Contagious Thoughts

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

How We Interpret Situations Differently

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. “It sounds like someone’s there,” you think, feeling scared as you reach for your phone. Your heart races, you listen anxiously to the silence, and you can’t fall back asleep for a long time.

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 top of an uneven 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 focused on the same thing—the noise from the living room—but you interpret it differently. The first explanation signals danger, while the second poses no threat. The consequences of these thoughts are also different: panic and insomnia in the first case, and a good night’s sleep in the second.

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

• “You’re so overweight, you need to exercise more,” says the perfectionism virus to a girl standing in front of a fitting room mirror.
• “Everyone is laughing at you,” insists the “I’m the center of the universe” virus to an employee who hears her coworkers laughing nearby. Under this virus’s influence, we feel like we’re the focus of everyone’s attention—and that attention is negative.
• “She thinks you’re a loser,” whispers the “mind reading” virus to a teenager who thinks a classmate looked at him dismissively. This virus convinces us that others think poorly of us.
• “You’re about to get fired,” warns the “impending disaster” virus to a young employee whose boss criticized his project.

We’re also often plagued by the generalization virus, the false feeling virus, and the black-and-white thinking virus… You can call them whatever you like, but the real question is: how do you resist them?

7 Ways to Fight Negative Thought Patterns

1. Identify and Expose Them

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

• They disconnect you from the present. The first sign is worrying about the future or dwelling on the past—or both at once.
• They trigger a physical stress response. This is easy to spot if you listen to your body: harmful thoughts make your heart race, your breathing quicken, and your muscles tense up.
• They undermine your self-esteem. Thought viruses love to remind you of past failures and mistakes, and they eagerly offer up scenarios of future defeats. They even try to convince you that this kind of thinking is helpful—that it prepares you for future problems. But that’s a misconception. The way our brain works, if we think about something positive, we gain access to other positive memories. If we focus on the negative, other bad memories easily come to mind. Think about how one unpleasant thought at bedtime can trigger a long chain of negative thinking.

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 possible interpretation—the negative one. For example, imagine you can’t reach a friend by phone. A day or two passes, and they still haven’t called back. The thought viruses suggest you’ve bored them, or that a careless comment you made got back to them and now they don’t want to see you.

If you listen to these viruses, you’ll likely start to feel anxious or hurt. That’s why it’s important to challenge them with positive or neutral alternatives. Maybe your friend lost their phone? Or maybe they’ll call you back as soon as they return from vacation?

Even an obviously unpleasant situation (like your car being towed, getting a ticket, or falling ill) can be interpreted in at least three ways: as somewhat negative, simply negative, or extremely negative.

3. Simply Accept the Thought

Thought viruses are part of life: they come and go, sometimes there are many, sometimes none, but in any case, they’re harmless on their own. 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 even accepting it, you still react to it, try distracting yourself by focusing on something practical—like cleaning your apartment, surfing the internet, making dinner, or spending time with your kids. Active tasks are likely to pull you away from gloomy thoughts.

5. Take Control of Negative Thoughts

You can also learn to switch your attention back and forth between thought viruses and healthy thoughts. Why? To break the automatic pattern. Thought viruses have an easier time poisoning your life if 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. Next, link this pleasant thought to the active virus. Think first about what’s worrying you, then switch to the pleasant thought. Go back and forth. At first, this can be tiring, but after a few tries, it becomes much easier to control negative thoughts!

6. Postpone Them

Another technique is postponement. The longer you can put off intrusive thought viruses, the better you get at controlling them. Try setting aside a specific time to think about negative things—like during your commute or a coffee break. Another option is to choose a specific place for worrying thoughts: a stool in your kitchen, the bathroom, or the bus to work. This means that until you’re in that chosen place, you won’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. You can test this by putting the thought into action. For example, go visit someone even if you think you’re not welcome, or take the elevator even if you’re afraid it might suddenly fall.

Courage will help you see how much thought viruses distort reality. They’ll do everything they can to make you back down. But don’t give in. Thought viruses can keep up the pressure for about 15 minutes, no more. Gradually, they’ll give up, and after withstanding their attack, you’ll realize there was nothing to fear except a draining—but ultimately harmless—physical reaction.

*Name changed for privacy.