We have all fallen into that downward spiral of negative thinking. It starts out with a seemingly innocent thought and ends up with a whole lot of negative thinking. Have you ever sat down to think about why you’re thinking this way? Studies have shown that there are three root causes of negative thinking so let’s see what they are:

1. Fear of the future: uncertainty and overthinking can lead to us catastrophising or predicting failure and disaster. It's hard to deal with things we don't know about but always expecting the worst outcome isn't health. The key to letting go of these negative thoughts is to accept there is a limit to what you can change in the future and strive to focus on the present instead.
2. Anxiety about the present: We often worry about our current lives, like what people think of us, how we're performing or whether we are being appreciated. You might always pick the worse case scenario but find that things are actually going pretty well. Think about the positives in your day to day when you start to spiral into negative thinking.
3. Shame about the past: We've all been there. Staying awake at night running through every mistake we ever made and every embarassament we've ever felt. It's important to recognise that the past is in the past and that others are thinking about you way less than you imagine!

So the next time you feel yourself spiralling out of control, try to understand the cause of your thoughts and hopefully it’ll help you stop!