Doom and Gloom Thinking

<p><b>Doom and Gloom Thinking</b></p> <p>Expecting the worst to happen in any situation can harm your mental health. How do we stop this unhealthy thinking</p> <p>Imagine you’ve applied for a dream appointment and have now been nominated for the second round of interviews. Do you celebrate your progress and start preparing for the new challenge? Or do you immediately start imagining a rejection, agonising over what it will do to your self-esteem? “If I bomb this, I’m a total loser,” you tell yourself. </p> <p>Or perhaps you’re waiting for a reply to a message to a buddy. When you don’t receive an immediate response, you start imagining how you might have offended the person – without even considering the possibility that they are just occupied with some other task. </p> <p>Maybe it’s global events that concern you. You spend hours every night ruminating on the threat of nuclear war, the emergence of another deadly virus or the likelihood of an economic recession. The devastation it could cause for you and your loved ones keeps playing out in your mind’s eye. </p> <p>If any of these situations feel familiar, you might be susceptible to catastrophising: a cognitive pattern in which you overestimate the chances of something terrible happening and exaggerate the potential negative consequences of that scenario. </p> <p>“It’s a negatively skewed way of thinking, which elevates the intensity of emotions to levels that are hard to manage, and in some circumstances, they are overwhelming,” explains Patrick, a psychologist in Alberta, Canada. </p> <p>Plentiful studies show catastrophising can seriously threaten mental health and amplify feelings of distress accompanying conditions such as chronic pain. Catastrophising can occur at any point in our lives – but the lingering fears of Covid-19, combined with the pressing political and economic uncertainty, could undoubtedly exacerbate the tendency. </p> <p>Finding ways to break those toxic thinking cycles should bolster anyone’s resilience – and there may be no