Dr. Jeffrey Gladden explains how depression and anxiety trap you in repetitive negative thought loops. Cognitive flexibility lets you step outside those loops, see situations differently, and actually use the advice people give you.
Cognitive flexibility is a hallmark of mental health, in my view. If you can more flexibly think about a situation, you've got an ability to manage it.
Yeah. So what you're saying is that somebody that's depressed or anxious, they kind of get caught in a thought loop, right, where it's hard for them to get out of that. It's hard for them to have a different perspective on the situation. And so by cognitive flexibility, you're saying that people can then sort of stand outside that loop and look at it from another vantage point. Exactly, exactly.
It makes a huge difference in terms of people being able to use the advice they're getting from friends or family or from a therapist to actually improve what's going on in their life. People can get all kinds of incredible advice and not be able to do anything with it.
