Wellbeing @ Homestead

How To Change Negative Thoughts

If your head is full of negative thoughts, it’s normal to feel down. While it won’t be easy to block out the negative noise, read below for some steps you can take to turn things around.

This can help if: 

• You are experiencing anxiety.
• You can’t seem to shift out of a negative way of thinking.
• You want to feel more positive and confident

Challenging your inner voice

Self-talk is your inner voice – and the hard part about self-talk is that it always feels true, even when it’s biased or incorrect. If you’re experiencing negative thoughts, chances are your self-talk is stuck on a downward slope.

Learning to challenge this vibe might take time and practice, but it’s worth the effort. Once you start identifying how often you hear the negativity, you'll be surprised at how much of your thinking is geared towards a negative view of things.

Practise: Whenever you become aware that you’re being hard on yourself, talking down your skills and lacking in confidence use this as your signal to stop and check yourself. Are things really as negative as what your inner voice is saying?

If you wake up feeling worthless, stop and re-examine the question: What is my worth and who values it? Look to friends and family, teammates, and teachers, as examples of people who value you and your contributions.

Writing it down

It can help to write down your thoughts when you're feeling negative. The key is to find a way that works for you. Whether that’s jotting them down in a notebook, recording notes on your phone or putting ten minutes aside before bed to check-in with yourself. It's almost like you're transferring your thoughts out of your head and into a journal. When making notes, try to put down your thoughts under three headings:

• What’s the situation?
• What am I thinking or telling myself?
• How down/anxious am I on a scale of 1–10?

Then ask yourself how you feel after writing it down. Is this something you see yourself continuing? Was it difficult to identity your negative thoughts on your own?

Don't for get that the school is always here to support al students. Please reach out if you need to. The self referal form and the students wellbeing and engagement team are always available to you.

-Jas Bhatia