Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome back to the Psychology of Your Twenties,
Speaker 1: the podcast where we talk through some of the big
Speaker 1: changes and transitions of our twenties and what they mean
Speaker 1: for our psychology. Well well, well, a very sincere welcome back,
Speaker 1: I guess, and apologies for my absence. Maybe you haven't
Speaker 1: even noticed that I have been gone. I haven't posted
Speaker 1: anything since like the start of the new year, but
Speaker 1: it's just been a very very busy time for me.
Speaker 1: Just some life updates. Firstly, I moved to Sydney. I
Speaker 1: moved to a new year city. Yeah, it was kind
Speaker 1: of a big decision. I've been thinking about it for
Speaker 1: a little while and graduated Union thought why the hell not.
Speaker 1: But obviously, just like some big adjustments, I've decided that
Speaker 1: I will not be moving house for a very long
Speaker 1: time because it's very stressful and takes a lot of effort,
Speaker 1: which I feel like is you know, well known knowledge,
Speaker 1: but I hadn't really thought that through. Yeah, it's just
Speaker 1: like weird, I guess, living in a new city, trying
Speaker 1: to make new friends, new connections, figuring everything out. So
Speaker 1: I've been pretty invested in that. I also graduated, big
Speaker 1: thing in your twenties if you go to UNI when
Speaker 1: you're in that all that second decade of your life. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I graduated UNIS so yeah, also a lot of insecurity
Speaker 1: around where my life's going, lots of future planning. I
Speaker 1: also got COVID. Yes, I got COVID. Yeah, it was
Speaker 1: pretty uneventful. I'm sure there's a majority of people who
Speaker 1: are listening to this has probably gotten COVID at some stage,
Speaker 1: especially if you're in Australia. Every man and their dog
Speaker 1: seems to have it. But yeah, it was just like
Speaker 1: I kind of needed some time to recover and adjust
Speaker 1: to my new life. But yeah, I guess that's why
Speaker 1: I've kind of been absent and very appropriate for this episode.
Speaker 1: I've just been feeling a lot of self doubt around
Speaker 1: the podcast, like not stopping anytime soon. But in all, honestly, honestly,
Speaker 1: I just let some comments from people who really don't
Speaker 1: even know me. I let them kind of get to me.
Speaker 1: How embarrassing, I know, but it just stung a bit
Speaker 1: and made me doubt whether I was putting out the
Speaker 1: wrong content, whether people really wanted to hear from me.
Speaker 1: Blah blah blah blah blah blah, or that kind of shit.
Speaker 1: So it was just like kind of a toxic cycle
Speaker 1: in my mind. So I was like, I'm gonna step away.
Speaker 1: I'm going to apply on some good episodes and get
Speaker 1: back into it. So we're not talking about self doubt
Speaker 1: today though, other than overthinking the opinions of others, which
Speaker 1: is a whole other episode in itself, we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about another area of expertise for me, catastrophizing, expecting
Speaker 1: the world worst prophesizing. Oh yeah, such a good area
Speaker 1: of psychology, especially in our twenties when everything is sort
Speaker 1: of up in the air and we may be adopting
Speaker 1: this kind of negative thinking style. Especially recently, I've found
Speaker 1: this with so many big life changes. It's so easy
Speaker 1: to expect the worst. Like I've moved to a new city.
