Cognitive Behavioral Exercises

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Cognitive-behavioral exercises are therapeutic and prophylactic psychotherapy, which are congenital means of self-action. The ultimate goal of these exercises is to reduce or completely eliminate destructive and inappropriate behavior or discomfort.

Exercise number 1

"Overcoming anxiety" (according to the gestalt therapy technique)

In order to overcome anxiety, which significantly worsens the quality of your life, you need to do the following:

Step 1. Ask yourself and most importantly - honestly answer the following questions:

• “Worrying and worrying about the future, am I not destroying my present?”;
• “Am I anxious because my problem is 'huge and insoluble' or am I just taking the time to solve it?”;
• "Is it possible to do now what worries me so much?" For example, make an appointment with your loved one, start a serious conversation, make a plan, etc.

Step 2. After you have answered the above questions, try to imagine and transfer your experiences to today and experience them right now. You will find that worrying and worrying about what is already happening “here, at this moment in time” is difficult enough.

Step 3. Concentrating on the environment:

• Try to focus on the senses, i.e. listen for sounds, smells and pay attention to colors;
• On a piece of paper: "I realize that …" write down everything that you felt.

Step 4. Focusing on the inner world:

• We listen to the heartbeat, breathing, skin, muscles, etc.;
• We take the same piece of paper and write "I realize that …" our feelings.

Then think: "Did you feel all the parts of the body?" If “no,” then do the fourth point several times so as not to ignore any part of your body.

Performing this exercise, the anxiety will begin to recede, you will calm down, as you will transfer your attention to other activities. Next time, as soon as you start to experience anxiety, do the 4 points of this exercise in stages.

Exercise number 2

"Overcoming Fear" (by Ellis)

If your fear is the result of an irrational idea (false, not having a real basis) then you need to do the following:

Try to laugh at your fear as well as your fear of fear

For example, why do you need your family's approval for a cooked meal? Think rationally: if the dish was tasteless (oversalted, undercooked, too fatty, etc.), they would definitely say about it, and since they eat in silence, then they like everything. Laugh at the fact that you are waiting for approval where it should not be expected?

• Be honest and open about your fears to a trusted person and show the emotions that you feel at the same time;
• Try to find the root cause of your fear, i.e. irrational (wrong, false) idea of what should be and replace it with a rational (reasonable);
• Observe your fears, admit to yourself that they are petty and insignificant and find the "correct" idea of what should be, challenge and gradually overcome them.

For example, you are afraid because you are afraid to show others how worried you are for someone or something. Understand that there is nothing shameful or scary in the fact that others will see that you are alarmed. Admit to yourself that your fear of expressing your emotions is unfounded and unfounded. Remember that everyone has a right to emotions and experiences.

Exercise number 3

"Enhancing creative activity" (according to D. Scott)

This exercise is also called "Brainstorming".

Step 1. We write down ideas and solutions to the problem - without much hesitation, take a sheet of paper and write the first solutions to this problem that came to your mind. This is necessary in order to exclude all your possible fears and worries about the subsequent failure, to exclude all the "brakes" and the influence of the mechanisms of your consciousness, which can, and the worst thing, that will surely arise during long reflections.

Step 2. Self-assessment of solutions - this is a critical-analytical part of the exercise, which will allow you to identify suitable and unsuitable solutions. You need to evaluate your decisions on a 5-point system, from the most reasonable and correct decision (score "5") to the most inexpedient (score "2").

Step 3. Selection of the best solution - this may be one of the most suitable options, or it may be a combination of several that will lead to a positive solution to the problem.

Exercise number 4

"Stress relief" (by K. Schreiner)

This is a kind of "cleansing the brain" of "unnecessary" thoughts.

Step 1. Listen to your feelings that you experience during stress, you may be "sweating through" or you are tense with anticipation.

Step 2. Now make a special effort to feel the moment when you are very tense. Ask a question and answer it: "For what and why am I working so hard?"

Step 3. Now ask yourself the following question: "What do I need to make me feel better?"

Step 4. For 2-3 minutes, exaggerate your feelings, let you "break through sweat" or tremendous stress for this time. Without doing anything, just feel this state and make sure that it takes a lot of energy and strength, and that this energy is wasted.

Step 5. After the observation experiment, answer yourself: “Do I need such tension? Is this good for me? Do I want to get rid of him?"

Step 6. The next step is to realize that your requirements create a sense of despair.

Step 7. We proceed directly to relaxation. To do this, you need to imagine that all your muscles have become a kind of pliable dough or foam rubber. Try to catch a state of balance.

Step 8. “We cleanse our brain of unnecessary things” and do something constructive and necessary instead of wasting our strength and energy for useless tension or “breaking through”.

Step 9. The last step is to consciously replace your requirements with your preferences.

Exercise number 5

"Resolving a stressful situation by the" Sweep "method (according to R. Bandler)

Stand up comfortably or sit down and close your eyes. Now imagine that you have one photo in both hands:

• In one hand is a card where your problem or negative situation is photographed that you would not like to see. She is gloomy, everything is negative and blurry;
• In the other hand is a card, where a pleasant situation is photographed in bright multi-colored colors, looking at which you are visited by positive emotions, such as joy, tranquility, happiness, etc.

