“There were many terrible things in my life and most of them never happened.” — Michael Montaigne
“Everything is ruined:” Catastrophizing is the tendency to jump to negative conclusions and assume a bad outcome.
My patient, Juliet, was a hard-wired catastrophizer. Whenever she encountered an ambiguous or challenging situation, she assumed the worst. If an old friend didn’t wave hello across a crowded room, she assumed the person no longer liked her. If her mother didn’t return her call within 20 minutes, she worried about a medical emergency. If her boss scheduled a meeting with her, she was convinced she was being fired. When her dog wandered into the neighbor’s yard and didn’t immediately come when she called, she worried he had been hit by a car.
Image: theAwkwardYeti.com
Here is why it’s bad for you: Negative Spiraling
When we catastrophize, we fixate on the worst possible outcome and treat it as likely, even when it is not. Overestimating the probability of a negative situation fuels irrational worry and turns a minor setback into a definitive dead-end. The result is hopelessness, frustration, and avoidance. The ultimate result of catastrophizing is missing out on opportunities and experiences that bring us joy and meaning.
Here is what you can do about it: Find Middle Ground
To counteract this doomsday mindset, Martin Seligman, the founder of Positive Psychology, suggests a simple exercise called “Put it in Perspective.”As soon as negative spiraling kicks in:
Step 1: Play out the worst-case scenario
Step 2: Play out the best-case scenario
Step 3: Consider what’s most likely to happen
Between the two extremes, you’re more likely to find the most realistic outcome.
As this exercise helps us understand, it is not the incident itself but the negative interpretation of the incident that leads to catastrophic thinking and the subsequent snowballing of negative emotions. The key is to un-twist these cognitive distortions and recognize that the mountain we face may in fact be a molehill or at least more of a Mount Pleasant than Mount Everest.
This isn’t toxic positivity. It’s deliberate optimism.
“We tell ourselves stories in order to live.” Joan Didion
We are story-telling creatures. They help us make sense of the world and our place in it. The story we tell about ourselves—our narrative identity—is especially powerful. In fact, there is evidence that it shapes our wellbeing and deeply impacts our mental health. As a recent article by David Robson in New Scientist points out:
“The narratives we tell about our lives can powerfully shape our resilience to stress. People who generate tales of struggle and redemption from their own lives appear to have much better mental health. You could describe this as the flawed hero effect.”
People who recognize their triumphs and challenges and who are able to weave them into a coherent detailed narrative tend to have a stronger sense of identity and report greater meaning, life satisfaction, and purpose than those who are vague disjointed storytellers.
According to psychologist Dan McAdams of Northwestern University, two narrative themes emerge as key predictors of mental health:
Agency: When we tell our story, we describe having some control over past events and recognize our role in shaping the outcome.
Redemption: When we recount challenging times, we are able to find some kind of positive meaning or personal growth.
There is evidence that people can be taught to tell better stories about themselves and to incorporate these two themes into their life narrative. In a study, one group was asked to give a factual description of a house they once lived in, another group was asked to express their deepest thoughts and feelings, and a third group was asked to write a detailed description of an event and to paint a picture for the reader of how it unfolded. One month later, the latter group—the storytellers—reported greater mental health gains and lower levels of perceived stress.
Related research from Northwestern University shows how writing a personal narrative that emphasizes competence boosts persistence. High school students were asked to write about a time they failed and a time they succeeded. Half of them were given extra instructions to describe the way they had made their success a reality (encouraging reflection on agency) and how the failure had changed them for the better (encouraging reflection on redemption). Eight weeks later, members of this group reported greater persistence in their schoolwork and had better grades.
As I read these studies, I couldn’t help but think about how we are telling the story of COVID-19. Are we promoting narratives that emphasize trauma or growth? Recognizing what we have learned alongside how much we have lost is worthwhile. Focusing exclusively on damage locks us in the past and all too often dooms the future. Without being Pollyanna-ish about hard times,it is possible to gain strength and insight from them.
