The Three Cs
How to stop yourself spiralling from anxious thoughts...
“Our Greatest Weapon Against Stress Is Our Ability To Choose One Thought Over Another”
William James
We all experience anxiety in our lives… an upcoming test… a long drive to a new destination… starting a new job…
It’s human.
And anxiety itself is not a negative emotion, as long as it’s short-term and manageable. It’s when it becomes overwhelming or debilitating or sticks around for too long, becoming chronic, that it’s bad for us.
It’s not just you
I’ve had several conversations recently with friends who have shared their own escalating anxiety about things they’re currently navigating, and it’s reminded me of my own cycle of anxious thinking that I often get caught up in…
As someone who has lived with anxiety for many years and has spent the past few trying to get better at recognising and intercepting negative thought loops before they escalate beyond my capacity, I want to share a technique with you that may help…
The Three Cs
‘The Three Cs’ is a technique I came across during the third year of my counselling and psychotherapy degree, and is often used in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT). This therapeutic intervention helps people to recognise, manage, and even change their thought patterns and behaviours.
‘The Three Cs’ stand for:
Catch
Check
Change
And here’s how it works:
Catch
This is probably the hardest part because it can be tricky to ‘catch’ our escalating anxious thoughts.
Being able to recognise such thought patterns, especially when your brain is already firing from a place of anxiety, can feel like being a skilled assassin! So go gently and be patient with yourself. The more we practice becoming aware of our thoughts, the quicker and easier it becomes to spot them, but once you do, that’s where the magic begins…
Check
So now we want to ‘check’ that thought and explore its validity.
Check if it’s warranted…
Check if it’s real…
Check if it’s needed…
Some anxious thoughts will be necessary and even helpful to us.
Anxiety has an important job - it’s attempting to keep us safe; safe from threats, safe from harm.
For example, many of us would feel anxious at the thought of public speaking, and yes, we’d all probably prefer to feel joyful and fancy-free about speaking in front of hundreds of people, but actually, this anxiety is very beneficial to us, providing we allow it to help us.
It encourages us to plan and prepare, and it can help us to remain focused and attentive.
If we weren’t anxious about our speech, we probably wouldn’t think about it, plan what to say, prepare for our journey to get there in good time, consider potential questions or discussions afterwards…
The anxiety helps us do our best, reminding us this is something we care about, and it can even help us to be successful… if it’s allowed.
However, on the other hand, unhelpful anxiety can cause a thought to quickly escalate from, “I’ve got a cough… I might not manage that run tomorrow…” to “What if my cough gets worse… maybe I’ll be too poorly to go to work on Monday… Maybe it’s not just a cough… What if I have Tuberculosis…”. And before you know it, you’ve just walked yourself through an imaginary version of events where you end up in the hospital, hooked up to a ventilator in the ICU!
Our human brains are incredibly sophisticated and have evolved beyond other mammals… we have harnessed the skill of IMAGINATION… but sometimes this comes with its downfalls.
But the good news is, we can train our brains to recognise and intercept unhelpful thoughts.
And this is where ‘checking’ a thought can make all the difference.
Take a slow, deep breath… and calmly start to explore the thought…
Ask yourself, is this thought real? What are the facts? Is it rational? What evidence is there?
Take the example of the cough, the ‘checking’ process may sound something like this:
Do I have a cough? Yes, that is a fact.
Is it rational to think it’s anything more serious? No, my kids are constantly coming home from school with coughs and colds and more than generous in their sharing of these little blighters.
Is it likely to be tuberculosis? Is there any evidence of that? No, right now, in this moment, it is just a cough, and to be honest, when was the last time I heard of anyone having TB, I’m not living in the 1800s (although I do sometimes feel that old)…
Change
So, now we’ve ‘caught’ the thought and ‘checked’ it, we have the power to change it!
The thought, “I have a cough… what if it’s tuberculosis?” is not accurate or helpful and will only heighten our anxiety and increase stress.
So, instead, a more helpful thought may be, “I have a cough, but that’s all it is at the minute, I’ll keep an eye on it, drink plenty of water and warm drinks and if it gets worse or is still here by this time next week, I will go to the doctors and get it checked…”
This allows us to acknowledge the thought, not push it away or suppress it, but rather park it, reassuring our mind that it’s been noted, but right now we don’t need to do anything about it, let’s remain in the present moment, where we are right now…
And more often than not, once we’ve acknowledged a thought and shelved it for later, we don’t usually need to revisit it… It gradually dissipates, the anxiety loosening its grip with the passing of time, or we receive evidence of the contrary. For example, the cough gets better after a couple of days, and we’re back to our normal rhythm, no need to see the doctor or think about it any more… well, until the next school germ comes home clinging to your youngest child…
And if it turns out we do need to revisit it, then we will probably find we can do that from a place of more calm, more strength and more clarity because we have given our brains the space to regain emotional regulation and clearer thinking, than if we’d allowed ourselves to get caught up and carried away in the cyclone of worry…
If you, too, experience episodes of undue worry and spiralling of anxious thoughts, please know you are not alone, and you don’t have to suffer with this… Remember, our anxiety is attempting to keep us safe, but sometimes it needs the gentle hand of reason to decide if it’s necessary or not…
Take care and much love,
Julie x
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