One of the things which I find hardest with depression is the sheer number of mental knots that my brain manages to tie itself in, and how they can send me into a downward spiral. Small things become big things in my head, a fragment is determined to definitely be part of a terrible whole instead of the more likely neutral, a single phrase from someone is extrapolated into a full conversation of back and forth leading to bad outcomes, etc, etc. These can lead to all kinds of wonderfully stressful situations.

Combating this is a major part of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) – the concept that the way you think affects the way you feel, as much as the other way round. When you identify a negative thought you quickly make notes about the Consequences (how you’re feeling and how you acted), the Activation (what actually kicked it all off), and the Belief (what was your thought about the Activation). You then revisit these and try to look at them from a logical point of view – how you’d advise a friend, what’s more likely, etc, etc. Basically it’s an attempt to kick out of the looping and knots which can happen.

It’s a solid theory, and one I try to put into practise. The problems comes from two points for me. First off, it’s quite difficult to keep the structured forms with you so that you can make the notes at the time. I’ve tried a couple of apps for my phone, and messing about with Google Drive spreadsheets, but nothing’s really satisfied me. That makes it easy to slip out of the habit of noting them down, and once you lose the habit it’s quite difficult to pick back up again. The second problem I have is with my mind tying itself in knots over this. I’ll start thinking about noting down a negative thought, and then start thinking about if this does qualify as a negative thought, or if it’s just normal, and am I making a fuss about nothing, and should I really be even thinking about not writing it down, and what are other people going to think, etc, etc, etc, etc. It’s a bit ironic that an exercise to deal with depression and anxiety can set off a spiral like that.

Over the last couple of days, I’ve been listening to the audiobook version of You Are Not So Smart on Audible.

I didn’t pick this out as a self help book or similar, but more as an interesting pop-psychology book. Figured it would feature things along the lines of the Stanford Prison Experiment or this basketball awareness test (count the number of passes):

Any excuse to share that video. While the book does include things along those lines, it goes further into the way that our brains are a bit broken when it comes to modern life, and the ways that these can affect our perceptions of ourselves and the rest of the world. The way that it’s presented as well makes a major difference. The narration is very dry and calm, and the actual content is rammed full of real world examples. There’s 48 different chapters dealing with ways in which you are not so smart, and you’re likely to find you can relate to at least one of the examples in each of them.

Now, the reason why I’ve found this useful is because of this. A lot of the heuristics and other pitfalls are the very ones which can drive me into the anxiety spiral I mentioned above. Hearing them explained as common brain flaws, the possible origins of them from evolution or societal pressure, and the things to look out for makes them a lot less potent. The book’s here on Amazon.

Other than the Audible and Amazon links, there’s the blog that spawned the book itself, which is here.