Living with Tinnitus and Hyperacusis by Laurence McKenna & Dr David Baguley & Dr Don McFerran

Author:Laurence McKenna & Dr David Baguley & Dr Don McFerran
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: SPCK
Published: 2012-07-04T00:00:00+00:00

Changing your automatic thoughts

Observing your NATs

Take time to observe your thoughts in a very deliberate way. Sit comfortably and just imagine your thoughts passing in front of you like the credits at the end of a film or clouds passing across the sky.

Watch each thought slowly move past and out of sight. Then look for the next one and watch it pass by. Do not resist the thoughts or try to change them, simply observe them. Notice how they come and go.

After a few minutes of this, return to your normal life.

This exercise can help you become less caught up in your thoughts. Notice how thoughts pass and are replaced by other thoughts. This is true of happy, helpful thoughts as well as negative ones. You may come to see thoughts as ‘just thoughts’ rather than an absolute reality.

Evaluating your NATs

If you are very distressed, you are almost certainly accepting your NATs as accurate. Even though the thoughts seem compelling, remember that they are ideas rather than facts. Even when these thoughts have some truth, it is likely that they have been distorted by ‘middle of the night’ thinking and so they need to be tested rather than just believed. There are many ways to test such ideas, but here are some questions that we have found help people.

What tells you that the thought is true? What evidence supports it?

Is there anything that tells you it is not true? What evidence do you have against it?

Is there any other explanation for what is happening?

If a friend asked you for advice about the same problem, what would you say?

What would a friend say to you?

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