number they are looking at is a 6 or a 9, and the accuracy of the labeling of the number will depend on the angle in which it's being viewed. 

While there are aspects of life that are discrete and distinct, meaning two or more concepts cannot be simultaneously true, much of life does not quite operate in this manner. Another way of looking at this is that much of life operates in the gray area which is appropriate to a discussion about the brain since we often refer to the "thinking part" as gray matter. 

An individual prone to this type of cognitive distortion may view a hiccup in a relationship as the relationship being over. Or, one loses a prominent client at work and believes there's no coming back from this misfortunate occurrence career-wise. Rather than to re-frame these circumstances and providing yourself with a more realistic picture of the events, you are resorting to negative self-talk that in all likelihood will complicate your future. A healthy self-talk would include: Sometimes unfortunate events happen but I can bounce back. I believe in myself!

Catastrophizing

This is also known as making a mountain out of a molehill and occurs when a person fixates on the WORST possible outcome(s). As negative possibilities escalate, fear overtakes and overwhelms the brain and body. What is improbable has unfortunately become all too possible, and  panic rears its ugly head playing the neurotic "What If?" game. As every negative possibility is generated in your mind, creating an endless What if … scenario (that's getting scarier by the second), challenge yourself to reverse the direction of the What if game. Here are the new rules: 

What if everything turns out just fine?

What if this challenge is really not a challenge at all?

What if I am well equipped to handle any curveballs this particular situation may deliver?

What if everything turns out better than I could have hoped for?

What if this is actually the lucky break I've been longing for but it's disguised as a problem? 

What if this situation that I'm concerned about is going to turn out to be the greatest gift I could have received? 

When concerned or worried, remind yourself of statistic's probability theory. Just because something is possible, it does not make it probable.  By accurately identifying and examining your cognitive distortions, you will give yourself the power to reverse or re-THINK them. This is your pathway to peace and emotional freedom. 

I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened. 

-Mark Twain

Minimization

This occurs when burying your head in the sand or believing all is well when the evidence points otherwise. When reframing significant events to lessen their importance, you may find yourself eventually buried under bigger and more formidable challenges down the road. Downplaying a significant situation, event or emotion is a form of denial;  one of the more prominent defense mechanisms. 

A typical scenario in which this shows up is addictions. When told by countless others, perhaps through an intervention, that they believe you have, for example, a drinking problem, a classic minimization response would be to discount the drinking as behavior on your part in which you are "just having a good time" or that others need to "lighten up."  

Personalization

This is also known as being very hard on yourself;  assuming responsibilities for situations and events that were not within your control. This often involves attributing external events or circumstances that have little or nothing to do with you and making them about you, or holding yourself personally responsible.  

Feelings of shame and guilt emerge, believing that somehow you are responsible for negative outcomes or that a difficult situation was somehow related to your incompetence or lack of proper follow-through. The belief is that you could have done more, or done something differently, when all evidence points to circumstances that were outside of your control. 

For example, you are a health professional and one of your patients suffers a negative outcome that was independent of your care and intervention. Personalization would keep you from objectively evaluating this patient's poor prognosis and outcome leading you to believe that you are somehow responsible. This type of thinking will eventually lead to burnout. 

Emotional Reasoning

This is when you believe your feelings are always accurate and that if you're "feeling it," then there must be something to the feeling that is worthy of your full attention and action. Emotional reasoning as a cognitive distortion is prevalent in individuals with anxiety and panic disorders. By being excessively tuned in to your emotions and feelings, you may make assumptions about reality based on feeling "uncomfortable" or "scared," believing that there must be something lurking around that is scary or contributing to the discomfort.

Whereas we do not want to discount feelings because sometimes we know something from a "gut" level that does not register within the more cognitive sphere, we nonetheless do not want "feelings" to dictate life decisions. Don't dismiss your feelings. Examine them. Give them the respect they deserve. And then, decide what you need to do with them. 

Should Statements

These statements often give rise to feelings of anxiety and fear by having you believe you "should" be doing something you're not, or that you should have done something you didn't.  They contribute to feelings of guilt and shame, and ultimately lead to a self-narratives of failure. These thoughts can eventually promote the rise of a depressive disorder, which will then make it more difficult to extricate yourself from them. 

By self-reflecting and self-examining your "should" beliefs, their origins, and   what is attaching you to these heavy suppositions, you will be providing yourself the opportunity to release them, and perhaps granting yourself some much needed peace and grace. Committing to being the best person you can be is not synonymous with living in the space of shoulds. You are human and you will, at times, do things that do not express your very best and somewhere within yourself you will need to come to terms with the fact that that is okay. 

A term and recommendation made popular by psychologist, Albert Ellis, founder of Rational-Emotive Behavior therapy is to stop "should-ing all over yourself." 

INCORPORATE TRANFORMATIONAL LANGUAGE IN YOUR SELF-DIALOGUE

The words you choose to speak with yourself matter. They eventually become the language that shape your thoughts and experiences. 

Use words that empower you; that shift your mindset toward confidence and self-efficacy, and minimize the use of words (that ultimately become your thoughts) that minimize you.

Don't try to rush progress. Each and every step in the right direction will get you one step closer to clarity and truth. Keep examining your thoughts and look for distortions. If you're finding this to be a formidable challenge, then don't hesitate to seek professional guidance. The go-to intervention that may be helpful for you is cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), a form of therapy highly effective at promoting more realistic and balanced thinking. 

Extensions of more traditional CBT include the following therapies: 

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT): Combines CBT techniques with principles of mindfulness. 

Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT): Combines CBT, mindfulness and acceptance-based strategies to increase flexibility (a key executive functioning skill).  

Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT): Combines CBT, mindfulness and breath work and is an off-shoot of Jon Kabat-Zinn's mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) program. 

In summary, problem-solving and critical reasoning are essential executive function skills that empower individuals to challenge cognitive distortions, make informed decisions, solve complex problems, think strategically, and live more peaceful and satisfying lives. Elevate your executive functions to reduce your cognitive distortions.

The information presented in this blog is intended for general knowledge and is not a substitute for medical advice or treatment. As with most things in life, there isn't a magic pill or "cure-all" but there are strategies to help regain control of your life.

If you enjoyed this article and would like to read more, then let's connect:

FACEBOOK: Marie Therese Rogers

 Atlantic Behavioral Health Professionals

 Life in Focus

 LINKEDIN:  Marie T. Rogers, Ph.D. 

 INSTAGRAM: Mariethereserogers

YOU ARE ALSO INVITED TO LISTEN TO THE LIFE IN FOCUS PODCAST ON APPLE AND OTHER STREAMING DEVICES. 

To listen to the accompanying podcast to this article, click here —> Overcoming Cognitive Distortions

                                                            To order on BookBaby, click here

                                                                       To order on Amazon