How we think, talk, and write about major events in our lives has important implications. To quote John Cunningham, “we become the stories we tell ourselves.” We also become the stories our parents tell us.
There is evidence that children who know a great deal about their family history have a stronger sense of control over their lives and have higher self-worth. Seeing themselves as a part of a chapter in a larger family history and understanding the ups and downs of the family narrative generates confidence and keeps challenges in perspective.
As Bruce Feiler wrote in The New York Times, “If you want a happier family, create, refine and retell the story of your family’s positive moments and your ability to bounce back from the difficult ones. That act alone may increase the odds that your family will thrive for many generations to come.” Whether reflecting on your own or talking to your children, recognize the role you played in your success and how you have learned from your challenges. No need to be the hero. Being a flawed hero is good enough.
Bottom Line: Shifting the way you think, talk, and write about major life events can influence your life moving forward.
So the Word of the Year is goblin mode. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the selection is “a word or expression reflecting the ethos, mood, or preoccupations of the past twelve months, one that has potential as a term of lasting cultural significance.” Yikes. Lasting cultural significance. Goblin mode is here to stay.
Goblin mode is defined as “a type of behavior which is unapologetically self-indulgent, lazy, slovenly, or greedy, typically in a way that rejects social norms or expectations.” Here is how to use it in a sentence (and in life):
“Goblin mode is like when you wake up at 2am and shuffle into the kitchen wearing nothing but a long T-shirt to make a weird snack, like melted cheese on saltines. It’s about a complete lack of aesthetic. Because why would a goblin care what they look like? Why would a goblin care about presentation?”
In a nutshell, goblin mode is letting it all hang out. It’s the opposite of immaculate self-presentation, perfectionism, and self-improvement. In many ways, goblin mode is exactly what we all need sometimes. While “self-indulgent, lazy, slovenly, or greedy” may not be a state of being to aspire to, that is precisely the point. I think of goblin mode as the antidote for the exhausting and relentless messaging of the self-help industrial complex that is constantly telling us that we are not good enough. “Ugly coping” — a close friend of goblin mode — may not boost your productivity but it may be the boost you need.
According to Twitter, when people say “goblin mode” this is what they mean:
Sometimes it’s okay to embrace our inner feral cat. Rather than something to be avoided, lean into goblin mode when necessary. Think of it as a superpower that can help recharge and revitalize you. Remember, it’s a mode and not a permanent state. As explained in The Guardian, it’s not a fixed identity but a frame of mind.
I am not a huge fan of New Year’s resolutions but for those intent on making one, instead of making a radical change or setting an ambitious goal, consider making a few simple changes that enhance rather than punish:
Spend more time with family and friends
Mobilize your strengths and values
Be kinder
Whatever you do, go easy on yourself if you’re having trouble sticking to it. Setbacks are part of the process. New Year’s isn’t the only time to initiate a change.
Bottom Line: If goblin mode is what you need on occasion, so be it. It may be just what the doctor ordered.
My parents used to have a pillow with the inscription, “All our guests bring happiness. Some by coming, others by going.” Benjamin Franklin put it more bluntly. “Guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days,” he famously observed. Having people to stay can be a lot of fun. It can also be exhausting. Feeding and entertaining guests coupled with sharing space and disrupted routines takes a toll. Not getting enough rest is a major contributor to host and houseguest stress.
A survey of 2000 people found that both guests and hosts lose sleep. The researchers found that hosts lose as much as two and a half hours of sleep per night preparing for the arrival of their guests and guests tend to lose sleep too. Noise, sleeping in an unfamiliar bed, and trying to match their sleep schedule make it hard to get a good night’s sleep. Regardless of whether they are hosts or guests, more than a third of those surveyed said that the holidays are the most sleepless time of the year.
For anyone who is worried about overstaying their welcome, the survey found that almost 50 percent of people think that spending four days or more is too long. Alas, perhaps Benjamin Franklin was right with the fish metaphor. The good news is that most guests seem to abide by this unspoken rule. Seventy-nine percent say their guests stayed four nights or less.