Speaker 1: All the thoughts that kind of go through my head
Speaker 1: of like what if I don't meet anyone, I'm so
Speaker 1: far away from my family, what if I don't have
Speaker 1: any friends, what if I don't like it here? And
Speaker 1: I think thought traps like that at any age can
Speaker 1: be scary, and it's not only for those who may
Speaker 1: be anxious, and it's not only anxious people who are susceptible.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to spoil anything, but this is what
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about in this episode. What is catastrophizing,
Speaker 1: why does it occur? We're going to talk about cognitive distortions,
Speaker 1: how we can kind of combat spiraling and jumping to
Speaker 1: the worst conclusion, and how do we retrain our brain
Speaker 1: out of these habitual thinking styles. This episode I think
Speaker 1: is particularly relevant after the last few years we've all had. Obviously,
Speaker 1: like the pandemic has created an external environment at least
Speaker 1: of uncertainty and a sense that we should kind of
Speaker 1: always expect the worst years of unexpected lockdowns, plans, ruined
Speaker 1: disease striking major changes to our daily lives, our politics,
Speaker 1: and you know, we see news stories like every day
Speaker 1: about case and death numbers, and I think COVID has
Speaker 1: made the stakes so much higher. Of course, we are
Speaker 1: thinking about the worst outcome around this disease because the
Speaker 1: consequences could be so severe, and there's so much uncertainty,
Speaker 1: especially in the first couple of years. So this is
Speaker 1: a lot for our brains to process, and it can
Speaker 1: create negative fortune telling patterns that can really derail us
Speaker 1: and incapacitate us in many ways. So I thought, just
Speaker 1: given at least what I've been going through, but also
Speaker 1: what the world's been going through. It would be really
Speaker 1: interesting to talk about this and to discuss why we
Speaker 1: catastrophize and why we have this habit of expecting the worst.
Speaker 1: So let's get into it. So, like always, we always
Speaker 1: start with a few definitions to get a grasp on
Speaker 1: what we're really talking about today before the psychology really begins.
Speaker 1: So catastrophizing is a cognitive distortion that kind of prompts
Speaker 1: people to jump to the worst possible conclusion, usually with
Speaker 1: very limited information or kind of an objective reason to
Speaker 1: despair or to worry. When a situation, either one that's
Speaker 1: happening now or one that you perceive is happening in
Speaker 1: the future, is upsetting but not necessarily catastrophic, you can
Speaker 1: feel like you're in the midst of a crisis, and
Speaker 1: catastrophizing kind of goes hand in hand with that, and
Speaker 1: it can generally take two different forms, making a catastrophe
Speaker 1: out of a current situation or imagining or making a
Speaker 1: catastrophe out of a future situation that hasn't even occurred yet.
Speaker 1: One has negative thoughts, but for many people, negative thinking
Speaker 1: can spin out of control and out of proportion to
Speaker 1: the reality of the situation, to what the situation really
Speaker 1: kind of requires, and a relatively like modest error, disappointment
Speaker 1: or a source of embarrassment can sometimes become in your
Speaker 1: mind a cause for major fear or despair and in short, catastrophe.
Speaker 1: So this pattern of thinking can itself be destructive because
Speaker 1: it's unnecessary and persistent. Worry does lead to heightened anxiety
Speaker 1: and depression. It's also really hard to break out of
Speaker 1: once you've kind of adopted this thinking style of expecting
Speaker 1: the worst and thinking that expecting that it's kind of
Speaker 1: a form of protection if that outcome would occur. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it can really lead to some negative things. So catastrophizing
Speaker 1: has been linked in heaps of studies to a number
Speaker 1: of adverse experiences and behaviors, like we say anxiety, depression,
Speaker 1: but also anger related problems because it leaves you feeling
Speaker 1: very frustrated, very worried, and if you're someone who tends
Speaker 1: to project those negative feelings onto others, you can become
Speaker 1: angry out of the fear that you have of the
Speaker 1: worst case scenario. It can also be a tendency of
Speaker 1: individuals who already have a generalized anxiety disorder, maybe a
Speaker 1: social anxiety disorder, panic disorder, and of course some of
Speaker 1: the more severe ones of agoraphobia or OCD. These are
Speaker 1: obviously diagnosed based on a broader list of symptoms, but
Speaker 1: a big one is this kind of catastrophic negative thinking
Speaker 1: style that psychologists and psychiatrists alike kind of look out
Speaker 1: for when they're diagnosing these disorders. Obviously, you can also
Speaker 1: just engage in catastrophic thinking without having a diagnosable disorder.
Speaker 1: It doesn't I don't think you need to be worried.
Speaker 1: If you know you're sitting there being like, oh, what
Speaker 1: if my whole family dies, blah blah blah, what if
Speaker 1: everything goes wrong? What if I lose everything? It doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that you might have something else going on. But
Speaker 1: sometimes it's a big scientist psychologist of a disordered thinking
Speaker 1: style that might require medication or therapy or some other
Speaker 1: form of treatment to kind of help you out with. Interestingly,
Speaker 1: and I know this wasn't unexpected, but I thought it
Speaker 1: was really interesting, this type of thought pattern, This is
Speaker 1: always expecting the worst. It often emerges when we're children.
