At its core, CBT is based on the idea that our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors are interconnected. The way we think about ourselves, and our situations directly influences how we feel and act. Sometimes we struggle to reach goals, not because we lack motivation or ability, but because of unhelpful thought patterns getting in the way. CBT helps us identify and change these patterns so we can move toward our goals with clarity and confidence. 

For example, imagine someone who wants to start exercising regularly but keeps putting it off. A CBT-based approach might begin by exploring the thoughts that fuel procrastination, such as “I’ll never stick with it anyway” or “I’m too tired to start today.” Can you imagine how these kinds of thoughts can lower motivation, make us feel discouraged, or lead to procrastination? By challenging and replacing them with more balanced thoughts – like “ It’s possible I won’t be perfect at sticking with it, but any effort I make still counts as progress.” or “Maybe I don’t have the energy for everything today, but I can do one small step.” – we can start to shift our mindset. Over time, practicing these new ways of thinking can lift mood, increase motivation, and help turn small, consistent steps into lasting change. 

While the cognitive side of CBT is what often comes to mind for those of us considering using it, the behavioral side is equally important. Behavioral tools can also play a key role in helping us follow through. For example, behavioral activation involves getting active and putting ourselves in more rewarding situations. The idea is that often, feeling better follows the action – once we start moving, we feel energized and encouraged to continue. This can be especially helpful in reaching our goals when initial motivation fades or setbacks occur. Returning to the exercise example: instead of waiting to “feel like” it, we might plan to put on workout clothes right after waking up or schedule a 10-minute walk during lunch. By committing to these actions, we create opportunities to take steps toward our goals rather than waiting for motivation to strike first.  

Ultimately, CBT empowers us and helps us build more self-awareness, discipline, and confidence, which are essential ingredients for achieving any meaningful goal. By learning to manage our thoughts and behaviors intentionally, we are not just changing habits; we also can start to reach goals that once felt out of reach. 

We do not need to simply accept the end of year as a stressful season. Let’s talk about a few impactful strategies that can ease some of the challenges. And make this time of year more manageable.  

Catching our Automatic Negative Thinking Traps (ANTs). We all have patterns of thinking that can sometimes make challenges feel bigger than they are. These thinking patterns – called ANTs – are common and can happen to any of us. And they can add unnecessary stress to an already busy time of year. One common ANT during this season is Should Statements – thinking in terms of what must be or must be done. You may be thinking things like “I should have everything perfect” or “I should be able to handle this all easily.” Try to pay closer attention to your thoughts. Next time a Should Statement shows up – ask yourself, “says who?”.  

Breaking down your time and to-dos. When everything feels urgent and overwhelming, it can help to break it down. Write down everything you have to get done. If you have a bigger task, break it down into smaller tasks that will take no longer than 30 minutes. Once you have your list written out, prioritize it. Consider urgency. This is how time sensitive each task is. You will also want to consider importance. This is how important a task is in the long-term. Then choose three high priority tasks to focus on for the day. You can always add more after completing your first three.  

Practicing Present Awareness. When the end of the year leaves you feeling a mix of emotions, it can be easy to lose sight of what is most important. Practicing mindfulness during this busy season can help you slow down and actually enjoy the moments that matter most. If stress or anxiety starts to feel overwhelming, you can practice bringing your attention to the present moment. You can do this by noticing: 5 things you can see, 4 things you can touch, 3 things you can hear, 2 things you can smell, and 1 thing you can taste.   

The goal here isn’t to eliminate all stress. Some stress around meaningful events is normal and even helpful. But the next time you find your mind spinning and anxiety spiking, consider using these tools to help you manage end-of-year stress in a way that allows you to live a full and meaningful life. 

Understanding why life transitions feel so difficult can help us to better understand and accept our experience. When we go through transitions, we are dealing with complex emotions while figuring out how to adjust to a new normal. Transitions naturally involve grief. Even happy changes require mourning what we’re leaving behind. We also tend to desire and seek out predictability. And adjusting to a new normal takes time and effort. That promotion means saying goodbye to a comfortable routine. That new relationship means a new normal with another person. That move to a new city means losing connection with old friends.

So, what can we do to work through the big transitions that we’re likely to encounter in life?

Try behavioral activation. In times of transition, we can be prone to freezing up. But behavioral activation means taking meaningful actions aligned with your values. You can ask yourself some questions. What matters most to me in this next phase of life? What’s one tiny step I can take today toward who I want to be? Put it in your calendar. Follow through. And celebrate once you do! It does not need to be perfect. The goal is just to continue taking small steps forward.

Possibly the most challenging aspect of transitions is the uncertainty that comes with them. We want to know how things will turn out. But often growth means we have to step outside our comfort zone and sit with not knowing. Present Awareness is a tool that can help us tolerate this discomfort. Present Awareness involves addressing your worries and concerns as what they are – thoughts. And to let them come and go without judging them.

