How do I stop overthinking? How to deal with catastrophising in 3 steps using CBT

Catastrophising is a very common occurrence for those who overthink and those with anxiety. It is something that can cause someone’s mental health to rapidly decline, as it not only effects their thoughts, but their behaviours, emotions, and cognition. Educating ourselves on this can allow us to identify it in ourselves and others, and therefore can allow us to research into how to stop it before more negative outcomes occur. Here we discuss answers to the question commonly asked: how do I stop overthinking? We will discuss what catastrophising is, how it is described by CBT, and some techniques you can adopt to prevent and treat it.

What is catastrophising in anxiety?

Catastrophising is something that occurs in many people, whereby someone will think of a situation and their mind spirals into negative thoughts and concludes the worst possible outcome is likely to happen. This can be detrimental to someone’s mental health as it can cause people to act in ways to avoid this happening, and that can inadvertently make anxiety and catastrophising worse.

For example, if someone perceives an interaction with a friend as negative (when it was neutral), they may catastrophise and come to the conclusion that that person doesn’t like them. This way of thinking may cause them to avoid that person, which leads to them not hanging out with that group of friends, which leads to them actually becoming isolated. Catastrophising has many negative consequences, such as declining work and school performance, strained relationships, physical symptoms, and of course increase anxiety and depression.

Although everyone can experience catastrophising, there is a strong, researched relationship between catastrophising and anxiety. For example, Hazlett-Stevens and Craske (2004) investigated this relationship through asking people with and without generalised anxiety disorder (GAD) to give threat ratings for six ‘worry topics’. They found that the GAD group rated of achievement, social relations, and economics more threatening. There were also higher levels of ‘negative mood’ in this group in comparison to the non-GAD group.

In the way that we mentioned before, catastrophising can cause a negative cycle of thought. This maintains and actually worsens anxiety. Alongside this, the physical symptoms of anxiety such as sleeplessness, bodily pains and aches, and isolating yourself will decline mental health further. This is why it is so important to identify and treat anxiety and catastrophising, so you can catch yourself before you feel worse.

Understanding catastrophising with CBT

Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) explains anxiety in an intuitive way and provides helpful and research-based solutions for those who are experiencing it. It first starts with the negative thought patterns. This can be interpreting certain events as negative when they weren’t. In anxiety, catastrophising is a very common thought pattern. CBT looks to undo this unhealthy and incorrect thought pattern, so that you do not fall into a cycle of catastrophising when you encounter an ambiguous stimulus.

Having a negative thought of a situation can then cause the person to spiral into thinking the worst possible scenario is happening as a result. This can change they way the act, behave, and feel. This then causes the person to think these thoughts even more. The worst-case scenario they once feared is then viewed to be actually happening, which just causes this cycle to continue again and again. Having this adverse process occur in your head may make you want to be more cautious about other signs of threat, so you may scan for this, making you feel even more anxious.

How do I stop overthinking?

Different techniques will work better for everyone when reaching out to combat overthinking, catastrophising thoughts and anxiety. However, we will give you three tips that are commonly taught in cognitive behavioural therapy that you could use.

• Check the facts. Catastrophising can cause you to think things that are far from the truth and then overthink because it feels so threatening. A way of breaking out of the cycle is to check the facts of what you are catastrophising about, and evaluate the evidence. It is highly likely that the worst-case scenario that you think is the truth, is actually not the case or as likely as your mind perceives it to be. For the example earlier of the evaluation of the person’s friend’s comment leading to the thought that they hate them, we would want to look at the perceived likelihood that this is the case, and the underlying fear, such as "I won't be able to cope" or "I'll be alone forever", and the likelihood that this will come true. This can enable more balanced thoughts: even if the worst case of losing a friend was to come true, it may be more manageable than your anxiety leads you to believe.

  
  

• Limit your scanning. This is a good technique to stop having the negative thought in the first place. Often, people who overthink, catastrophise or have anxiety scan too look for danger or threat which they will later ruminate about. However, if you purposefully and effectively limit the scanning you do, you will no longer find triggers and therefore will have less to catastrophise about. For example, limiting the amount you search for signs or reasons why your friend may have acted in a certain way - this will reduce the amount of 'fuel' you give your anxiety.

  
  

• Relaxed breathing. This is a way that you can practice relaxation when you a feeling anxious. It will bring your attention back to the here and now, and allow your body to relax out of a state of fight or flight, previously induced by the perceived threat. You can do this anywhere, and an easy method is to let all of the air out your lungs and breath in through your nose and out through your mouth. You can count to 5 once you have breathed in if you wish. To read more about this, the NHS have a page describing this in further detail.

  
  

Here we have discussed what overthinking and catastrophising are, their involvement in maintaining and worsening anxiety, and some CBT tips to help you manage it. We also have some other blogs focusing on how to cope with anxiety and other mental health problems, for example Does CBT Therapy Work For Anxiety? and How to overcome perfectionism. We provide specialist psychological therapies for anxiety, overthinking and catastrophising, so do reach out if you think we can support you.

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