Speaker 1: There may be a few reasons for this. It can
Speaker 1: be the result of hyper vigilance as a child, maybe
Speaker 1: due to a chaotic home environment, a traumatic event, something
Speaker 1: unexpected happening, or due to a generally anxious personality. If
Speaker 1: you're a child who may have seen your parents overreact
Speaker 1: or panic about perceived situations, or if your parents were
Speaker 1: perfectionists who criticized mistakes, it makes sense why a child
Speaker 1: who was raised this way might always be trying to
Speaker 1: predict the worst. If you can imagine the worst happening,
Speaker 1: you have an opportunity to try and create a plan
Speaker 1: in advance before that outcome happens, and in that way,
Speaker 1: you kind of reduce the uncertainty of the situations you've
Speaker 1: been placed in, all of the situations you've learned to expect,
Speaker 1: and it's comforting. It's really comforting to think about the
Speaker 1: worst case scenario and then know that you could probably
Speaker 1: deal with it even if it never happens, and it
Speaker 1: kind of reduces the fear and anxiety in anticipation of
Speaker 1: a situation or an outcome. But of course, once this
Speaker 1: pattern of thinking is formed, it can be really difficult
Speaker 1: to eliminate the accompanying behaviors into adulthood, into your twenties,
Speaker 1: and this is because of a concept called long term
Speaker 1: potentiation and long term potentiation it shows up everywhere in psychology. Everywhere,
Speaker 1: any area of study that you're looking at, you'll probably
Speaker 1: find some research or some paper that will highlight this
Speaker 1: as being the reason that's something occurs. So, long term
Speaker 1: potentiation is a process involving the persistent strengthening of synapses
Speaker 1: that leads to long lasting increases in signal transmission between
Speaker 1: your neurons. Okay, let's break that down. It's a very
Speaker 1: neurological kind of term, very biologically based. Essentially, it's like
Speaker 1: the inverse of if you don't use it, you lose it.
Speaker 1: So the more you use it, the harder it is
Speaker 1: to lose it. So the more your brain follows certain
Speaker 1: paths in your brain, the stronger they get, the more
Speaker 1: reinforced they become. So how does this apply to catastrophizing.
Speaker 1: So our thinking style is a pattern, and any type
Speaker 1: of habitual behavior or thought process can create neural connections
Speaker 1: and strong ones. Because our brain is basically a learning device,
Speaker 1: it's a survival advice and it wants us to learn
Speaker 1: what's happened in our environment, learned from previous things, and
Speaker 1: build on them to be able to survive future situations.
Speaker 1: So once our brain begins to travel down one path
Speaker 1: repeatedly or has a habitual mental reaction to a situation
Speaker 1: that could potentially be dangerous, it's hard to reverse that
Speaker 1: because our brain and our mind says, we're using this
Speaker 1: pathway a lot. Let's strengthen it because it's obviously important
Speaker 1: in how this person is perceiving the world and how
Speaker 1: they're surviving. And if it's emerged as a survival tactic
Speaker 1: when we were younger to comfort us or protect us,
Speaker 1: it can be even more entrenched because it's emerged at
Speaker 1: a time when major synaptic roots in our brains are
Speaker 1: forming in really formative years of our lives. So once
Speaker 1: you've kind of adopted that thinking style, especially if you're young,
Speaker 1: it's so hard to break. And I've kind of already
Speaker 1: said this. I also say this a lot in other episodes.
