Consider this scenario:

I am approaching my house, which I believe to be empty. I hear unmistakable noises from inside.

If I conclude that I am interrupting a break-in, I will take precautions. If it turns out to be a surprise party, that’s okay. I may have felt frightened for no reason, but I really haven’t lost much.

If, on the other hand, I conclude that it is likely a surprise party and it is actually a break-in, the consequences are far more severe.

This is the power of negative thinking.

Entertaining the possibility of negative outcomes doesn’t make you a negative person. 

In fact, considering the possibility of negative outcomes is an adaptive and self-protective response. So if you are in a loop of anticipating negative outcomes and then being angry with yourself for that thought pattern, I invite you to extend yourself grace.

If it feels right to you, you can even thank those thoughts for what they are trying to do to take care of you.

But what if you find these thoughts becoming more and more intense? If you are no longer considering the possibility of negative outcomes, but thinking about their probability, or even certainty? 

There are a number of strategies you can use to identify and challenge thoughts that aren’t serving you well.

1) You may find it helpful to increase your awareness of “all-or-nothing” thinking. It is rarely true that nobody cares, nothing will ever change, you always make mistakes, etc.. These kinds of thoughts are cognitive distortions. You can challenge these distortions by asking yourself:

• What is the evidence that supports those thoughts?
• And what is the evidence against those thoughts?
• If a friend told you that they were having those sorts of thoughts, what would you say to them?

2) It can also be helpful to consider reframing. We see ourselves, and our circumstances, differently depending upon how we frame them.

You are likely familiar with the story about the glass being half-full versus the glass being half-empty. Both interpretations of the glass are equally valid and yet they lead to different emotional responses.

Sometimes you can use reframing to put a more positive interpretation on a difficult or negative situation. You don’t want to tell yourself that up is down; positive reframing remains grounded in reality. It must be authentic in order to be effective. And it must be something that you are freely choosing to do for yourself rather than something that someone is trying to foist upon you. 

Being force-fed a toxic positivity reframe is likely to be an invalidating and upsetting experience. 

But when you choose to use reframing, you acknowledge and honor your authentic emotional reactions. You do not discard those reactions when you reframe; you deliberately choose to identify and emphasize other aspects of the situation in order to elicit other emotional reactions.

3) Be intentional in your consumption of media. This applies to both social media and news media. The content with which you engage has a profound effect on what and how you think. Your limits may be around how much time you spend engaging, what time of day you engage, with which sources you engage, etc. You will likely need to experiment to find which limits satisfy your needs for information and connection without being excessively activating.

4) Identify habits of negative self-talk. If you’re having trouble getting started, you can recognize the activities of an overactive inner critic by some of the following signs:

• Using global language (“you always screw up, you never do anything right, etc.). You may recognize this as the “all-or-nothing” cognitive distortion discussed earlier.
• Name-calling (“you’re such a loser”)
• Extreme self-blame over small missteps.

5) Use your awareness of your self-talk to improve perspective-taking and reduce conflict by using the “just like me” technique. To do this, add the words “just like me” to your internal monologue.

You might think: “This person is really getting defensive.”

Then you add: “just like me” so that your new self-statement is “This person is really getting defensive, just like me.” 

“This person really believes that they’re right” becomes “This person really believes that they’re right, just like me.”

Simple? Absolutely.

Easy? No.

But with practice you may find that this deliberate approach to thinking about others improves both your mood and your relationships.

6) Engage in thought-stopping. As the name suggests, this technique involves simply stopping the upsetting thought. It is particularly helpful when you find yourself in a ruminative loop that is difficult or impossible to break.

When you notice the thought returning, say the word “stop” to yourself and pair it with a mental image of a symbol for stop (e.g., stop sign, red light, railroad crossing, etc.). 

It would be wonderful if this worked immediately, but you will usually need to stop the thoughts multiple times before you get good results. 

Conclusion: It’s important to reiterate that negative thoughts are not a negative phenomenon, and that your emotional reactions are genuine and valid. Within that framework, though, there are a number of techniques you can use to reduce distress through noticing and changing your thought patterns.