How are you?

-How are you?

- Fine!

- How are you really?

- Not great!

We can all be poor at not simply recognising how we feel ‘Self-awareness’, but also at sharing it with others. There is so much unhelpful language used, that can minimise how we feel and reduce the likelihood of sharing it with others.

Personally, I have had a turbulent few months and it has been a useful reminder of how we need to practice out mental health strategies, not when things are difficult, but when things are great……. so that we can access them more easily in tougher times.

This is a useful emotional regulation strategy that I often use with my clients is easy to learn a quick to execute. This practice of cognitive reappraisal (there are several version of this) can actually reduce the stress hormone (Cortisol) levels in the time it takes to complete it! Worth a try!?

1.     What is the actual threat? Pay attention to really understanding this. Perhaps you received a difficult email from a manager. Your brain may quickly jump to conclusions, taking you to ‘Everyone hates me’! Sounds extreme I know but our brains are EXCELLENT at using short cuts (Heuristics) like Catastrophising! So really think out loud about what is the ACTUAL threat and what is your brain telling you about it.

2.     What value am I putting on this? Consider where your brain has taken you as the result of this email. Does this email really mean everyone hates me? Gather further evidence to the contrary can be useful! You can do this by creating a ‘Resilience toolkit’ (blog @ www.naomidebarra.com)

3.     Normalise your response. We are all walking around with these human brains, which can be faulty as a result of the short cuts they take. This means that most if not all of us get anxious and worry.  Whether it’s a sprinkling of imposter syndrome, extreme thinking or catastrophising etc. There are many short cuts that we can make which are biased and not helpful in some circumstances. A great book to find out more about this is ‘Thinking fast and Slow-Daniel Kahneman’.

4.     Consider it from another perspective. Maybe my manager is having a bad day! I could check in on them. Maybe there has been a misunderstanding, I could ask! Again, gather more information.

Cognitive reappraisal strategies like these, help us to utilise more rational parts of our brain, which can help to reduce anxiety.

Give it a go and let me know how you get on contact@naomidebarra.com