Why is self-monitoring helpful?

Self-monitoring can help you observe yourself with curiosity.

Self-monitoring is helpful for two reasons:

The first reason is that one of anxiety’s best tricks is hiding itself from you. You may have gotten into the habit of avoiding so quickly that you don’t actually observe what’s happening. You are having thoughts, the thought is arriving in your body with sensations, and your mind is interpreting the thoughts as important. Since the thought feels important, you are responding to it as if it is important. Whether you distract yourself, analyze yourself, get reassurance from others, or do anything else to try and make the thoughts go away, the point is that you are responding to your thoughts as if they are facts, and threatening facts at that.

Self-monitoring is the opposite of avoidance. The act of slowing yourself down, identifying, and labeling the thought as a thought shifts you from content to process and you are on your way toward mindful observation.

Self-monitoring often sounds like a good idea when you hear about it but practicing it in real life is a challenge. It isn’t because you’re lazy, you don’t understand, or it doesn’t work. You don’t need the perfect explanation or the perfect device to practice this skill. Self-monitoring is challenging because it’s the first step toward getting distance from the content of your thoughts and it’s the opposite of your natural reaction.

The second reason self-monitoring can be helpful is that it helps you identify what types of thoughts you typically get stuck on. You may notice that you are worried about a number of different things. When you track what you actually worry about day to day, it is in fact only a couple of different themes.

Some anxious thoughts remain concerning due to inaccurate information, as happens if you misinterpret a rapid heart rate as a heart attack. Other thoughts maintain their power through what I call belief problems. One example of a belief problem is believing that having a thought is as bad as doing something. Once I see the content of your self-monitoring, I can help you identify and challenge your belief problems.