When we are tired, stressed or anxious, the mind takes shortcuts. Some are useful. Others, often called thinking traps or cognitive distortions, make a situation feel more threatening, more personal or more permanent than it really is.
Everyone falls into them. The aim is not to stop having these thoughts, but to notice them sooner and question them before you act on them.
01
Common traps, and how they sound
| Trap | What happens | How it can sound |
|---|---|---|
| All-or-nothing | Seeing things in two categories only, with no middle ground | “If it isn’t perfect, it’s a failure.” |
| Mental filter | Noticing only the negative and screening out the rest | “Everyone liked it, but I stumbled once, so it went badly.” |
| Shoulds and musts | Turning preferences into rigid rules | “I should be coping better than this.” |
| Mind reading | Assuming you know what others think, usually something critical | “They think I’m not good enough.” |
| Catastrophising | Jumping to the worst possible outcome | “If this goes wrong, everything falls apart.” |
| Fortune telling | Predicting things will go badly, and that you won’t cope | “It’s going to be a disaster.” |
| Labelling | Turning one action into a judgement about who you are | “I forgot again. I’m hopeless.” |
| Overgeneralising | Treating one event as a never-ending pattern | “This always happens to me.” |
| Discounting the positive | Dismissing what went well | “That was just luck.” |
| Emotional reasoning | Treating a feeling as evidence of a fact | “I feel useless, so I must be.” |
| Personalising | Taking responsibility for things that were not only, or at all, yours | “They’re in a bad mood. It must be something I did.” |
| Blaming | Placing all responsibility elsewhere, so nothing can change | “There’s no point. Other people make it impossible.” |
Many of these overlap, and one thought can hold several. They feel completely true in the moment and look far less certain once they are written down.
02
Catch one of your own
| What happened? | The thought | Which trap(s)? | A more balanced thought |
|---|---|---|---|
Questions that help you find the balanced thought:
- What is the evidence for this thought, and against it?
- Is there another way of seeing this?
- If a friend had this thought, what would I tell them?
- Will this matter in a month? In a year?
- What is the most likely outcome, rather than the worst?
Remember
A thought is something your mind produces, not a fact. Writing it down is often enough to loosen its grip.