When Your Brain Lies to You

“I have the worst luck in the entire world.“

“I just failed that math test. I’m no good at school, and I might as well quit.“

“He’s late. It’s raining. He has hydroplaned and his car is upside down in a ditch.“

Do you engage in this type of thinking? These are thought patterns cause people to view reality in inaccurate — usually negative — ways.

The brain has developed habitual errors in thinking. When you’re experiencing a cognitive distortion, the way you interpret events is usually negatively biased.

Dr Burns says that people develop cognitive distortions as a way of coping with adverse life events. The more prolonged and severe those adverse events are, the more likely it is that one or more cognitive distortions will form. It becomes a trauma response.

In other words, stress could cause people to adapt their thinking in ways that are useful for their immediate survival. But these thoughts aren’t rational or healthy long-term. It becomes a habituated pathway in the brain and now your brain tells lies for you.

Most people experience cognitive distortions from time to time. But when your brain goes there too often and the pattern gets reinforced it can increase anxiety, deepen depression, cause relationship difficulties, along with a host of other complications.

Need to understand more? Join our community class which looks at How your emotions get lost in translation. Your emotions feel something but your brain tells you lies and soon you don’t know what to feel. It starts to spin through every negative possibility. We have 5 tips to put a stop to the spiral.