You send a text and get nothing back for two hours. Before long, you’ve convinced yourself the friendship is over. Your boss sends a calendar invite with no subject line, and suddenly, you’re rehearsing what you’ll say when you’re fired. Sounds familiar? Welcome to catastrophising: the deeply exhausting habit of jumping straight to the worst possible conclusion. Most of us do it, but we do not know how to stop catastrophic thinking.

So, we had a conversation with psychiatrist Dr Era Dutta to get to the bottom of why our brains do this, when it becomes a real problem, and what actually helps.

Your brain is just trying to keep you alive

Here’s something that might make you feel a little better about your 2 am panic spiral: catastrophising is an evolutionary trait. “The human brain is wired with a negativity bias because we are more sensitive to threats than to neutral or positive stimuli,” Dr Era told us. “From a survival standpoint, assuming the worst kept our ancestors alive.”

Basically, the humans who assumed every rustle in the bushes was a predator survived long enough to have children. The ones who thought, “Ah, probably just the breeze,” didn’t always make it. We are, in a very literal sense, the descendants of the worriers. The problem is that our brains haven’t quite clocked that most of us aren’t being hunted anymore. 

Dr Era describes the tendency to assume the worst as a neural muscle. “The more you use or practise worst-case thinking, the stronger this muscle becomes. Equally, optimism and balanced thinking can be trained with repetition.” Studies show some people are simply more predisposed to anxious thinking, but your patterns of thought are still yours to reshape.

So when does normal worry tip into something more?

There’s a meaningful line between healthy concern and the kind of catastrophising that starts eating you up from the inside. Normal worry has a trigger, stays roughly proportionate to the situation, and doesn’t derail your entire week. You can still zoom out and see things clearly.

Catastrophising is a different creature entirely. It moves fast, feels automatic, and has a nasty habit of seeping into everything like your sleep, your relationships, and your ability to think straight at work. Dr Era’s litmus test is this: “If your thoughts are driving your behaviour disproportionately, you’ve likely crossed into catastrophising.”

However, Dr Era is quick to point out that catastrophising does have its uses, up to a point. A healthy dose of worst-case thinking helps us plan ahead and stay alert to genuine risks. The trouble, she says, is “when the worst case becomes the default assumption, when evidence to the contrary is ignored, and the mind treats thoughts as facts rather than hypotheses.” That’s the tipping point where something protective becomes something harmful.

How to stop catastrophic thinking

The good news is you can deal with catastrophic thinking. Dr Era’s first suggestion is to name the thought what it is. “‘This is a catastrophic thought, not a fact.’ This creates psychological distance,” she says. From there, it’s about slowing things down. Catastrophising thrives on speed and emotion; it loves to move faster than your rational brain. So, you slow your breathing, ground yourself in the room you’re actually in, and notice what your body is doing. You bring yourself back to the present rather than letting your mind race three steps into an unlikely future.

Once you’ve created a bit of breathing room, reality-testing becomes possible. This is where you get curious about your own thinking: what’s the actual evidence here? What contradicts this fear? What’s a more balanced outcome? Dr Era’s favourite tool for this is the three-scenario exercise: worst case, best case, most likely case. Nine times out of ten, reality sits firmly in that third column.

Journalling is another one she recommends, especially for people whose anxious thoughts tend to loop endlessly in their heads. Getting thoughts and feelings out onto paper strips them of some of their power. Over time, it builds genuine awareness about your own patterns.

For those whose catastrophising is persistent, deeply rooted, and not shifting on its own, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy helps. It’s the clinical gold standard for a reason. This therapy goes straight after the distorted thinking at the root of all of this. Working with a therapist can dramatically speed up the process. If you feel like connecting with a therapist will benefit you, you can reach out to Dr Era Dutta here. 

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