Before you start

Pick one moment from today or yesterday when your mood changed. Sooner is better, because the exact words of a thought fade within hours. If you can't sit down right away, jot down what happened, what you felt, and the thought, then finish later the same day.

Choose something that bothered you but isn't the hardest thing in your life. Records are a skill, and like any skill they're easier to learn on medium-sized problems.

1. Situation

Describe one specific moment: where you were, who was there, what happened. "Tuesday, 2 p.m., at my desk. Nobody had answered my message in the group chat after an hour." Not "my week has been awful."

Stick to what a camera would have caught. What it meant to you goes in step 3. The situation can also be inside you, like a memory, a body sensation, or a thought that came out of nowhere.

2. Feelings

Name each feeling, usually in one word, and rate how strong it was at the time from 0 to 100. The feelings wheel helps when "bad" or "upset" is as far as you can get.

3. Thoughts and images

Write down what went through your mind, as it came, one thought per line. Include pictures and memories. If you're not sure, ask what you were afraid might happen, what it seemed to say about you, or what you thought other people were thinking.

4. Hot thought

Choose the one thought that best explains why you felt as strongly as you did. Rate how much you believe it right now. The rest of the record works on this thought alone.

If the feeling was at 90 and the thought you picked is mild, like "I was late," there is probably a hotter thought underneath, like "now they see I'm unreliable." Ask what the thought would mean about you, your future, or how others see you if it were true.

You can also note whether the thought fits a familiar pattern, such as mind reading or catastrophizing. The thinking styles page lists twelve. Naming one can help you step back, but it doesn't prove the thought wrong.

5. Evidence for

List the facts that support the hot thought. Be fair to it. Your feelings made sense for a reason, and writing that reason down honestly makes the next column more believable.

6. Evidence against

List the facts that don't support the thought, or suggest it isn't the whole story. This is usually the hardest step, because a strong feeling narrows what you notice. These questions help:

• What else could explain what happened? Try for two or three possibilities.
• Has something like this happened before? How did it actually turn out?
• If someone who cares about me saw the whole thing, what would they point out?
• What would I say to a friend who told me this had happened to them?
• Am I leaving anything out because it doesn't fit the thought?
• What's the worst that could realistically happen? The best? The most likely?
• If the worst did happen, what could I do, and who could help?

Sometimes, looking honestly, the evidence mostly supports the thought. That's worth knowing. Say so, and let step 7 do something different.

7. Balanced thought

Write a thought that takes both lists into account. It isn't the opposite of the hot thought and it doesn't need to be positive. It needs to be something you can believe. Many balanced thoughts hold two things at once, joined by "and" or "even though."

Rate how much you believe it. At 20, it isn't doing much yet. At 50 or 60, it starts to compete with the old one.

If the evidence mostly supported the hot thought, say plainly what's true, notice what the thought adds that the evidence doesn't back up, like "forever" or "it's all my fault," and end with what would help.

8. Feelings now

Rate the same feelings again, as they are now. A drop of 20 or 30 points is a good result. Some feeling usually stays, because the situation still matters to you.

If nothing moved, that's information. The hot thought may not have been the one driving the feeling, an older belief may sit underneath, or the situation may call for action more than a new thought.

9. What I learned

Look back over the record. What did you notice about the thought, the feelings, or the link between them? Is there one small, specific thing you'll do next? "Text Priya tonight if there's still no reply" beats "be less anxious."

The mistakes that stall a record

Most records that go nowhere trip on one of a few things. The situation is a whole week instead of one moment. A thought ends up in the feelings column, or a question sits where a statement should be. The hot thought is a mild one while the feeling was at 90. Guesses get listed as evidence, or the evidence for gets skipped, so the balanced thought feels like spin. The balanced thought is an affirmation you rate at 10. Or the record gets written days later, when the exact thought is gone.

And expecting the feeling to reach zero makes a good record look like a failed one. Partial change is the usual, useful result.

How often

Therapists often suggest one a day for a couple of weeks, or one whenever a strong feeling shows up. Research on CBT homework suggests that how carefully the practice is done matters at least as much as how much of it gets done.

Over time, read your hot thoughts side by side. The same themes often come up in different situations, and that is worth understanding, ideally with a therapist. The article on beliefs underneath explains why.

When to stop and get help

If the same worry keeps coming back however many times you examine it, if you feel you have to fill in a record before you can feel okay, or if the thoughts are about a trauma, a thought record may be feeding the problem. Please talk with a professional. More on when a record isn't the right tool.

If you're thinking about suicide or harming yourself, call or text 988 in the United States, or your local emergency number.