What to do when you're what-if-ing.

theresa2008 · Post by **theresa2008** » Mon Apr 20, 2009 4:15 am

Problem:
Taking a trip down What-If Way

Solution:
Balance your perspective

"People tend to catastrophize when they feel stressed," says Karen Reivich, Ph.D., a research associate at the University of Pennsylvania's Positive Psychology Center and co-author of The Resilience Factor. Next time a problem has you in bed wrapped up in what-ifs, follow Reivich's Rx: Draw a line down the middle of a sheet of paper. On one side, list all your worst-case scenarios until you come up dry ("...and then the virus will spread to my brain and kill me"). On the other side, write the best possible outcome for the same situation ("...my brain surgeon turns out to be McDreamy, who falls madly in love with me").

Balancing catastrophic scenarios against their best-case counterparts makes it clear that neither is likely to happen. So you can rest assured that the actual outcome will probably be somewhere in the middle and something you can handle.

(found this on msn.com in an article about sleep trouble)

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Mon Apr 20, 2009 4:40 am

This is very good. Thank you for sharing this. There is also another cognitive technique you can do. Very similar with the 2 colums. The only diffrence is you put your original what-if in the But column. In the other Column you write in a counter.

ie. What-if my clothes just melted off.
The counter might be;
That is rediculous, when was the last time this happened to anybody?

Your brain might throw in another one right after.

What-if i can't handle the social situation?
The counter might be;
I've had times where i have felt uncomfortable in social situations but i have never went crazy before. If It gets too much for me, then i can leave.

I really like this technique you put down and I am totally going to put that in my little cognitive reference book.

Thank you sooo much.

MIke