Deep Dive with Ali Abdaal  cover image

Deep Dive with Ali Abdaal

Snippet 26: Cognitive Biases That Are Giving You Anxiety (And How To Avoid Them) - Dr Julie Smith

Nov 7, 2023
Psychologist Dr Julie Smith discusses cognitive biases that cause anxiety and shares strategies to overcome them. Topics include anxious thought patterns, personalizing, cognitive biases in anxiety, and the importance of recognizing and challenging biases to reduce anxiety.
05:49

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Podcast summary created with Snipd AI

Quick takeaways

  • Personalizing is a biased response where we interpret events as negative reflections of ourselves, but acknowledging it allows us to disengage from anxious thinking.
  • The mental filter is a cognitive bias associated with depression, filtering out positive thoughts and fixating on negative aspects, but recognizing it empowers us to shift our attention to more constructive thoughts.

Deep dives

Personalizing anxious thoughts

Personalizing is a common anxious thought pattern where individuals tend to interpret events as being about themselves in a negative way. For example, if someone doesn't wave back when we say hi, we might immediately think it's because of something we did wrong and spiral into self-loathing. However, personalizing is a biased and quick response from our brain, trying to keep us safe but not always reflecting reality. Acknowledging personalizing allows us to consider alternative explanations and disengage from anxious thinking.

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