Beware of Thought Viruses

Dwelling on the negative, blaming yourself for every misfortune, and endlessly engaging in self-criticism—these are thoughts that can ruin your mood, fuel insecurities, and lower your self-esteem. Sometimes, these thoughts take over like real viruses! But is it possible to cure negative thinking? Here are some recommendations from a psychologist.

How We Interpret Events

Each of us can interpret the same situation in completely different ways. Imagine you wake up in the middle of the night to a loud noise coming from the living room. “Someone must be there,” you think, feeling scared as you reach for your phone. Your heart races, you listen anxiously to the silence, and you struggle to fall back asleep.

Now, consider another scenario: you hear the same noise and wonder what it could be. Then you remember you left a heavy art book on a wobbly stack of books at the edge of the table. “The book must have fallen,” you realize, and you calmly go back to sleep.

In both cases, your attention is on the same sound, but your explanations differ. The first interpretation signals danger, while the second poses no threat. The consequences are also different: panic and insomnia in the first case, restful sleep in the second.

“If your mental images are excessively negative, your thinking may be infected,” warns Norwegian clinical psychologist Hanne Brurson*. There are many examples of such “thought viruses,” and Brurson even gives them names.

• The perfectionism virus tells a woman in a fitting room, “You’re too fat, you need to work out more.”
• The “I’m the center of the universe” virus convinces an employee that everyone is laughing at her when she hears her colleagues laughing nearby. This virus makes us feel like we’re the focus of everyone’s negative attention.
• The mind-reading virus whispers to a teenager, “She thinks you’re a loser,” when a classmate looks at him dismissively. This virus makes us believe others think poorly of us.
• The catastrophe virus warns a young employee, “You’re about to get fired,” after his boss criticizes his project.

There are also viruses of overgeneralization, false feelings, and black-and-white thinking. Whatever you call them, the real question is: how do you resist them?

7 Ways to Resist Thought Viruses

1. Identify and Expose Them

Thoughts you shouldn’t trust can be recognized by these signs:

• They disconnect you from the present. The first sign is worrying about the future or ruminating on the past—or both at once.
• They trigger a physical stress response. You can recognize this by listening to your body: harmful thoughts make your heart race, your breathing irregular, and your muscles tense.
• They undermine your self-esteem. Thought viruses love to remind you of past failures and mistakes, and they eagerly suggest scenarios of future defeat. They even try to convince you that such thinking is helpful—that it prepares you for future problems. This is a misconception. The brain works so that positive thoughts lead to more positive memories, while negative thoughts bring up more negativity. Think about how one problem can trigger a long chain of unpleasant thoughts, especially when you’re trying to fall asleep.

2. Argue Back

Every situation can be interpreted in at least three ways: positively, negatively, or neutrally. Thought viruses always try to convince us that there’s only one—negative—interpretation. For example, if you can’t reach a friend by phone for several days, thought viruses might suggest you’ve bored them or that a careless comment you made has offended them. If you listen to these viruses, you’ll likely feel anxious or hurt.

It’s important to counter them with positive or neutral alternatives. Maybe your friend lost their phone, or they’ll call you back after returning from vacation. Even clearly unpleasant situations (like a towed car, a fine, or illness) can be interpreted in varying degrees of negativity.

3. Simply Accept the Thought

Thought viruses are part of life: they come and go, sometimes there are many, sometimes few, but on their own, they’re harmless. When you encounter them, try not to be afraid or resist—just shrug them off and accept them without fear.

4. Switch Your Focus

If, despite exposing the virus, arguing with it, and accepting it, you still react, try distracting yourself by focusing on practical tasks—cleaning, browsing the internet, cooking dinner, or spending time with your kids. Active engagement will likely pull you away from gloomy thoughts.

5. Take Control of Negative Thoughts

You can learn to switch your attention between thought viruses and healthy thoughts. Why? To break the automatic pattern. Thought viruses thrive when they’ve succeeded before. Start by thinking about something pleasant—your dog, juicy tangerines, someone’s infectious laughter, or the white sand beaches of Pattaya. Then, link this pleasant thought to the active virus: think about what’s worrying you, then switch back to the pleasant thought. Go back and forth. It may be tiring at first, but after a few tries, controlling negative thoughts becomes much easier!

6. Postpone Them

Another technique is postponement. The longer you can put off intrusive thought viruses, the better you’ll get at controlling them. Try setting a specific time to think about negative things—like during your commute or a coffee break. Or choose a specific place for worrying thoughts: a stool in your kitchen, the bathroom, or the bus to work. Until you’re in that place, don’t even think about the thought viruses!

7. Take a Brave Step

Courage is simply “sometimes you have to do what you really don’t want to do.” Why? Because in many cases, “I really don’t want to” is just the result of thought viruses. Test this by taking action: visit someone even if you think you’re not welcome, or take the elevator even if you’re afraid it might fall. Courage will show you how much thought viruses distort reality. They’ll do everything to make you back down, but don’t give in. Thought viruses can only keep up their intensity for about 15 minutes. Eventually, they’ll give up, and you’ll realize there was nothing to fear except a draining—but ultimately harmless—physical reaction.

*Name changed for privacy.