Transitions are temporary. But the resilience you gain by working through them goes a long way. That confusing space we can find ourselves stuck in during big transitions? You do not need to escape it. You can use tools to help you push forward into your next phase of life.

When you exercise, you experience a release of a number of chemicals that can help to naturally improve mood. And the benefits go beyond mood. You can also experience improved sleep, clearer thinking, and greater resilience.

Sustainable exercise routines start with connecting movement to what matters most to you. Our personal values can serve as our North Star.Values are not goals to achieve but rather directions to move toward. They represent what matters most to us. Whether it is connection, creativity, compassion, or courage – knowing what truly matters helps us make decisions that align with who we are or who we want to become.

When we connect physical activity to our core values, exercise can change from a chore into a meaningful practice. Think of someone who values resilience. Each workout can become an act of building a more resilient mindset. Maybe for you, connection matters most. You can try group fitness classes to bring that connection into your workouts.

Identifying our values is the first step. Then there are a number of practical Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) tools to help move us from intention to action:

• Challenge unhelpful thoughts. Transform “I’m too tired” into “Even ten minutes of movement will energize me”.
• Create small behavior experiments. Test and track whether brief daily walks actually improve your mood.
• Use habit science. Add brief movement to existing routines like stretching right after brushing your teeth in the morning or doing squats while you wait for your coffee to brew.

The journey toward better mental and physical health does not require huge life changes. Small, consistent steps aligned with your values create lasting change. Consider what type of movement you can add to your routine today. Schedule it in. And if you want to dive deeper: Learn to Live has several programs and resources that can help you align your daily physical activities with your values. This can bring you one step closer to your well-being goals.

During Stress Awareness Month, it is important to understand that chronic stress is not just an uncomfortable feeling. If ignored, stress can disrupt our body and mind in serious ways. Long-term stress can make our blood pressure go up. It can make it harder for our body to fight off sickness. And it can slow down digestion. It can also affect our brain. It can make it harder to think clearly, remember things, and get good sleep. 

The good news is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) gives us powerful tools to tend to our stress. One effective tool to use is a Stress Tracker. This is a daily log of stress triggers, physical sensations, and stress levels rated on a scale of 1-10. When we know what makes us stressed, we can spot it early and deal with it before it gets too big. The things we write down help us understand ourselves better and know when we need to use our tools. 

Another simple but powerful tool you can start to practice today is Progressive Muscle Relaxation (PMR). This helps with stress by relaxing your body, which often helps your mind relax too. To do PMR, sit or lie down in a comfortable position. Start with your toes – squeeze them tight for about 15 seconds, then relax them for 20 seconds. Notice how different it feels when your muscles are tight versus relaxed. Then move up to your feet, legs, stomach, hands, arms, shoulders, neck, and face, doing the same thing for each part. 

Just like a garden needs regular care to grow well, our mental health needs regular attention too. When we understand how stress affects us and use tools like the Stress Tracker and PMR regularly, we can create a peaceful mind where calmness and strength can grow

How CBT Addresses Anxiety    

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is an evidenced-based approach that focuses on changing thoughts and behaviors to get past anxiety. CBT research shows it is our thoughts that lead to our emotions along with the impulses and physical sensations. It can appear that these sensations come out of nowhere. But it is important to notice what thoughts come before those sensations. Identifying thoughts that lead to anxiety is a skill that we can practice and get better at over time. And once we are able to identify our thoughts, we can start to challenge and change them. Let’s talk about how we might do this.  

At Learn to Live, we help people use Thought Inspection to identify thoughts and ask questions that might challenge the truth behind them. Imagine you have an important presentation to give at school or work. You have felt muscle tension and an upset stomach for a few days. You might notice thoughts like: “What if I stumble on my words?”; “They might think I’m incompetent”; and, “I couldn’t handle it if I mess up my presentation!” 

To challenge these thoughts, you can ask yourself questions from Thought Inspection: 

• Focus on just the facts. Do I know for sure that this thought is true? 
• Travel into the future. Will this be such a big deal in 5 years? 
• Be the jury. What hard evidence do I have that my thought is likely? 
• Paint a different picture. How could things turn out well instead? 

Challenging our thoughts helps us to find faults and unhelpful assumptions among them. Then, we can reframe them. But sometimes our thoughts do come true. Another piece of Thought Inspection is learning to coach ourselves through those challenges. We can consider how we might be able to solve the problem. We can identify people to talk to who can help. We can realize that our feelings will pass. We can then find that we can handle tough situations that may lead to anxious thoughts.  

Feeling physical sensations of anxiety is common. Hopefully, you can use tools like Thought Inspection (found in the Stress, Anxiety & Worry program) to reframe those thoughts and reduce your overall anxiety and sensations. 

