Q for Questions

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a short-term skill building process to help change your way of thinking in response to anxiety triggers. Check out my previous post I for Identify Triggers, J for Journal for a bit more on identifying anxiety triggers.

If CBT is something you’re curious about, definitely do some research. There’s a somewhat dated research article discussing effectiveness of CBT here. I previously mentioned that I was a bit skeptical at first. If I’m honest with myself that was because I wasn’t expecting to do “work” or have a workbook to track my thought process. At the core of the work were questions to break down my thoughts. When I catastrophized, I was told to ask questions like

• Who cares?
• What’s the worst than can actually happen?
• So what?

then physically write down a response. The idea was that, in reality, my fears and thoughts were usually much less earth-shattering than I thought. Sometimes they weren’t realistic at all.

In a 2019 Mindful article, author Byron Katie described that diffusing anxiety can come down to answering one question — IS IT TRUE? If you break down how you’re feeling or what your fear is or even a potential catastrophe, is it really true?

I’m always curious to hear about others’ experiences and this time is no different. Let me know what you think about CBT and/or asking questions to change your anxious thought patterns.