Speaker 1: But if something exists, it probably has a purpose, So
Speaker 1: catastrophizing it does indeed have a purpose and maybe even
Speaker 1: some benefits at times, but not in the way that
Speaker 1: it's going to be helpful in the long term. Especially
Speaker 1: when we begin to take irrational thoughts as truth. It
Speaker 1: can create a real disconnect with reality. And one of
Speaker 1: the main mental reactions we may have in reaction to
Speaker 1: constantly catastrophizing is dissociation. So dissociation is a mental process
Speaker 1: of disconnecting from one's thoughts, from one's feelings, from one's
Speaker 1: memories or sense of identity. It's pretty scary. So you
Speaker 1: really basically you feel like you're not connected to any
Speaker 1: part of your body or your mind that makes you
Speaker 1: an individual. And it happens because our mind creates a
Speaker 1: distance from our thoughts and distance itself from reality because
Speaker 1: it kind of needs a break. If you're constantly worrying
Speaker 1: about things, if you're really stressed, your brain actually can't
Speaker 1: handle that. It becomes overwhelmed. So it kind of makes
Speaker 1: decisions on our behalf and decides to basically split or
Speaker 1: distance us from what we're experiencing by pulling us back
Speaker 1: into our mind and putting up a bit of a
Speaker 1: barrier or a bit of a fog shield between us
Speaker 1: and what's really going on. So catastrophizing isn't just a
Speaker 1: thought pattern that only happens when we're in a situation
Speaker 1: where we might feel threatened. When good things happen to
Speaker 1: people who overthink in this way, they still tend to
Speaker 1: have an impending sense of doom. You know, good things
Speaker 1: don't happen to people like me, you might say, Or
Speaker 1: in some circumstances, they actually create their own negative reality
Speaker 1: on purpose, because that is easy to manage, because it's
Speaker 1: normal and has become so ingrained and habitual. It's a
Speaker 1: self fulfilling prophecy. If you expect the worst, you might
Speaker 1: create the worst, because how could there possibly be any
Speaker 1: other situation you haven't thought about what might happen if
Speaker 1: the best thing happened. And I think people who have
Speaker 1: this thinking style would rather be in charge of a
Speaker 1: bad situation happening than have it catch them off guard.
Speaker 1: For example, you might start a fight with your partner
Speaker 1: because you're secretly afraid they're going to leave you, And
Speaker 1: by taking charge of the situation you've created in your mind,
Speaker 1: you don't have to deal with the uncertainty. And I
Speaker 1: was talking to a friend about this the other day,
Speaker 1: shout out to make a friend of the show. But
Speaker 1: what becomes really twisted and makes this thinking style more
Speaker 1: permanent is what happens when you are right. What happens
Speaker 1: to those synaptic connections when you're catastrophic thinking is correct.
Speaker 1: When your worst case scenario is correct, what happens then.
Speaker 1: What happens is that it confirms everything that you've already
Speaker 1: kind of believed to be true. It confirms that this
Speaker 1: thinking style is the best one to have. You know, oh,
Speaker 1: if I didn't catastrophize, if I didn't expect the worst,
Speaker 1: what would be happening to me right now? And you
Speaker 1: think that that would make you happy? Right? You know,
Speaker 1: you made applian for this, you knew this could happen.
Speaker 1: Surely you'd be prepared and can handle. It's like, no
Speaker 1: one's going to say or you were wrong, because you
Speaker 1: were right. And obviously that's so rarely the case, which
Speaker 1: is a massive thing, the negative situations we think of,
Speaker 1: the worst case scenarios that prophesizing. It's so rarely that
Speaker 1: it comes true. But also it's really unlikely that the
Speaker 1: negative thinking you've done beforehand can even help, which is
Speaker 1: why this spiral can only ever provide short term comfort.
Speaker 1: So what my friend and I were discussing was that
Speaker 1: by the time the worst case scenario kind of rolls around,
Speaker 1: you're so emotionally drained that whatever the outcome is, you
Speaker 1: aren't even prepared to deal with it. You're frustrated, you're anxious,
Speaker 1: you have brain you're overwhelmed because you have already exhausted
Speaker 1: your mental energy across all faculties, all departments, trying to
Speaker 1: solve the problem in advance, so it doesn't really help you. Also,
Speaker 1: catastrophizing may feel comforting in the moment, but it doesn't
Speaker 1: give you any answers in an area where this feels
Speaker 1: particularly relevant to me is I have this weird fear
Speaker 1: of death, and this is a massive trigger for me.
