Edited by Simon Whitby

Published by Resilience

While stress is often considered as something that happens 'to us' from the outside, our feelings of stress can also be brought about from the inside, by our way of thinking.

To deal with the complexities of human existence, our brains have developed shortcuts to keep us safe and speed-up potentially life-saving decision-making.

One of these shortcuts is the 'negativity bias.' Our brains are evolutionary hard-wired to keep us safe, not to make us happy. Therefore, we are predisposed to constantly scan for potentially threatening situations - or 'negatives' - in our environment.

To remain more vigilant to threats, our evolutionary stress response has developed in a way that justifiably pays more attention to vivid emotional experiences.

In our forest and savannah days, we stayed alive and avoided being eaten by reacting instinctively and with certainty when our threat radar went off.

Logical and rational thinking could wait, as the consequences of being wrong - such as being eaten by a bear - were so drastic.

While we have retained this propensity to scan our environment for the negative, the modern world has developed into a much safer physical environment, posing us fewer life-threatening but instead more abstract threats.

The negativity bias can create habitual patterns of thought called 'thinking traps.'

Thinking traps lead us to draw inaccurate conclusions about what is happening. These beliefs disempower us by leading us to think in ways that are overly pessimistic, and to act in ways that lead us away from meaningful action.

They turn our experience of reality into absolutes by limiting our ability to consider alternative explanations and possibilities.

Here are five of the most common thinking traps that all of us occasionally fall into.

• Emotional reasoning - This is where we mistakenly believe that merely because we felt an emotion, therefore it must be true. For example, when we feel anxious, we assume something terrible must be about to occur.

• Mind reading - This is where we take a limited piece of evidence from someone else's behaviour and make assumptions on what they are thinking. For example, we sometimes feel like someone doesn't like us anymore, simply because they didn't notice us as they walked past one time.

• Catastrophising - This is where we automatically believe that the worst or most emotionally vivid outcome is the most probable, when in reality there are other more likely, but less severe potential outcomes.

• All-or-nothing thinking - This is the tendency to see things in overly emotional or simplistic terms. Instead of considering probabilities and possibilities, our reactions totally become this, or absolutely that. For example, if we don't get perfect

scores on a test or performance review, we think of ourselves as a complete failure, which we apply to other parts of our life.

• Overgeneralisation - This is where a single event becomes the evidence for a never-ending pattern of disappointments and defeats in the future. The classic is the person who says after a breakup: "I'll never find love again," or "this ruins everything."

One common factor linking each of these thinking traps is that we focus more on how a situation feels emotionally instead of thinking rationally about how to take action. People experiencing depression for example employ and believe these thinking traps more regularly than other people.

We can start to overcome the disempowering impact that thinking traps can have

by learning more about them and noticing our thoughts more intentionally.

Start off by noticing if you fall for one type of thinking trap in particular. This is where habits such as journaling and mindfulness can be helpful for observing our thoughts more objectively.

Second, take a less conclusive and more curious attitude to your thoughts. Just use you think something does not mean it is true!

Third, try to restate your thoughts in a more balanced way. Two things can be true at For example, "I currently feel like nobody likes me, but I actually do have plenty of friends. Look at all those birthday messages."

Reflect: When we notice ourselves becoming worried by something, it is important to ask ourselves three questions. What is the worst-case scenario? What is the best-case scenario? And what is the most probable scenario? Thinking through each allows us new perspective and the chance to create a different belief.

Plan: Make time each week this month to keep a thought journal to start noticing and understanding your thinking traps. Look out for phrases in your thinking and writing such as ‘what if’, 'always', 'never', or 'forever' that may indicate a thinking trap at work.

Act: Get in the habit of talking to yourself as you would a good friend when tempted to berate or criticise yourself. Often, we show far less compassion to ourselves than to others.