Do you ever forget why you walked into a room? Do you have trouble paying attention when someone is talking to you? Do you struggle to start or finish simple tasks? Do you feel disorganized or easily lose focus? These could be signs of ADHD. Around 140 million adults have ADHD. That number is growing. There has been a 42% increase in people diagnosed with ADHD in the last 8 years. 

ADHD can bring up difficult thoughts and emotions. One being anxiety. Often, those of us with ADHD wish we could do things that others take for granted. We wish we could finish tasks on time, stay organized, or focus our attention. We might get behind and face deadlines with little time left. So, we start to feel anxious. We begin to believe we can never do anything right. Our anxiety worsens as we feel less confident. 

How CBT Can Help    

Research shows that Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) can be one of the best ways to get help with ADHD. It helps us to change our thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors. This allows us to better handle tough situations and feelings that can come with ADHD. We can learn a number of CBT tools to help. We can learn how to relax our bodies. Tools like problem solving and time management are helpful in meeting our goals. And we can reframe or accept our thoughts to help calm our anxiety. Let’s explore a few specific tools that can help:   

• Progressive Muscle Relaxation (PMR) – A tool where we tense and then relax our muscle groups to relax our body and mind. 
• Thought Inspection – A method where we challenge unhelpful thoughts causing us stress, shame, anxiety, etc. 
• Active Problem Solving – A good way to achieve goals that helps us focus on what’s most important to us.   
• Present Awareness – A practice to accept noisy thoughts and feelings, bring us back to the present, and allow us to respond better to our thoughts and emotions. 
• Time Management – An approach where we make a daily to-do list and schedule the most important tasks into specific time slots.  

If you or someone you know struggles with symptoms of ADHD, using some of these tools can help to get past those struggles. They can help to accomplish day to day tasks as well as manage the difficult emotions that can come up. 

Take a moment and think of the things you do to try to keep yourself from feeling unpleasant emotions. Consider the things you do so you don’t feel too scared, too upset, or too sad. You might think of all those unnecessary things we do to keep us from feeling too troubled as hacks for our emotions. Researchers often call them “safety seeking behaviors.” I just call them “precautions.”

It turns out those precautions can often be a big part of why we stay stuck. We may be stuck in our anxiety, depression, substances, or other challenges. These precautions include things like:

• Overanalyzing to keep myself from making the wrong decision.
• Avoiding sharing my opinions in a conversation.
• Making sure I don’t say something to another person that they might disagree with.
• Eating half a pan of brownies to food-medicate me from my troubling feelings.

These are some of the things we do to try to feel better. We play it safe so we don’t suffer too much. But in the end, they might just keep us stuck. How does it work? Why do they keep us stuck? Because when we use many of these precautions, we miss the chance to see if the threat was real. If I don’t self-medicate my hurt feelings with alcohol, is there a chance that I will find that my big emotions simply come and go on their own? If I don’t over-censor my words as I talk to my date, is there a chance I’d find that they can accept mistakes and even feel MORE comfortable with me if I am not perfectly polished? If I don’t cover up the shaking when I’m nervous, might the other person feel relieved that they aren’t play it safe and avoid talking about delicate subjects with friends, is there a chance I’ll find that talking about big issues might draw us closer? And if I don’t have a drink prior to dealing with a difficult conversation, might I find that I can deal with emotions that come and go, even the unpleasant ones?

And for someone specifically on a quest to face their fears—of bugs, others’ judgment, their own worries, whatever—letting go of these precautions is often one of the big challenges. The best and most potent fear-facing includes dropping the precautions. I can’t truly face my fears if I know full well that I’m also doing some things to try to keep myself extra safe.

Of course, not everybody plays it too safe. Some are too reckless at times. But for those of us who are too cautious about our feelings, we know who we are. And for us, it just might make sense to do some tests and see if the sky really does fall if we give up some of these precautions.

Maybe the old adage is wrong. And there are times when maybe you can be too careful.

If you tend to worry, you know just how sticky worry can be. Maybe people around you tell you to just let it go. They may tell you to move on. Or they might point out to you just how unnecessary all that worry is. But even though you try, letting go of that worry isn’t easy.

If that’s you, then the idea of Worry Time might be helpful for you. Here’s the idea: even though it seems like worry is voluntary, it isn’t.  Worry doesn’t just show up. In reality, it serves a purpose.  Think about it, why do you worry? We might think we need to worry to be responsible, we worry about A instead of worrying about B. We may worry because we think will come up with a solution for the thing that we’re worried about.

