THIS Mental Habit Fuels Depression - The Cognitive Distortion of Discounting the Positive

Depression isn't just feeling sad, it's actually  not being able to feel much happiness. Good things happen and you feel nothing. Nothing excites you  anymore.

Food doesn't taste good. Someone tells you they love you and you just think, yeah, but  you probably just said that because your family. Like, it's hard to care about anything when you're  depressed.

So where does this come from? Today, you're going to learn about a cognitive distortion  that makes it super hard for you to feel happy and of course, you're going to learn what to do about  it. [Music] Our brains are always interpreting the world around us.

They're trying to make sense  of it all. Sometimes our brain takes shortcuts, especially when we're emotional and researchers  have found that there are some common ways that these thoughts get distorted. Sometimes we jump  to the worst possible conclusion like this mole is cancer and other times we blame ourselves  for things that aren't our fault.

If I hadn't made him mad, he wouldn't have hit me. When we  learn to notice these thoughts, we can replace them with something healthier and this is a core  piece of CBT, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. And it's been shown to be really helpful for people  with depression or anxiety.

And today I'm going to teach you one way to do it on your own. So  let me give you a little example. Let's just say, you love sports.

Let's just say, it happens to be  Argentina's football team and you believe they are the best team in the world. When they win, what do  you say? Well, it's because Messi is amazing.

It's because Ángel Di María is incredible and you have  all of these reasons why they're amazing. But if they lose, I mean, you still believe they're  the best team in the world, so why did they lose? Maybe it's because they didn't get enough  sleep.

Maybe it's because the refs were biased. Maybe it's because the coaching was terrible. You  selectively ignore some things like how old they are or how they played and you selectively focus  on others like Dibu has the best mental game in penalty kicks in the world.

Right? You do all of  this kind of mental gymnastics to maintain your belief that they are the best team in the world.  Now, you're right.

They are the best team in the world but with a lot of other situations we're  wrong. Our brains do this all the time without us noticing and discounting the positive is a  common cognitive distortion where people ignore, dismiss, or explain away all the good things  that happen to them. You'll often hear it called, "Yes, but .

. . .

" reasoning. This isn't a conscious  choice. It's more like a reflex or habit but here is what it looks like.

Someone gives you a  compliment and you brush it off. You say, "Oh! You're just being nice!

" Or you think,  "Oh! They just feel sorry for me! " Or, "I'm just doing my job!

" it looks like discounting the  positive. Yeah! I just got a promotion but someone else probably got the the offer but didn't want  the job.

Or you won the award but you think, oh, that was just a fluke. Or maybe someone says, "Oh!  you're so kind!

" And you discount that by saying, "Oh! Being kind is just something I'm  supposed to do. " Good things happen and your brain finds some way to discount it. 

David Burns, who's like the grandfather of CBT, describes discounting the positive as one of  the most spectacular mental Illusions. You don't just ignore positive experiences. You cleverly and  swiftly turn them into their nightmarish opposite.

I call this reverse alchemy, the medieval  alchemist dreamed of find some method for transmuting the baser medals into gold. If you've  been depressed, you may have developed the talent for doing the exact opposite. You can instantly  transform golden joy into emotional lead.

Okay. Here's a few more ways you you may discount the  positive. Dismissing your wins.

So what do you say to yourself when you live up to one of your  standards or you achieve one of your goals? Oh, sure! I got out of bed.

I took a shower. I got  ready for the day and I went to work but any idiot can do that! It's just I'm just the idiot who it's  harder for.

You might say, "Oh! I'm such a loser! I haven't achieved anything in my life!

" You  might say, "Oh, it's true that I passed the test but it's only because the test was easy. " This is  discounting the positive. Another form of this is downplaying anything nice.

You might think, what  a beautiful sunset and then your automatic thought is it's probably pollution from humans destroying  the earth. Or you think, oh what pretty flowers! Oh, they'll probably be dead in a few weeks when  it gets hotter.

Your brain has this habit of just reversing anything nice. And another way we do  this is we actively push away support system. So like a friend invites you over and you think,  oh, they just feel sorry for me.

I won't be any fun. They have to do that. They're my siblings or  they feel obligated or I'm just a burden.

Another way that we discount the positive is downplaying  accomplishments and focusing on your failures. So let's say you spend hours making the perfect gift  for a family member and they rave over it. But then you point out the flaws and tell them what's  wrong with it.

Oh, it's not as good as it could be. Okay. So where does this come from?