Speaker 1: I've had it since I was a child. I always
Speaker 1: worry about it when I'm really stressed or really tired.
Speaker 1: And I got to the point where I realized that
Speaker 1: no amount of thinking was going to uncover an answer.
Speaker 1: It wasn't something I could predict, and even if I
Speaker 1: did accidentally, it would never really be confirmed until I'd died.
Speaker 1: And it led to intrusive thought. Intrusive thought because the
Speaker 1: catastrophizing was making me so depressed and anxious. It was
Speaker 1: fucking terrible. I was just thinking about it all the time.
Speaker 1: I was thinking about what could the worst case scenario be?
Speaker 1: And I can't change that even if I was right
Speaker 1: there's nothing I could do. So how do we get
Speaker 1: out of this? What strategies do we need to learn
Speaker 1: in our twenties, in our very important decade of life,
Speaker 1: probably even more important than when you were younger, because
Speaker 1: you get a chance to unlearn all those negative behaviors.
Speaker 1: But what do we need to do to make sure
Speaker 1: we don't always expect the worst in every situation? You know,
Speaker 1: you could go to therapy. We can talk about therapy,
Speaker 1: but that's so intangible, I think, and I feel like
Speaker 1: it's not really something to get into in this episode.
Speaker 1: Everyone knows the benefits of therapy, but I'm obviously not
Speaker 1: a psychologist, so I can't sit here and give you
Speaker 1: all the strategies that you need. But let's look at
Speaker 1: some more practical steps for when you're in the spiral.
Speaker 1: So six tips to kind of accomplish this breaking away
Speaker 1: from this thinking style might be some of the following.
Speaker 1: So acknowledging that unpleasant things happen is number one. This
Speaker 1: is a massive kind of philosophy that's taught throughout any
Speaker 1: mental health area or profession. Life is full of challenges
Speaker 1: and good days, and you have bad days, And just
Speaker 1: because one day is bad, does not mean that all
Speaker 1: days will be bad, and acknowledging that sometimes you're going
Speaker 1: to be unprepared and accepting that is perhaps a lot
Speaker 1: better than needing to plan, to know what every single
Speaker 1: outcome could be and thinking about what you would do. Secondly,
Speaker 1: it's important to recognize when thoughts are irrational. Catastrophizing often
Speaker 1: follows a distinct pass of distinct pattern, So a person
Speaker 1: will start with a thought, then they will expand on
Speaker 1: that thought with worry and anxiety. When a person learns
Speaker 1: to recognize not just the first thought, but the second thought,
Speaker 1: the one where we expand on it, the better equipped
Speaker 1: to handle this catastrophizing kind of spiral that we go into.
Speaker 1: If you think, oh my god, but what if we
Speaker 1: drove When I was driving, I crashed and I died
Speaker 1: and I killed someone on the road, you know, it's
Speaker 1: okay to have that thought. You can think that, but
Speaker 1: you don't have to have the accompanying anxiety. You can
Speaker 1: kind of just acknowledge it. Third step will not really
Speaker 1: tip saying stop to cease the repetitive catastrophic thoughts. A
Speaker 1: person may have to say it out loud in their
Speaker 1: head or just to say stop, I don't want to
Speaker 1: think about this no more. I'm in control. I'm in
Speaker 1: control of what I choose goes through my brain, and
Speaker 1: these words can keep the stream of thoughts from continuing
Speaker 1: and help you change the course of your thinking. Another
Speaker 1: one that I really like is thinking about another outcome.
Speaker 1: So instead of thinking about a negative outcome, think about
Speaker 1: the best outcome, the most positive outcome, and what that
Speaker 1: would mean. It's just as likely that the best outcome
Speaker 1: could happen as the worst, so visualizing what you think
Speaker 1: the best outcome could be might actually help you problem
Speaker 1: solve to get to that point. Number five is offering
Speaker 1: positive affirmations. It seems really simple that I really like this.
Speaker 1: When it comes to catastrophic thinking. A person has to
Speaker 1: believe in themselves and that they could overcome whatever happens,
Speaker 1: and that kind of reduces your tendency to fear the worst.