In any case, here’s what worry time might look like. Instead of worrying over a long period of time, I can plan to do it during specific time blocks–say from 7:00 to 7:20 every evening. Then, in between scheduled worry blocks, if I’m tempted to worry about, say, whether or not my kids are going to get sick, I remind myself “just wait, you can just worry about this during your worry time.” Then when 7:00 shows up I give myself permission to worry as much as I want to.

This is not the act of trying NOT to think about something. Studies show that trying to not think about X causes me to think about it many times more. When I suppress certain thoughts, it  usually backfires. But worry time is different. Instead, with worry time, I allow myself to worry but to do it later. I can limit my worry time to scheduled time blocks.

Many people are amazed by the impact of  worry time. They’re surprised that it’s possible to catch themselves starting to worry. When they do, they can defer that worry to their worry time.  And then they’re surprised by the impact on their anxiety. No, it doesn’t serve as a magic carpet ride out of worry land for everyone. But it can be really powerful for many people. And that’s consistent with CBT research.

But what if these are real things I should think about and act on? I just don’t want to think about them all the time. In our Learn to Live Stress, Anxiety and Worry program, we make it clear that it’s OK to use this worry time for actual problem-solving. If someone uses their worry time to think about concerns about, say, their cat’s health, that’s okay. The worry time becomes problem-solving time instead. It still serves the same great benefit. If they felt anxious all day about their cat, reminding themselves “I’ll think about this later, when it’s time” helps. Then they worry less while waiting for the scheduled time.

Now some people are surprised to find that, when worry time shows up, they actually don’t experience significant anxiety. Sometimes they find themselves saying that the thing they were worried about at 11:00 AM doesn’t seem like something worth worrying about during their 3:00 PM worry time. But that’s OK—they can use their worry time for doing something fun, like a rousing game of solitaire.

Whether worry time is filled with worry or not, many find that a small island of worry in the day makes for a much richer life than a whole continent, err, day, filled with worry.

If you’ve ever witnessed a truly dangerous situation or experienced a terrifying event yourself, you know that it does not leave you unchanged. You may have found that, down the road, the traumatic event left you feeling really uncomfortable and even afraid. And it all may get in the way of enjoying your life.

Sometimes we are haunted by traumatic events. We feel like we relive them when we’re reminded by certain images, smells, and sounds.

Of course, trauma can affect people in many ways. And something that is traumatic to one person, may not be to the other.

Thankfully, there are many different tools that can be used when going through times like these. This post will focus on ones related to “Mindfulness”.

What is Mindfulness?

Mindfulness means shifting your attention to what’s happening right now and accepting it. It means letting thoughts and feelings, both pleasant and unpleasant, exist without judgement. It’s important to learn to sit with discomfort or fear. In doing so, we recognize that they will pass and we will find we got through them.

There are many ways that mindfulness can help us heal from trauma.

How Mindfulness Can Help Heal After Trauma

Mindfulness can help you to feel the natural feelings that occur after a traumatic event. It can also help you think about and process the trauma. Mindfulness can help you to be more focused. It can make you aware of the present moment. That can increase your ability to live with the difficult emotions. Here are a few ways you can practice mindfulness:

• Practice Present Awareness.
  • Tap into to your internal world. Notice your pain, emotions, thoughts, and urges. By being curious about them, you can notice how they’re taking up space. You can release the desire to control them or be defined by them.
  • Then pay attention to your five senses. Pay attention to the world around you. Notice the things you hear, taste, smell, feel, and see.
  • Note what’s happening around and within you but stay focused on your destination. Your goals, dreams, and values can help you. Identify the worries that are trying to blow you off course.
• Take a Savoring Walk.
  • Notice the sights, sounds, and smells all around you. Look for things you can be inspired by or even in awe of.
  • Take time to notice what brings you joy… and why. Maybe take a notebook to jot down the things you’re noticing and enjoying. Later you can cozy up with the notebook and reflect on the moment again.
• Engage in a self-care activity.
  • Choose one that will benefit you in this very moment. That can look different for everyone, so honoring what you need is important. You might try stretching your muscles, working on a puzzle, or organizing a room in your home.
  • When you’re truly caring for yourself, it’s easier to stay present.

Getting the Right Support

Trauma can sometimes feel like a tidal wave. It can flood you with pain and the fear it will never end.

Everyone reacts differently to trauma, and what helps can vary. Although Mindfulness can be helpful to support natural healing, it may not be the best approach for everyone. You know yourself best and if you find that Mindfulness does not feel right for you, talk with a trusted professional. Get the support you need.

Whatever route you choose, know that the process is unique to you. Your trauma experience matters and at the same time, it doesn’t have to define or control your life. There’s hope and healing on the other side.

References

• National Center for PTSD: Mindfulness Practice in the Treatment of Traumatic Stress
• Mindful: The Science of How Mindfulness Relieves Post Traumatic Stress
• Science of Psychotherapy: Is Mindfulness Safe for Trauma Survivors?