Depression  might have had its root in a tragic event or overwhelming obstacles or trauma. But after that  event has passed, discounting the positive is a mental reflex that keeps fueling depression. It's  the mental habit that keeps you feeling sad even when good things happen.

And this doesn't just  fuel depression it can also fuel phobias like, oh, I don't care about the statistics. Airplanes  aren't really safe. It can fuel body dysmorphia, where you selectively focus on your perceived  flaws and you ignore anything good about your body.

It fuels low self- steam like, oh, I fail  at everything. It fuels relationship problems like you never take out the trash. Right?

You're  selectively discounting the good things that your partner does. It fuels perfectionism, where  you might think, oh, even if I got an A, I'm going to focus on the one problem I missed on  the test. And it also fuels social anxiety.

Yeah, they invited me but they were probably just doing  that to be nice. Okay. So the good news is you can change this.

So hang tight. I'm going to show you  how but first we're going to explore why you keep discounting the positive even when it makes us  so miserable. So why do we do it?

Usually someone who's depressed has been hurt so many times that  it's easier to stop hoping for good things to happen. You might hear them say, "It's better to  expect the worst and be pleasantly surprised than to hope for the best and get disappointed. " But  what happens when you keep expecting the worst?

Confirmation bias means that our brain is going  to look for evidence to prove ourselves right even when it's wrong. So this warps our thoughts and  into downplaying anything good that does happen because feeling happy might set you up to get  disappointed. It's like honestly a really feeble defense mechanism.

Yes, but is like the Trump  card that always wins. It can protect you but it does it by keeping you from ever feeling happy. It  literally prevents the good thoughts and feelings from coming in and it keeps you believing that the  world is worse than ever that you're worthless and that other people are all jerks.

So this is an  attempt to prevent hurt. It's an attempt to numb, to avoid feeling sad and I think it's common among  people who are big feelers, deeply feeling humans. Vincent Van Gogh said, "I don't know if I'm  extremely sensitive or if life is unbearable.

" And I think a lot of people who develop depression  are these beautiful, sensitive souls that feel every emotion so deeply that they subconsciously  start to numb themselves because they don't know what to do with the pain of the world. Better  to expect the worst than to be disappointed, rather aim low and hit it. I'm just going to  expect the worst from my partner and maybe they'll surprise me.

You're trying to protect yourself  from hurt but you're feeling the hurt in the long run because you can't you can't selectively  numb. When you try to numb the pain you mostly just numb the joy. So this is why people can't  feel happy.

They're trying to protect themselves by discounting the positive and that numbs the  joy. When we buy into these protective behaviors, we also create a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you  constantly tell yourself that you're stupid, lazy, or defective; you start to believe it.

You take  less chances. You are less good at learning and working and doing these things. When you believe  the thought that I'm no good they just feel sorry for me, I'm such an idiot, your nervous system  responds with a physical shutdown response.

What you think influences how you feel and act. When  you say this crap to yourself, you create your reality, a reality where you can't accomplish  much. Where you're a bad person living in a bad world and everything feels bad.

Researchers  have also hypothesized that focusing on the negative might have helped our ancestors prepare  for things like famine, plague, or other dangers. And sometimes highlighting the negative is a way  to draw out a compliment from others or to prevent envious attacks or it reduces the expectations of  others. So I'd like you to comment below or write in your therapy notebook, how is discounting the  positive affecting you?

Is it really protecting you? Is it causing you any other problems? Is it  helping in any way?

And does this way of thinking align with your goals? Does it line up with being  the kind of person that you want to be? Let's just imagine for a second, if you could learn to let  the good in, how would your life change?

Okay. So discounting the positive is a really common  cognitive distortion. It's not something you're doing on purpose but if we start to notice it, you  can start to reverse it.

So automatic thoughts pop into our minds all the time but we often don't  really notice them. So we can learn to shift our attention like a spotlight. We can notice  these thoughts and then remind ourselves just because I think something, doesn't mean it's  true.

So let's talk about how we're going to do. What are we going to do about this habit that  keeps us from feeling happy? So the first step is learning to notice that you're doing it.

What I  would recommend is that you start a little mood tracking. So there's an app on here, I like Lotus  bud. It's free and set it to just chime three times a day and then write in your journal whether  it's on your phone or in in your therapy journal, what you're thinking.

And this is going to help  you to start noticing your thoughts instead of believing them. And what we really want to  do is start noticing these thoughts and then separating yourself from them a little bit.  This is called cognitive defusion.