For the record, I love having houseguests and am delighted when they spend more than four days. Maybe it’s because I only invite people who follow these three rules:
“I feel like I have too many tabs open in my brain,” explained my friend. I can totally relate. At the end of the day, my brain often hurts. I am overwhelmed by the relentless stream of information that begins the moment I look at my phone in the morning until I put it away before going to bed. Some of it is worth attending to — an email about a deadline, a text from my mother, a new study about the psychological effects of morning coffee, an update from a patient, or an article about the war in Ukraine.
But the lion’s share of notifications and announcements don’t deserve a moment of attention … but get it anyway. I sit down to work but instead click on a “breaking news” story with the irresistible title DNA match reunites missing daughter with her family 51 years after she was kidnapped, family says.As the old saying goes, inquiring minds want to know. I read the story and then another about a case of chickenpox that turned out to be Ebola and then another about a one-eyed three-legged cat. Twenty minutes later, I’m still scrolling.
I like to think of myself as someone who has a reasonable amount of self-control but as the day wears on, clickbait often gets the better of me. It’s downright hard not to tumble down the rabbit hole of mind-numbing but curiosity-peaking titles like:
She dragged her plate across the pool. What happened next blew my mind
When you read these 19 shocking food facts, you’ll never want to eat again
He thought it was Bigfoot’s skull, but then experts told him THIS
A new research paper published in Current Directions in Psychological Science offers some hope to help counteract the challenges of attention-grabbing online traps that are not only low-quality but also often full of misinformation. The authors argue that critical ignoring — deliberately and strategically choosing what to disregard and where to invest one’s limited attentional capacities — is an essential life skill for citizens of the digital world. In addition to keeping us informed, critical ignoring can also help us stay sane.
When it comes to recognizing and resisting online manipulation, critical thinking is the skill that typically comes to mind. Defined as “thinking that is purposeful, reasoned, and goal-directed,” critical thinking enables us to search for knowledge by examining it closely and considering it from multiple angles. But when the world comes to us filtered through digital devices, there is no longer a need to decide which information to seek. It’s coming at us whether we like it or not. Spending time and energy considering material that should have been ignored in the first place wastes our time and hijacks valuable cognitive resources. Instead of focusing on critical thinking to protect us, focus on critical ignoring:
Teaching the competence of critical ignoring requires a paradigm shift in educators’ thinking, from a sole focus on the power and promise of paying close attention to an additional emphasis on the power of ignoring. Encouraging students and other online users to embrace critical ignoring can empower them to shield themselves from the excesses, traps, and information disorders of today’s attention economy.
From early on, we are told to pay attention. Learning what to ignore is just as valuable. Here are three tools to help you develop the skills of critical ignoring:
Source: Current Directions in Psychological Science
1. Self-nudging
Low-quality information is “as tempting to the attentional system as junk food is to the taste buds.” The key to limiting these temptations is not motivation or willpower, rather, it entails selecting situations that optimize healthy choices. For instance, if you want to eat fewer M&Ms and more carrots, put the candy in a hard-to-reach place and put the healthy snack on the counter. Similarly, if you want to manage your information diet, set time limits on the use of social media, remove notifications, and consider deactivating the most distracting social media apps. The goal of self-nudging is to take control of your information environment.
2. Lateral Reading
In a digital environment, looks can be deceiving. Slick logos and sophisticated looking websites that appear trustworthy may be anything but. No matter how much critical thinking we deploy, it is not always easy to discern the validity of an article. Reflecting on the content of a questionable source is a waste of time. According to professional fact-checkers, the best strategy for deciding whether or not to believe a source is to engage in lateral reading. Lateral reading entails looking up the author or organization and the claims elsewhere. Instead of dwelling on an unfamiliar site, open new “lateral” tabs to search about the organization or individual behind it. If they sound suspicious, ignore their site and its content.