Now with one stroke, i.e. With lightning speed, lower the negative photograph to your knee so that you stop seeing it, and raise the positive one to eye level.

This exercise should be done at a time when a stressful situation manifests itself and you feel tension. Such a lightning-fast replacement of photographs should be done until the positive image finally displaces the negative one.

Exercise number 6

"Correction of negative behavior through introspection" (according to D. Reyworth)

Being an impassive bystander is essential to this exercise. You must listen, concentrate your attention, be aware of your feelings, feel them and remember them, but at the same time do not change anything. Such exercises are done in solitude so that you are not disturbed or distracted.

Step 1. Concentrate on your physical body:

• It does not matter whether you are sitting, lying or standing, pay attention to how the legs, arms are located, the head is lowered or thrown back, whether the back is bent, etc.;
• Concentrate on where you are hurting or feeling tension, etc.;
• We listen to breathing and heartbeat.

Suggest to yourself: "This is my body, but I am not the body."

Step 2. Concentrate on your feelings:

• We listen to your feelings that you are experiencing now;
• Find and separate the positive side from the negative side of these feelings.

Suggest to yourself: "These are my feelings, but I am not these feelings."

Step 3. Concentrate on our desires:

• List your desires and aspirations, if you have them;
• Without thinking about their importance or prioritizing, list them one by one.

Suggest to yourself: "These are my desires, but I am not these desires."

Step 4. Concentrate on our thoughts:

• Catch the thought you are thinking right now. Even if you think that you do not have any thoughts at a given moment, this is a thought and you need to observe it;
• If there are many thoughts, then observe how one thought replaces another. It doesn't matter if they are correct and rational, just focus on them.

Suggest to yourself: "These are my thoughts, but I am not these thoughts."

A similar exercise "Self-correction" refers to the techniques of psychosynthesis and will allow you to observe and see your body, feelings, desires and thoughts as if from the outside.

Exercise number 7

"Who am I?" (by T. Lawmens)

This exercise also belongs to the techniques of psychosynthesis and consists in the outside observation of oneself. The purpose of the exercise is to help develop self-awareness and reveal your real "I".

Each person is like a multi-layered onion, where our true "I" is hidden layer by layer. Such layers can be masks that we “choose” for a suitable occasion and “put on” ourselves every day so that people do not see our true feelings or those qualities that we are ashamed of or do not like in ourselves. But there are layers and positive, which we ignore and do not admit to ourselves that they are "good". To see behind all these layers your real essence, your living core, your personality - this is what, thanks to this exercise, you will gradually, step by step, be able to do.

It is imperative that you are not distracted during this exercise.

Step 1. In a notebook on the first page, write a question-title "Who am I?" Now set a time and write down your answer as honestly as possible. Discard the opinions of others or what your relatives say about you, write down exactly how you think. This step can be done several times a day or daily, each time putting down a date and answering frankly: "Who do you think you are?"

Step 2. Sit comfortably and close your eyes. Ask yourself the same question and visualize the answer. Do not correct it and do not reason, but catch exactly the image that occurred to you immediately after the question. Opening your eyes, immediately describe this image that has arisen, remember what feelings you experienced when you saw it and what this image means to you.

Step 3. Stand in the middle of the room and close your eyes. Ask yourself the same question and feel the movements that your body will begin to make. Do not control them, do not interfere, do not make adjustments, but trust the body. Be sure to remember these movements, because this is how it answers the question posed.

Exercise number 8

"Dialogue with oneself for the purpose of emergency self-help" (after M. E. Sandomirsky)

The main goal of the dialogue is to urgently help oneself to relieve the bodily emotional discomfort that has arisen. Exercise should be done in isolation, so as not to interfere.

Step 1. Close your eyes and imagine a mirror in front of you, and in it your image. Take a closer look: how you look at the moment of the onset of discomfort, how it is reflected in the expression of your face, on your posture.

Step 2. Concentrate on the physical sensations and find the places where the uncomfortable sensations are experienced.

Step 3. The essence of the next step is as follows: you must say to yourself (ie to an imaginary interlocutor, to your image) all those words that, in your opinion, will calm you down in this situation, encourage, stop obsessive anxiety, self-pity, self-flagellation, self-blame and will restore your self-esteem and dignity. Put in these words as much emotionality and feelings as, in your opinion, will be needed to achieve your goal. Your imaginary "mirror" interlocutor will react to your words and his response will be a signal to you - whether your words hit the target or they were uttered in vain.

Step 4. Switch to your physical sensations. If the words reach the goal, then the physical suffering will subside and the discomfort will disappear over time. If this does not happen, repeat step 3 again.

If necessary, this exercise can be repeated several times, the main thing is to make the physical emotional discomfort subside - this is urgent instant emergency self-help.

In conclusion, I would like to note that there are a lot of such psychotherapeutic exercises in practice among psychologists. One goal unites them - it is self-help. By doing these exercises, you will learn how to independently influence yourself and thereby help yourself: eliminate or reduce inappropriate manifestations of your behavior, overcome anxiety or fear, relieve stress, increase your creative activity and better understand yourself.