Automatic thoughts: what are they and how do they control us?

There are thoughts that are totally beyond our control. How can we detect and control them?

Surely the phrase "I feel like I live on autopilot" is familiar to you, either because you heard someone say it or because you repeat it to yourself. In reality, it is a very common habit. Today's lifestyle is fast-paced, monotonous and repetitive, causing most people to notice only a small percentage of all the activities they do on a daily basis. Our brain, and specifically our memory, has a great capacity to register repeated behaviors and can manage to make us need less attention and concentration to perform them.

For example: The first time we drive, our attention is focused on the vehicle, the steering wheel, the gears, the mirrors and the road, but after some time of practice, less concentration is needed, the movements do not require more effort because they are stored in the wonderful memory store. Something similar happens with automatic thoughts.

Habits based on neural connections

As we adopt a habit, our nervous system internalizes it. This type of recordings takes place even at the neuronal level..

When someone pinches us, for example, the neurons immediately communicate and send information from the axon of one to the dendrite of another, producing a connection by synapse, which sends a message of Pain that provokes the reaction to the stimulus, that sensation is immediately recorded and if someone pinches us again with the same intensity it is likely that we will not react in the same way. The perceived information is not new and does not surprise the neurons, it would be necessary to change the stimulus or intensify it to provoke a reaction again.

The same happens with daily life and with the experiences we repeat day after day, where we immerse ourselves in automatic movements and behaviors. automatic movements and behaviors.

Now, these behaviors are not only those that are performed or come from the outside, such as walking, driving a vehicle or receiving a strong stimulus on our skin, but we also have behaviors within us. They are thoughts.

In fact, according to the theories of Cognitive Psychology, a large part of our external actions and emotions depend on our thoughts. And, just like our physical behavior, thoughts also become automatic..

Automatic thoughts

Is the existence of these thoughts really a problem? It is for that person who begins to feel bad in the different areas of his life; personal, work or family and begins to suffer symptoms of sadness, anxiety, worries or any other factor causing physical, social or emotional imbalance also understanding that the individual, in many occasions, does not even know why he feels that way.

The automatic thought is repeated many times and has a great influence on the emotions causing what is called cognitive rumination and usually its content is loaded with a negative perception of the individual. This information lasts only a few seconds but has great power..

Have you ever noticed how any object looks like after a mouse eats it bit by bit? When you notice, there is a big hole! Well, that's how it is mental ruminationIt gradually creates a mark and after so much repetition, a hole begins to form. If you don't catch the "mouse" the situation can get out of hand.

Thoughts as simple as "I am no good" are enough to develop a behavior of avoidance of any activity that is considered useful because an irrational belief has already been created and the memory has registered it so many times that many experiences will activate it.

How to identify and manage them?

There are many techniques to identify and manage automatic thoughts, and whether they work or not will depend on the capabilities of each person, but the first thing that is always recommended is to seek out the most effective way to identify and manage them. but the first thing that is always recommended is to seek help from a professional psychologist.. Going to therapy is a beautiful path that will lead you to question many things and identify the traps you set for yourself.

But beyond these types of services, there are tools that can be practiced at home and are very useful. One of them is self-reporting. This technique is one of the most used in cognitive-behavioral therapy and requires a lot of commitment and discipline. It consists of recording your own behaviors (thoughts) and keeping track of them. Sounds easy, doesn't it? The truth is that it requires a great level of concentration, precisely so that what is automatic, stops being automatic.

As mentioned before, many of the emotions are caused by distorted ideas, for this reason the self-recording consists of identifying the thoughts that cause psychological discomfort, searching in the mind those beliefs that trigger the symptoms. those beliefs that trigger negative symptoms. This is hard and exhausting work, but it works, and when you become aware of these automatic thoughts and their content, you realize how absurd and untrue they can be.

Another way to get rid of some of these cognitive ruminations is to consciously insert positive thoughts that can counteract the negative ones. The difficult thing about this is that saying "nice" things to oneself is overrated, because not having these types of self-affirmations registered in the memory causes difficulties in remembering and thinking about them.

One way to solve this can be seen in W. G. Johnson's (1971) experiment, in which he helped a 17-year-old female student to increase the rate of positive self-affirmations. He instructed her to imagine positive thoughts every time she went to the bathroom. Did it work? It sure did! At the end of this experiment the student had noticeably increased positive thoughts and the negative ones had almost disappeared. The reason for this success? Johnson relied on the principle formulated by David Premack (1959) that dictates that a behavior that has a low probability of occurrence (positive thoughts) can increase if combined with a behavior that has a high probability of occurrence (going to the bathroom).

The human mind is a beautiful, mysteriousIt is a beautiful, mysterious and extremely interesting world, to understand it completely is still far away, but despite this remember, you are not always reacting to the outside world, sometimes, you are the one who creates your own reactions.

Author: David Custodio Hernández, Clinical Psychologist.