At one time or another, we’ve all been guilty of jumping to the worst possible conclusion.
Imagining the absolute worst outcome to any given situation is known as catastrophising, and it’s a natural reaction to perceived threats. But if it becomes habitual, catastrophising can harm your mental health and even nurture the negative outcomes you’re worried about.
Keep reading for five simple tips for staying calm and taking a much-needed step back.
What is catastrophising?
Worrying helps prepare our minds and bodies for a potential negative situation. If your ancestors hadn’t worried about the likelihood of a failed crop, they wouldn’t have made a contingency, and we wouldn’t be here.
But catastrophising is more than simple worrying.
Over time, a spiral of negativity in which you always anticipate the worst can affect your mental health.
Catastrophising can even become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Your heightened concern about a given outcome – failing a job interview, say – can affect your performance and make your worst-case scenario a reality.
5 tips to help you overcome the urge to catastrophise
1. Practise meditation and mindfulness
Mindfulness is the act of concentrating on the now and being present in the moment. This can be useful for grounding you and providing perspective.
Take a walk in the woods and spend time simply listening to the rustling of leaves and the wind through the trees. Or relax in the bath with soothing music or a good book.
Meditation can also help. You might imagine your concerns as birds on a fence and make peace with each before instructing them to fly away, taking the perceived trouble with them. Or maybe your worries are sticks floating on a river. Watch them pass and don’t try to intervene.
Letting your worries fly or float away can help you to take a step back, which is key to overcoming the tendency to catastrophise.
2. Reassure yourself with probability testing
If you find yourself panicking over a situation or outcome that you’re aware is unlikely, it might pay to take a step back. Try to objectively examine the available outcomes and the likelihood of each.
This is known as probability testing. If you’re catastrophising about a long car journey and the chances of an accident occurring, for example, understanding the statistics around road safety might prove reassuring.
Similarly, to return to the job interview, knowing approximately how many other candidates are in contention for the role might help. If there’s only you and a colleague in the running, the odds are 50-50. This might not be reassuring, but it could help to put your chances into perspective.
The important step is to break free from your automatic first thoughts and take a moment to breathe and process.
3. Add “I am thinking” to your catastrophic thoughts
Rather than catastrophising at the airport and telling yourself that your plane is going to crash, take a step back. Add “I am thinking” to the beginning of your concern, and you’re left with “I am thinking my plane is going to crash”.
This produces a useful feeling of remove and acts as a reality check. It isn’t necessarily true that your plane will crash – it is actually statistically unlikely – but it is true that you are thinking about it.
Try to own that thought without becoming bogged down by the potential outcome expressed by the thought.
Again, the important thing is to stop, take a breath, and break the cycle of negativity with emotional distance and a reality check.
4. Take control of the things you can control
As we’ve seen, a tendency to catastrophise can mean you unrealistically represent likelihoods, focusing on worst-case scenarios. You might also forget the role you play in these outcomes.
Try to focus on the elements of a scenario that are in your control. That might mean getting a good night’s sleep, driving safely, or arriving at an interview fully prepared.
The fear of failure or catastrophe is unlikely to go away entirely. Instead, concentrate on the impact you can have, minimising the unexpected to make it more manageable.
Catastrophising largely comes from uncertainty, so trust in yourself to have the answers to make any given situation more certain, and therefore less scary.
5. If you can’t stop, diarise your worry time
If you’ve tried all of the above techniques but still find it difficult to stop catastrophising, it might be time to embrace it.
But do so only in small doses.
Set aside a few minutes each day or once a week in which you give yourself free rein to catastrophise. Run through all the worst-case scenarios you can think of for the day or week ahead and then file them away.
Once they’re filed, move quickly onto something that will take your mind off the upcoming event or situation and keep the filing cabinet of worries securely locked up.
Get in touch
Please email hello@globeifa.co.uk or call us on 020 8891 0711 to discuss how Globe IFA’s expert financial advisors can help you manage your long-term financial plans.
Please note
This article is for general information only and does not constitute advice. The information is aimed at retail clients only.