Speaker 1: They may wish to repeat a positive affirmation to themselves
Speaker 1: on a daily basis, or something along those lines. Finally,
Speaker 1: the sixth kind of solution is one that I think
Speaker 1: makes its way into every fucking article ever about any
Speaker 1: kind of thought pattern or thinking style or situation that
Speaker 1: has to do with your psychology. And mental health, and
Speaker 1: that's practicing excellent self care. So this is the explanation
Speaker 1: that this article gave. I'm going to read it out
Speaker 1: first and then I'm going to discuss it because I
Speaker 1: have opinions, obviously, that's why I have a podcast. But
Speaker 1: practicing excellence self care, I think catastrophic thoughts are more
Speaker 1: likely to take over when you are stressed and when
Speaker 1: you're tired, So getting enough rest and engaging in like
Speaker 1: stress relieving techniques like exercise or meditation or journaling, it
Speaker 1: can make you feel better. And I have a slight
Speaker 1: problem with this. I think that healthcare is the serpent
Speaker 1: of the mental health community or culture, and I wrote
Speaker 1: an article about this once, but I think self care
Speaker 1: is actually an accessory, it's not the cure. And I
Speaker 1: do think we need to stop pushing kind of like
Speaker 1: a self care narrative for every fucking issue in our lives.
Speaker 1: You can't cure your anxiety by doing a face mask
Speaker 1: or your catastrophic thinking by eating superfoods. Also, there are
Speaker 1: just so many instances in which what we're going through
Speaker 1: prevents self care habits, and I think it's such a
Speaker 1: simple blanket solution that is so insidious. You see it
Speaker 1: everywhere on Instagram, from mental health professionals to healthcare professionals,
Speaker 1: from our friends, from our workplaces, like emails being like
Speaker 1: how are you practicing self care at the moment? Like
Speaker 1: how come you don't ask us how you're going to
Speaker 1: provide better mental healthcare for our workplace? Like self care
Speaker 1: makes it like all of all your kind of problem,
Speaker 1: And it's like, you know, you could just be better
Speaker 1: if you just spent more money on things that society
Speaker 1: is telling you need to feel good about yourself. You
Speaker 1: get to spend more money on skincare and healthy foods
Speaker 1: and gym memberships and meditation apps and yoga, Like it's ridiculous.
Speaker 1: And I think if catastrophic thinking reacted that easily and
Speaker 1: positively to self care, it really wouldn't be a problem
Speaker 1: with it. Anyhow, there's a random tangent about my hatred
Speaker 1: of the self care philosophy. I really don't like it.
Speaker 1: I think it's so insidious, and I hate the way
Speaker 1: it makes people feel that the reason they're not doing
Speaker 1: well is because they're not taking care of themselves when
Speaker 1: they might be trying. And even if they can't take
Speaker 1: care of themselves, isn't that a bigger problem that we
Speaker 1: should be helping them with rather than telling them to
Speaker 1: get enough sleep, Like what if you have insomnia? Come on,
Speaker 1: wake up people. But back to what we're actually talking
Speaker 1: here about. I think next time you have a kind
Speaker 1: of a what if thought, remember to tell yourself that
Speaker 1: you can handle anything that comes your way. Try to
Speaker 1: think about the worst case scenario and whether you'll handle it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you can be realistic, dick, and you probably can. You
Speaker 1: probably can handle it. But then also think about the
Speaker 1: best case scenario that's just as likely to happen, and
Speaker 1: ask yourself whether you truly believe this what if thought
Speaker 1: will actually come true? How many times have you thought
Speaker 1: something would happen and it never did. How many moments
Speaker 1: and minutes have you spent worrying about an outcome that
Speaker 1: just never emerged? Because it's so unlikely that we're going
Speaker 1: to get it right when not mine, readers, we can't
Speaker 1: predict the future. And ask yourself what's truly bothering you?
Speaker 1: Was it really that comment your boss said? Or are
Speaker 1: you simply unhappy at your job and afraid to leave?
Speaker 1: Is your partner really going to leave you? Are you
Speaker 1: really going to die in a car accident, or are
Speaker 1: you just a little bit tired and get to the
Speaker 1: root of the problem. I think, what if thinking is
Speaker 1: a distraction to remove us from the present moment. It's
Speaker 1: a tool our brain uses to provide comfort when we're
Speaker 1: stressed and we're anxious about things that we can't predict.
