 Do you have an inner critic living in your mind rent-free or is your inner voice gentle and encouraging? We all talk to ourselves throughout the day, but sometimes we may forget to be kind to our own minds You try to be polite and compassionate when you talk to other people, but not to yourself Being nice shouldn't be reserved only for others After all the way you talk to yourself can impact how you feel how you see the world and most importantly your mental health Could your inner voice be making you depressed? Well, this video is here to help you recognize some signs of toxic self-talk Towards the end you'll find some tips on what steps you can take to help yourself. So number one over generalization I never do anything right. I always mess it up. Nobody likes me Do some of these phrases often go through your mind? This way of inner thought is called over generalization When you over generalize, you see a single negative event as a never-ending pattern of defeat You assume the worst and believe that one little mistake equals failure For example, getting a low score on a math exam automatically means you are terrible at math Or maybe you go through a bad breakup and start believing your bad at relationships in general or even unlovable According to research published in the biological psychiatry journal This type of thinking has been associated with anxiety disorders If you speak that way to yourself too often, it takes a toll on yourself image Thoughts like I'm not good enough or I could never be successful Could keep you from fulfilling your full potential and harm your professional or school life number two personalization Does your inner voice make you feel guilty? Does it blame you for things all the time? This is personalization Believing you're responsible for events that in reality are out of your control For example, your date gets canceled and you instantly think they changed their mind because they're not interested in you In reality, maybe something urgent came up, but your toxic inner voice turns it against you a Study published in the European Journal of Psychiatry found that personalization is generally connected to heightened anxiety Another interesting study published in the Journal of Psychology of Aesthetics Creativity and Arts examined the link between depression and personalization by studying depressed poetry writers Researchers found a slight tendency for depressed poets to engage in more Personalization, but this inner talk is not poetic at all. It only makes you lose confidence and joy number three mental filtering Do you sometimes tend to focus on negative details? For example when getting feedback from your boss or a teacher the feedback may be generally good But one little critique catches your eye Would you instantly forget everything else and dwell on that one negative mark? This train of thought is called mental filtering. It's like filtering out the positives of a situation In some cases it may be hard to see positive aspects of things But looking at things in negative ways can make you feel anxious and depressed Over time mental filtering can become an automatic habit and easily grow into a pessimistic outlook Researchers in 2017 found that this negative perspective makes you feel hopeless about life It can also trigger feelings of sadness disappointment anger and fear Great way to calm that mental filtering is practicing gratitude If you're interested in how gratitude works feel free to check out this video and number four polarization Polarization means you're thinking about yourself and the world in an all-or-nothing way You see things in extremes. They're either black or white without a gray area between them For example, you may decide to eat healthy and cut down on sugar But one day you just can't resist and you take a bite of your favorite chocolate bar So you think to yourself my diet is ruined now. I shouldn't even try anymore Do you think like that sometimes? But why would one cheat day mean that your whole progress is ruined all of a sudden? This type of thinking leads to unrealistic standards and it lowers your motivation as a result. You're unintentionally setting yourself up for failure Polarization can also hurt your relationships That's because shifting from idealizing to devaluing people like they're either great or terrible And make it harder for others to enjoy your company and back to the chocolate bar Your eating habits could suffer a study published in journal eating behaviors found that polarized thinking may make you look at certain foods Is either good or bad consider your body is either perfect or revolting or eat and binge or fasting cycles How to help yourself? So how do you help yourself when your mind wanders into this territory? First you should pay attention to how you talk to yourself It's important to notice and realize toxic thoughts when they happen after you realize your inner voice is negative Challenge it take a step back and consider these questions Is there evidence that supports my thoughts? Am I considering all angles or am I leaving things out? Does everyone else see it this way and finally Reframe what you think Research published in the journal developmental cognitive neuroscience found that reframing can be a powerful tool against toxic self-talk It's a process where you identify negative thoughts and replace them with positive and empowering ones For example instead of saying I never do anything right try consciously saying something like I am capable of doing things Successfully that first it may feel silly talking to yourself that way But a study published in Jama psychiatry shows that with practice this technique helped people decrease the symptoms of anxiety and depression So at least consider giving it a try Do you resonate with some of these points? Would you like to challenge our toxic inner voice and talk to yourself with love and compassion? Let us know in the comments If you enjoyed this video feel free to share it with someone who could use it Subscribe to psych2go and hit the notification bell icon for more content like this as always. Thanks so much for watching