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Blink 3 of 8 - The 5 AM Club
by Robin Sharma
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Live More Think Less summary
Pia Callesen
Overcoming Depression and Sadness with Metacognitive Therapy
21 mins
Brief summary
Live More Think Less introduces metacognitive therapy as a powerful tool for addressing overthinking and anxiety. Pia Callesen guides us to break the cycle of rumination and embrace a more fulfilling, mindful life.
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Live More Think Less
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The architecture of depressive thinking
What if depression isn’t something that happens to you, but something you unknowingly create through your own thought patterns? What if the key to overcoming your problems isn’t figuring them out, but rather thinking about them less?
These questions form the foundation of metacognitive therapy – or MCT – research, which has uncovered a new perspective on depression. According to this approach, depression isn’t something that randomly descends upon you from the outside – rather, you provoke it yourself through specific thought patterns. Fortunately, this means that you can also fight it. Research shows that, while everyone faces crises and negative emotions, only some people become depressed. Why is that? It’s due to differences in how we manage our thoughts.
Let’s take a closer look at thoughts. The Self-Regulatory Executive Function model describes how the mind operates on three distinct levels. The lower level consists of the constant stream of mental events that automatically happen moment by moment – mental visualizations, feelings, thoughts, memories. You don’t have much control over this level.
Above this is the middle strategic level. This is where you choose how to handle your thoughts, deciding for example whether to keep thinking about something or to stop. The uppermost layer is the metacognitive level. This consists of your beliefs about thinking itself. Metacognitive thoughts can be positive thoughts such as, “Worrying helps me cope” – or negative thoughts – such as, “I can’t control my thinking."
Metacognitive therapy states that depression happens when we rely too heavily on particular thinking strategies at the middle level. And this happens because of mistaken beliefs we have about thinking itself – the upper metacognitive level. In a nutshell, when we come to believe the wrong things about the mind, we end up using strategies that don’t work – or at least not as well as we think.
Next, let’s look at what exactly these flawed strategies are and how they often go wrong.
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What is Live More Think Less about?
Live More Think Less (2021) explores metacognitive therapy, an innovative approach to combating depression by changing your relationship with your thoughts. It offers practical methods, backed by research, to help you stop the cycle of rumination and overthinking that often leads to sadness and helplessness.
Who should read Live More Think Less?
- People struggling with recurring depression looking for insight
- Overthinkers who find themselves stuck in mental loops
- Anyone interested in practical, evidence-based techniques to improve mental health
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