Speaker 1: This can kind of help you slow your thoughts down
Speaker 1: and get back into reality if you kind of rationalize
Speaker 1: it and remember that very few, if any, if any
Speaker 1: of our negative thoughts come to pass. This is so
Speaker 1: important in our twenties when our thinking patterns, this is
Speaker 1: when they become ingrained for life, and so much is
Speaker 1: up in the air. We haven't had enough experiences to
Speaker 1: know that things will turn out okay. Our brains are
Speaker 1: still developing people, They're still developing into our twenties, you know.
Speaker 1: I think it's like, not until you're twenty five twenty
Speaker 1: six is your frontal lowefully developed. And even then, synaptic
Speaker 1: plasticity means that there's so many things that we can
Speaker 1: take into our own hands and change about how our
Speaker 1: brains work. And yeah, I think it's just easier though,
Speaker 1: at this time, to create healthier thinking patterns than waiting
Speaker 1: till you're kind of an old dog trying to learn
Speaker 1: new tricks and rather than always expecting the worst for
Speaker 1: the rest of your life. A very quick, informative episode today. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was really inspired by this conversation my friend and
Speaker 1: I were having. She came and visited me in Sydney
Speaker 1: and we were just kind of talking about that she
Speaker 1: was interviewing for a job, and obviously I had just moved,
Speaker 1: so in those kind of moments where everything is quite
Speaker 1: uncertain and you're on very shaky foundations, obviously we were
Speaker 1: both finding ourselves overthinking quite a bit about everything that
Speaker 1: could go wrong, and so far it's turned out pretty well.
Speaker 1: Everything's turned out all right. And it's something that I
Speaker 1: get into all the time. I really can't stop it,
Speaker 1: and it really gets to me when I don't want
Speaker 1: to be thinking the worst, when I know that the
Speaker 1: worst isn't going to happen, but my brain just keeps
Speaker 1: on doing it. So if you're one of those people,
Speaker 1: hopefully this episode gave you some skills to develop, gave
Speaker 1: you some things to think about, gave you some understanding
Speaker 1: about why you do it. It's really not your fault.
Speaker 1: It comes from so many places, but no one wakes
Speaker 1: up one day and decides, Oh, I'm gonna like fucking
Speaker 1: analyze the shit out of my life and everything that
Speaker 1: could possibly go wrong. Because doesn't that sound like a dream?
Speaker 1: Like a walk in the park. But anyhow, I'm posting
Speaker 1: another episode next week about fighting an interpersonal conflict. Hopefully
Speaker 1: you get a kick out of it. Very exciting times.
Speaker 1: I'm keen for kind of like season two of the
Speaker 1: podcast and to jump into some more content. As always,
Speaker 1: if you have any suggestions for episodes that you kind
Speaker 1: of want me to research and put out there, just
Speaker 1: shoot me a message on my Instagram. It's called Twenties
Speaker 1: Psychology Podcast. You can also watch my reels because yeah,
Speaker 1: I do make Instagram reels because I want to get
Speaker 1: more followers, because I want to have a bigger community
Speaker 1: so we can share our thoughts and we can share
Speaker 1: all the fucked up happening in our twenties and all
Speaker 1: the good stuff as well, like graduating, moving, like falling
Speaker 1: in love, all of those beautiful, wonderful things. So thanks
Speaker 1: with your support, thanks for listening. I always ask this,
Speaker 1: but if you feel called to leave a review, Spotify
Speaker 1: and Apple both take reviews of the podcast and they
Speaker 1: really help. You know, this kind of audio in this community,
Speaker 1: the episodes I share reach more people. And if you
Speaker 1: think that might be useful for someone, maybe you don't,
Speaker 1: in which case that's fine. A review for another podcast
Speaker 1: you really love because I promise it will make someone
Speaker 1: stay and have a beautiful week beautiful weekend wherever you
Speaker 1: are in the world. And thank you for listening. I'll
Speaker 1: see you next week.