Healthy Thinking Leads to Healthy Emotions & Behaviours

We all hold internal conversations as we go about our day and sometimes they keep us awake at night.  Often though we are not even aware that we are constantly doing this nor realise the impact these thoughts have on how we feel and how we behave. Psychologists call these inner monologues “self-talk,” and recognise that as part of this process you provide opinions and evaluations on what you’re doing as you’re doing it.
The thing is, if our self-talk is uplifting this is self-validating and can help us to be productive in our actions. However if that little voice in your head is saying negative or critical comments, this can be destructive emotionally and counter productive for us. You can think of self-talk as the inner voice equivalent to sports announcers commenting on a player’s successes or failures on the playing field.

Our self-talk can also help explain why two different people react very differently to the same situation. For example if two people finished 49th out of 100 people in a half marathon run, why does one feel elated and signs up straight afterwards for the next upcoming event while the other feels unhappy, dejected and does not sign up for another event. The answer lies in what their self-talk was after interpreting their result.
One might be saying something like “what a loser, you didn’t even make it in the top 50, you should have trained more, if I can’t get in the top 20 I’m obviously no good at running. I might as well as give up”. Buts let’s turn the situation around now, and imagine the scene but instead, the person responds with constructive self-talk. “A lot of people wouldn’t even dream of running a half marathon its great I just completed it.
For the amount of training I did pretty well to be up nearly half way, imagine how I could do in the next event if I did even more training”. In constructive self-talk, you focus on the helpful aspects of a situation and what you are managing well, rather than focus on the negative aspects of a situation or self-criticism.
TOP TIPS FOR HEALTHY THINKING
Start noticing and being aware your self talk. What messages are you giving yourself? When you have a strong negative emotional reaction, ask yourself “What thoughts have been running through my head”
Was that a helpful thought or unhelpful?
“Am I having distorted thinking patterns, eg over generalising about the situation.
Options for minimising or changing unhelpful thoughts to be helpful & constructive.
Say to yourself-“it’s only a thought, ignore that thought”
Distract yourself from negative thoughts by doing something physical like exercise, doing the dishes, talking with others.

Distract yourself mentally by actively thinking about something else (tip it has to be something really specific, like your next shopping list, a great holiday memory etc”)
Challenge the unhelpful thought….is it really true? what are the facts/evidence?, is there another way of looking at it, alternative explanation?, what’s happened in the past?, what would someone positive say about that?
Replace the unhelpful thought with a more helpful balanced thought.