3. Adopt A Do-Not-Feed-The-Trolls Code of Conduct
An entirely new vocabulary has been invented to describe online harassment and disinformation tactics such as:
Flooding – inundating online spaces with a torrent of messages to dominate and disrupt conversation and drown out dissenting voices.
Trolling – a form of online harassment that involves posting provocative and inflammatory messages in order to disrupt the conversation and upset other people.
JAQing – (‘just asking questions’) is a tactic of disingenuously framing false or misleading statements as questions.
Sealioning – a type of trolling and a harassment tactic of pestering participants in online discussions with disingenuous questions and incessant requests for evidence under the guise of sincerity. There is nothing cute about these sea lions.
The most productive response to these taunting tactics is to ignore them. Resisting engaging with these individuals or their claims diminishes their power. Not feeding the trolls involves two key rules:
First, do not respond directly to trolls; do not correct them, engage in debate, retaliate, or troll in response.
Second, instead, block trolls and report them to the platform. Withdrawing the negative engagement they seek lessens their impact and erodes their motivation to engage in anti-social behavior.
Bottom Line: Separate the news from the noise. Learning the skill of critical ignoring willallow you to thoughtfully and deliberately allocate your attentional resources and disregard the rest.
As William James observed, “The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.”
‘Tis the season to be merry. For many, ’tis also the season for contentious dinner table conversations. If heated debates about politics, vaccine mandates or any other contentious topics are inevitable with friends and family this holiday season, beware of “persuasion fatigue.” Persuasion fatigue sets in when we attempt to convince someone about something but hit a wall instead. No matter how much logic we deploy, how many facts we cite, or how many examples we use, our audience doesn’t budge. Instead of nodding in agreement, they stare back blankly or, worse, repeat their own position and reject our flawless argument. “What’s wrong with you?” we think to ourselves and sometimes cannot resist saying out loud.
It’s not me, it’s you
According to a recent article by Nathan Ballantyne, associate professor of philosophy, cognition and culture at Arizona State University, in Scientific American, persuasion fatigue is a unique form of social frustration that can cloud our judgment and harm our relationships. When we become frustrated, we tend to blame our conversational opponent rather than acknowledge our own limitations. As Mark Twain once said, “In all matters of opinion, our adversaries are insane.” The author’s research supports Twain’s observation. He found that people generally reported three times as many reasons why others’ shortcomings led to failed debates rather than their own. Exasperation undermines perspective-taking and unlocks finger-pointing. It makes us super-sensitive to criticism and quick to anger. Over-confidence coupled with contempt is not going to win anyone over, nor is it good for our social connections.
Thankfully there are steps you can take to stop persuasion fatigue from derailing your debates and ruining your relationships:
1. Go for small wins
Don’t be overly ambitious in debate. Rather than seeking unconditional agreement with your opinion, aim for islands of understanding. Seeing eye to eye on major issues is unlikely but it might be possible to find points of consensus. As the author suggests, “Maybe you can’t convince your in-laws to get vaccinated today, but helping them understand the science behind modern vaccine programs may make them more inclined to get the shot in the future.”
2. Consider their values
When making an argument, put yourself in the other person’s shoes. What do they care about? Wrapping your message in terms of their values is far more persuasive than trying to bang them over the head with your morality. Psychologists call this “moral reframing” and have found that the simple act of telling your debate opponent that you respect and understand where they’re coming from may lower their defenses and open them up to a new perspective.
3. Avoid zero-sum thinking
Believing that the only way for you to win is for them to lose will exacerbate persuasion fatigue. As the author points out, “sometimes you’re better off seeing an argument as a collaborative effort to find the truth—less like angry neighbors fighting over their property line and more like a pair of land surveyors. The surveyors map terrain together by viewing it from multiple angles.” Search for middle ground. Keep in mind that everyone knows something you don’t. Ask yourself a humbling question: “Do I know all there is to know here, or could the other person show me something new?”
Bottom Line: If you sense persuasion fatigue kicking in, take a break. Change the topic. There are so many other things to talk about.
