Small Steps to Wellbeing
Because life is complicated enough and information is everywhere Small Steps is aimed at providing life relevant information in digestible episodes of only a few minutes at a time. Each episode also includes an experiment that can be tried out quickly, and replicated in most environments. I'm not trying to provide definitive answers, but want to stimulate listeners to explore multiple alternatives that resonate in their own search for understanding and purpose in life. Small Steps takes inspiration from my own experiences as a human experimenting with and exploring life, but also draws on my professional life as a walking therapist in the Netherlands and my readings into a variety of perspectives from eastern philosophy, stoicism and modern day perspectives regarding what it may mean to lead a fulfilling and human centered existence.
Small Steps to Wellbeing
Cognitions - Identifying Hot and Cold Cognitions
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What is going on inside your head today? Have a listen and understand a little more about the frequency of your thoughts, and learn about the concepts of hot and cold cognitions.
Hello and welcome to another episode of Small Steps with me, your host, Stephen Davis from Interactive Therapy. Today's episode is focusing on cognitions, specifically identifying hot and cold cognitions. Now, when we talk about cognitions, essentially what we're talking about is the process of thinking. A process that I believe is largely taken for granted as a very simple activity. But my goal today is to highlight that there is actually a lot more going on inside your head than you may think, if you'll pardon the pun. What's more, I'm hardly even scratching the surface in this one episode today, and will follow on in future episodes. So do be sure to look out for them. Neuroscientific studies would estimate that we can have somewhere between 6,000 and 10,000 thought processes per day. Now that means in just one hour's time you'll have several hundred thoughts passing through your mind. Now does this mean that you have the same thoughts as everyone else? Well, although we may think similar things to others, our thoughts are likely to be quite unique. And this is because our thoughts are influenced by the way that we perceive the world around us and the interpretations that we ascribe to the situations that we experience. Now some of these thought processes will be subconscious thoughts, and this means that they may not necessarily register as a thought and may or may not have subtle influences on emotions or behavior. There will also be conscious thoughts, and in this episode I'll generally characterize these conscious thoughts as either hot or cold cognitions. Examples of cold cognition are will I wear the black top or the blue one? Or will I have breakfast before or after I take a shower? These are called cold cognitions due to the limited influence that they have on your emotional state. Examples of hot cognitions could be if I wear the wrong top, then people will laugh at me. Or I should really skip breakfast to avoid getting fat. Now hot cognitions are thoughts that we are not only aware of, but that have a definite effect on our emotional state. For example, by making us laugh or cry, feel confident or shy, or trigger fear or anger. So on to the exercise for this short episode. And the idea is for you to start recognizing and labelling your hot and cold cognitions. Now I'm not asking you to take account of them all, but rather to just remain aware and note down those that appear in your day-to-day life. So for this exercise you're going to need some sort of a notebook or device that you can use to save examples of your thoughts. Now in recording these thoughts, whether you use a device or a paper, try simply creating two columns or a two-column table if it's in a device, and give one of these columns the title of cold cognitions and the other of hot cognitions. Now throughout the coming period, note down thoughts you think would fit into either of these categories. There's no right or wrong way for doing this, it's really just about experimentation. But the general kind of rule of thumb is that again the cold cognitions will not necessarily trigger an emotional response, whereas the hot cognitions will trigger some sort of an emotional response. And by categorizing or capturing these kind of thoughts, this should provide you over a period of time with an overview of your typical thoughts and may also give some insight into some of your emotional triggers. Good luck with the exercise.