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The Joy Prescription Podcast - Brain ANTs - Overcoming Cognitive Distortions


Join Dr. Libert & Brooke Jack on The Joy Prescription Podcast - A weekly podcast about transforming your health with lifestyle medicine and biblical wisdom.


In this episode we cover 5 of the common Brain ANTs that can pull us into the dark pit of depression and despair:


  1. All-or-Nothing Thinking—Looking at things in black or white categories. If you fall short of perfection, you tell yourself that you’re a complete failure. This distorted thinking can quickly escalate a minor problem to a full-scale catastrophe in your mind: “I failed this test so I’ll probably fail this class and have to drop out of school, won’t find a job and end up homeless living on the streets.”
  2. Overgeneralization—You see a painful and undesirable event—such as divorce, bankruptcy or failure to accomplish a specific goal—as a never-ending pattern of defeat. Here are two examples of this common cognitive distortion: “nobody likes me” and “I always ruin everything.”
  3. Mental Filtering—Magnifying a flaw, shortcoming or problem, and seeing it as a reflection of your entire self.
  4. Discounting the Positive—An even bigger lie is when you believe that your good qualities or achievements don’t matter, maintaining the false belief that you’re defective or a total failure.
  5. Jumping to Conclusions—This brain ANT involves making dire negative predictions about your future that aren’t supported by the facts. When you’re under stress or suffering with anxiety or depression this tends to happen a lot. You tell yourself that you’re situation is hopeless, you’ll be miserable forever or even that life isn’t worth living. We also jump to conclusions about what others are thinking about us. How often do you assume someone is mad at you or offended by you without even speaking to them and verifying your suspicions? You’d be surprised how often your worries are not based in reality. Most of the time people are busy dealing with their own problems and lives and their behavior really has nothing to do with you.


We’d love to hear from you!  You can ask us questions about anything health and/or spirituality related, and we’ll do our best to answer you on the podcast.  Send your questions to us via email to thejoyprescription@gmail.com or by calling our question line at 828-412-0599.  


In the meantime, we invite you to take your learning further with us at thejoyprescription.com. 


The Joy Prescription is an on-line membership community with a three-fold purpose: holistic health education, soul care and spiritual formation. The ultimate goal is to deepen our walk with God and awaken to our true identity and purpose in Christ.  


Now go out and do one thing that brings you joy today! 


","author_name":"Cynthia Libert, M.D."}