Write down your thoughts and then you might say like, oh,  I'm noticing that I'm discounting the positive again. I don't have to believe this thought or  maybe you'll notice like, oh, I'm having the thought that everything is awful. So if you think  everything is awful cognitive diffusion is saying, I'm having the thought that everything is awful or  if you're like man nobody likes me you could say, "Hello, mind!

Thanks for trying to keep me safe  but I don't have to believe everything you say! " Another thing you could do as you get better at  noticing these thoughts while you're journaling is you could ask yourself what am I ignoring? If I  took off the discounting lenses what would I see?

What evidence is there to your belief that you're  a terrible person and that you never do anything good. Would you say the same thing to a friend.  So this is a skill that you can learn.

We're just going to experiment with something new and  see how this makes you feel. So that's the first step. Noticing your thoughts.

Writing them down  and then just exploring is there something I'm missing here? Okay. The next step is to start a  daily practice, the Three Good Things Exercise and this is a really simple but powerful exercise.

You  write down three good things that you did that day and you do it every single day for at least two  weeks. Studies show that practicing this exercise regularly, even for as little as one to two weeks,  can lead to improvements in mood and well-being that last for six months or more. Now rewiring  your brain like this can be hard especially when it's your defense mechanism.

It's the armor you've  been wearing for so long. So if you're trying these techniques and they don't seem to be working  for you, what I want you to do is just write it down even if you don't believe it yet. Like, you  could just pretend like you're someone that you care for.

You could pretend that you are friends  to yourself and you would write down what you would count as good for that friend. Write them  down even though you don't fully believe them yet. And it's this practice that's going to help you  rewire your brain.

The other activity you can do is gratitude practice. It's a little bit different  from three good things but you write about the things that you're grateful for whether they  have to do with yourself or the things outside of yourself. And this is another powerful exercise  for improving mood and treating depression and anxiety.

It can help you switch from a scarcity  mindset to an abundance mindset. And both of these exercises help rewire the brain to focus  on positive experiences. They create a more optimistic mindset and they'll lay down the wiring  in your brain to start feeling happy again.

Okay. So now we're doing these daily practices. Now,  we're going to start to put into action this like, oh, I'm going to notice the good day to day in  the middle of your day.

So the next time someone compliments you, you have to say, "Thank you! "  You're not allowed to say, "Oh! You're so sweet!

" You're not allowed to deny it or compare. You have  to let yourself be vulnerable and let that good stuff in even if it's just through some cracks in  your armor. So you've got to sit with that warm glow just a little.

Okay. So does the thought of  that make you uncomfortable? Does it make you like squirm a little bit?

Can you sit with the good  feelings like maybe you've gotten really good at sitting with the the pain of depression.  But now I'm asking you, can you get good at feeling a little bit of warmth? A little bit of  joy?

Okay. What if you can't buy this? Again, just pretend that you are someone you care about. 

Like, pretend like your child got this compliment or your friend just got this compliment. How would  you want them to feel? Just play pretend for a minute that you're them and that they let it sink  in.

This is how we develop these skills that like these rusty wires in our brain, we like clean  them up and get them stronger and stuff. Next, when you get positive feedback I want you to save  it, store it, or display it. I keep a collection of notes from my kids in my filing cabinet and  I keep a folder full of thank yous in my Google Drve and when I'm feeling burnt out or when I'm  having a hard day, I open it up and I read through it.

The other thing I would say is like just when  you have success, you've got to emphasize it cuz our brain is naturally so good at emphasizing the  negative that we have to emphasize the positive. So when something good happens to you, I want  you to share it. I want you to celebrate.

I want you to spend time dwelling on it. Here's another  way you can manage this discounting the positive cognitive distortion. Next time you catch yourself  seeing something nice and then downplaying it like, oh, what pretty flowers.

Yeah, but they'll  be dead in two weeks. You could say, "Thank you, negative mind, for trying to protect me but I'm  okay. " And then you just shift your attention back to how beautiful things are.

This is a mindfulness  exercise. Allow yourself to notice the good, emphasize the good, say it out loud. Now, I know  this can be hard but with practice you can learn to defeat the cognitive distortions  that are keeping you miserable.

Okay, so there you have it. Discounting the positive is  a cognitive distortion that keeps you from feeling happy. You can learn to notice that you're doing  it.

Make an intentional practice to allow the good in. You can say it out loud. You can reflect on  it regularly and you can rewire your brain to feel happy again and be healthier.

If you've watched  to the end of this video, I want you to practice right now. I want you to congratulate yourself  for trying to learn a little bit more. Say, "Good job, me!

" Like, pat yourself on the back.  Thank you for watching and take care.