So, how do you overcome anxiety and depression with logic? Maybe it’s possible. Maybe it’s not. Anxiety and depression are emotional issues. They’re not intellectual, at least to a certain extent. So how do you think yourself out of emotional issues? It’s not as easy as it sounds, even though it is essential component of a lot of treatment approaches. If you think about cognitive behavioral therapy, they show you the cognitive triangle. The cognitive triangle shows a connection between your thoughts, your feelings, and behaviors.
Let’s try to run some logic and see how this works. Using cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT, as an example, they emphasize that dysfunctional thoughts lead to negative feelings. Those negative feelings lead to self-destructive behaviors. More of those bad thoughts lead to more and more destruction. It’s this repetitive cycle. On the flip side, if you have good thoughts, good thoughts lead to good feelings, and they lead to better choices.
When struggling with mental health issues, it is important to change inaccurate thoughts to improve mood and have a better life. But, again, this is kind of a simplistic way to explain it. But it will give us something that we can build on. If we use the same principle of thoughts, connected to feelings, and they can affect how you act, maybe that’ll help us develop some insight.
This is really for you to look at, and maybe it helps you with stuff you’re struggling with. It’s not meant to be a substitute for therapy. The goal is to stop making mental illness seem like something so negative. It’s no different than physical illness. People get sick, and the goal is to get back to health.
Let’s go back to where we started. We want to overcome anxiety and depression with logic. How could we approach it in this way? Part of the brain’s way of processing information is to take facts and integrate them into an outcome. That helps with survival. This is learning and application. I take some facts, integrate existing knowledge, and then I can apply it to other things.
For example, if I touch something hot, like a stove, without protection, I get burned. Then I learn, “Wow, okay, that wasn’t very smart. If I do that again, I’ll probably experience physical pain. Don’t do it again.”
Let’s look at the logic that I’m referring to. It’s called inductive reasoning. Inductive reasoning may sound complex, but it’s really pretty simple. You guys can Google this. I’m not coming up with something miraculous. It’s something that you can go look up. Essentially, inductive reasoning is using facts to come to a conclusion. However, there is a problem with inductive reasoning because it doesn’t mean that the conclusion is correct.
We’ll take facts, and we’ll come to a conclusion about something. The problem is sometimes we might be right and sometimes we could be way off. My concern is that this happens a lot. Unknowingly, we do this type of stuff, and come to conclusions that we believe to be true. They become the foundation for anxiety and depression or poor thoughts about ourselves or our situations. It becomes pretty detrimental.
Do an internet search about this if you want. I did an internet search and I just grabbed a couple things on inductive reasoning to get examples. Here’s an example.
Let’s say I have a bag of coins and I pull a penny out of the bag. I’m like, “Oh, I pulled a penny out. Therefore, all the coins in the bag must be pennies.” Well, that could be true. It could also not be true. But that’s an example of inductive reasoning.
Now here’s another one. I know this guy, Harold, and he’s a grandfather, which is true. Harold is also bald, which is true. Then I come to the conclusion, “Oh, therefore, all grandfathers are bald,” which is definitely not true. So it is logic. I mean, if you follow it, there’s two truths, Harold is a grandfather and Harold is bald. Then I went and applied it to something, that all grandfathers are bald, which is not true. Unfortunately, the flawed logic we use unknowingly starts to guide our beliefs in certain things. That increases anxiety and depression.
So here’s what I want to give you to think about. Let’s take kids who are in school. Maybe they walk into the classroom and everybody is laughing. We could look at the idea that people laugh at others when they don’t like them. That may be true. That may not be true. Then, I can draw a conclusion. People think I’m stupid and don’t like me. Totally not true.
Let’s redo this example again. I’m in school. I walk into the classroom, and everybody’s laughing, true. On the whole, I’m around kids, kids can be cruel sometimes, kids laugh at others when they don’t like them. That may be true; it may not be true, but I’m putting it in the true pile. And then I think people, meaning all the people in this classroom, think I’m stupid and don’t like me, not true.
What if I held onto the belief that all those people think I’m stupid and I derive that from the information that occurred, just randomly, when I was walking into the classroom? The point of that example is to show how we can develop these thoughts, at a young age, about ourselves, that are totally untrue. But we may hold them to be true, and they can impact our mood or anxiety around other people.
I’m going to give you another one. This can be fairly common in relationships, unfortunately. Let’s just say my significant other has only dated individuals with blonde hair. That could be true. I have brown hair, therefore, she doesn’t find me physically attractive. Well, that could be true or maybe not true. But, I’m now drawing a conclusion on whether or not I’m attractive.
I could look at, well, my spouse has only dated blondes, and I have dark hair. She thinks blondes are attractive, not people with dark hair. Therefore, I have dark hair, I’m not attractive. That could fall into my self-esteem or other things I believe about myself.
Again, a simplistic example. I’m trying to make the bigger point. We can take information from our environment, and apply inductive reasoning, which may or may not be accurate even though there’s facts to it. Then we start to believe things about ourselves that may not be true. Those beliefs can start to lead to anxiety and depression.
With that last example, I was only using one characteristic that’s defining attractiveness. I’m also discounting all of the things that create a relationship. I was not considering that if the relationship ended, it could have ended for a specific reason. As opposed to having anything to do with the color of my hair.
When you look at negative beliefs, they can lead to arguments. They can be taken further, like in thoughts that “I’m not lovable,” “I can’t ever find a good relationship,” “I’m not smart.” It could go as far as “I’m stupid, I’m damaged, I’ll never find happiness.” Can you see how this works and understand how it can lead people down to a very difficult path of emotional distress and dysfunction?
The key part is for us to look at what we can learn. Emotional health is the development of insight. I think I’ve talked about that in another video, really about awareness and emotional maturity. With insight, I can understand why things happen and I can find a solution to them.
What I’m asking you guys to do is take a look at some of this stuff. In your daily life, what is your self-talk is like and how you see yourself? Make sure that you’re not using flawed logic in determining the core beliefs about yourself or anything else that aren’t accurate.
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