Hi and welcome to this audio on trying new behaviors or to give it its technical term behavioral experiments.
Behavioral experiments are a key skill in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy or CBT.
They're a way of testing out our thoughts and predictions in real life.
Another key skill in CBT is evaluating our thoughts and this can be useful in and of itself.
However,
Beyond evaluating our thoughts and developing different perspectives about situations,
We can go further and actually try out for ourselves our new ways of thinking about things.
In CBT we explore the predictions that can come up for us.
So for example if I do X then Y will definitely happen.
And we're particularly interested in those predictions that cause us anxiety and other difficult emotions as these are the ones that often lead to avoidance and can make our world smaller.
A behavioral experiment helps us test the accuracy of our predictions so we can decide if we need or want to keep living according to them or not.
Think of it as like being a scientist with your own mind.
Being curious,
Open to evidence and willing to test ideas rather than assume they're true.
So let's take an example.
Suppose that I think that if I make a suggestion at work or with my friends group they'll think that my suggestion is stupid and they'll think I'm stupid.
Engaging with that thought then makes me feel anxious and maybe embarrassed,
Ashamed and so it makes me stay quiet and keep my suggestions to myself.
And not only do we not get to do some of the things that I'd like to do or go forward with some of the ideas that I have,
An unintended consequence of that might be that I get frustrated if I feel sidelined and not heard.
Now even though my assumption might feel true I can't know it to be true.
So how can I know if that prediction is accurate?
This is where our behavioral experiments come in.
I can test it out for myself.
So in this context my behavioral experiment might be next time someone in my team at work or one of my friends are looking for suggestions,
So maybe about a work project or what film me and my friends go to see,
I'll share one idea and then I'll notice how people react so that I can really assess whether my prediction about people thinking I'm stupid is true.
So instead of assuming the worst we're gathering real-world evidence.
Now I've outlined this as if it's really easy to do but in reality doing behavioral experiments aren't easy because the really good,
Valuable,
Useful experiments will be around areas for us that do cause uncertainty and fear.
So they do tend to create some anxiety as we're often testing predictions that make us feel anxious.
But keep in mind with a behavioral experiment no matter what the outcome there's always something to be learned from it and this can be about how accurate our predictions actually are and it might also be about our ability to cope with difficult situations.
So let's look at the process of doing and planning a behavioral experiment.
So I'll guide you through it and you can try with some of your own examples of things that might be helpful.
So first of all we want to really nail down our prediction.
What are we predicting?
So you might think of a recent situation where anxiety or self-doubt or perhaps a negative thought held you back.
What was the prediction that went through your mind?
So I'll give you some examples.
If I go to the gym people will stir and point and laugh at me or if I ask a question people will tuck and roll their eyes because I'm annoying them.
So you'll notice that these predictions have an observable element and that's really important because we need to be able to have something to look for in that data that we gather that allows us to evaluate our predictions.
And as I said if it's a good useful experiment it's likely that you'll feel anxious so part of your prediction might be to assess how anxious you might feel.
Maybe you might rate out of ten the intensity of the anxiety so you can really test how accurate that is.
Maybe you might rate how much you'll cope with doing this experiment and again you can then look back at the end to see how accurate that was.
So not only are you testing out the kind of contextual aspects but also any predictions about the emotional aspects of doing this too.
Now as I said we want to have some ratings so having some ratings about how strongly you believe the prediction to be true can be helpful so you might rate that from 0 to 10 or 0 to 100.
And then we want to plan the experiment so what small action could you take to test out your prediction?
Now the goal of this is not to prove yourself wrong but simply to gather information so to collect data if you like.
So an experiment could be maybe asking a question to somebody or making eye contact or making a mistake in an email to see if anyone notices.
Perhaps delegating a task if this is something you find difficult or sitting with the discomfort of a messy kitchen or an unresolved situation rather than jumping to fix it.
So think about the things or the situations that you tend to avoid because of your anxiety and your anxious predictions.
These will be the good experiments for you.
And try to think of something that gets you out of your comfort zone so does create some anxiety but at the same time feels doable.
So you might need a few stepping stone experiments if the initial idea feels not quite doable yet.
So for example if you're anxious about driving on the motorway you might start with an experiment of driving on a quiet motorway for a few junctions with a friend and bit by bit change the experiments in a way that enable you to work up to driving on a busy motorway alone gathering data at each stage to help you with the next.
Now once you've planned your experiment the next step is to do it to carry it out.
Now you likely won't be able to do this right now.
So for the moment in our practice here I'm going to invite you to imagine yourself doing it.
So if it helps you can close your eyes.
You don't have to.
But see if you can picture the situation in your mind's eye.
Imagine yourself there.
Really notice what you see around you.
What you hear.
What you feel.
Maybe even what you smell or taste if it's relevant.
And see if you can imagine yourself.
Taking the action.
And what would be useful to notice as you do it.
So if you need a little longer to do this then feel free to pause the audio.
Our imagination is powerful.
And our brain responds in similar ways when we imagine doing something as it does when we're actually doing that thing.
So even though we're doing this imaginal rehearsal as part of our little practice right now this can be a very useful stepping stone too.
But for now let's imagine that you have done the experiment for real and let's look at the next step which you would move on to.
So when we've done an experiment we really want to take some time to reflect and review the outcome.
What actually happened?
Was it what I predicted?
Was there anything observable that tells me about the accuracy of my predictions?
Often the feared outcome is less likely or less extreme than we expected.
And we tend to find that we can cope more than our anxiety would lead us to believe.
And if you feel like you might need to add another stepping stone experiment in here.
If you weren't quite able to do what you planned then that's fine.
That's OK.
We can do a behavioral experiment that feels something more doable that allows you to work towards your initial suggestion.
And having reflected on the outcome we want to go back to our ratings.
So the strength of the belief has that changed?
In light of the information that we found out with our experiment.
So if you believe that your prediction was 90 percent or 9 out of 10 true before how much do you believe it now after considering the outcome of your experiment and your experience in doing it?
And what might be the broader learning that you can take forward from it more generally?
So the key point is that behavioral experiments help us gather evidence.
So rather than getting stuck in our assumptions we can actually test them out and see what happens.
And even if the feared outcome happens as I said often we find that we can cope better than we imagined.
And over time doing behavioral experiments can weaken unhelpful beliefs and strengthen beliefs that might be more helpful and supportive for us and build our confidence.
So to recap behavioral experiments involve four main steps.
Identifying our predictions,
Planning an action or an experiment to test the predictions,
Carrying that out and then reviewing the results and thinking about what that insight gives us for our broader learning that we can take forward.
So think of yourself as a scientist testing your thoughts with curiosity and openness rather than judgment.
And this is a skill that you can build into everyday life so next time you notice a strong prediction just pause for a moment and ask yourself,
Is there a way that I could test this out in a small safe way?
And finally keep in mind if you're struggling to think about how you might use your prediction but you think it could be useful for you it might be worth considering working with a CBT therapist who can provide some guidance and ideas and of course some support to help you along with the process.
As we come to the end of this audio I want to thank you for practicing with me today.
