Help yourself think clearly, make better decisions, and keep impulses in check with these 11 mental tricks.
Cognitive distance is the psychological space we create by temporarily stepping outside ourselves in our mind’s eye. It’s easy to see how cognitive distancing techniques help us disagree better: Research suggests they increase emotional self-regulation, enhance problem-solving, and improve decision-making.
It’s become popular in some conflict resolution circles to talk about “putting up guardrails” to make sure people behave well. The beauty of cognitive distancing techniques, many of which are sublimely simple, is that they help us assemble our own guardrails and, by doing so, maintain not just our equilibrium but also our agency.
Out-of-control emotions can make smart people stupid.
DANIEL GOLEMAN
Cognitive distancing techniques involve briefly adopting mental imagery or considering the present moment from a different point in time or space. Here are 11 of my favorites in three categories:
- Time travel
- Space travel
- Parallel universe
Time travel
Mental time travel techniques can take us into the future or the past, giving us a longer-term view of the present situation.
Future self
How to do it: Imagine your future self looking back at the present moment.
Why it works: Researchers at the University of Zurich and the University of Dusseldorf concluded that our brain essentially views our future self like it’s a different person, helping us reduce impulsivity and make choices that serve our longer-term interests.
You are the best author of your own future.
CATHERINE PULSIFER
Happy memory
How to do it: Recall a happy memory. It’s helpful to choose a happy memory that you figuratively keep in your back pocket for when you need it rather than try to conjure one when you’re in the middle of a storm.
Why it works: Autobiographical memories can evoke the emotions of the original experience. Even in acute stress, research has shown that happy memories can “trick” us back into a better emotional state.
Backcasting
How to do it: Imagine someone else — perhaps a supervisor or an imaginary mediator — in the future looking back at you in the present moment.
Why it works: Like other time-shifting techniques, backcasting helps us take the long view. Research suggests that imagining how we’ll be remembered primes us for pro-social behaviors.
Lasting legacy
How to do it: Imagine that the person looking back is a descendant, perhaps a grandchild or a great-great niece.
Why it works: Lasting Legacy is a variation of Backcasting and works for similar reasons.
Space travel
Mental space travel techniques are about changing physical position or relocating ourselves — or them — in the environment.
Fly on the wall
How to do it: Mentally step outside yourself and watch yourself from a distance, like a fly on the wall.
Why it works: The worst thing to do in an anger-inducing situation, says aggression and anger researcher Brad Bushman, is what feels most natural: Focus on hurt and angry feelings. This “self-immersive” behavior tends to fan the flames of aggression instead of soothe.
Conveyor belt
How to do it: Imagine the stimulus — the person or thing throwing you off balance — moving away from you, as though on a conveyor belt carrying it (them) off to the horizon.
Why it works: Researchers Joshua Davis, James Gross, and Kevin Ochsner point out that if you’re seated next to an annoying individual at a party, you can reduce their emotional impact on you by getting up and moving to a seat further away. You can achieve a similar result mentally when moving isn’t an option.
Lean back
How to do it: Just lean back in your seat.
Why it works: When a task is difficult, researchers Manoj Thomas and Claire Tsai note that people tend to “mentally zoom in” on the problem to gain a closer perspective. However, this mental zooming can make some problems harder because close psychological distance can also increase negative feelings. Thomas and Tsai discovered that physically leaning back in a seat can make certain tasks feel less difficult.
Footnote
How to do it: For a moment, focus on your feet — wiggle your toes, feel the soles of your feet inside your shoes, feel the floor or ground beneath your feet.
Why it works: Dr. Jud Brewer of the Mindfulness Center at Brown University says that our “anxiety zones” tend to be in our chest and throat and that our feet are as far away from those zones as we can get in our bodies.
Wave off
How to do it: Picture yourself turning sideways to keep the wave of their strong emotions from knocking you off your feet.
Why it works: I have no research to cite on this one. I think it works for reasons similar to Footnote — we plant our feet solidly and let the emotional wave split and wash past us.
Parallel universe
Parallel universe techniques are about looking at ourselves from a different angle.
Always remember your focus determines your reality.
GEORGE LUCAS
As if
How to do it: Respond to a stimulus as if you are something or someone other than yourself. Find examples here.
Why it works: A classic exercise in theatrical improv, “as if” helps us break free from the limits and self-consciousness imposed by our egos.
Third person
How to do it: Mentally narrate what you’re experiencing, but talk about yourself in the third person. It might sound like this if I were doing it: “Tammy felt a jolt of annoyance when Clara passed off Tammy’s idea as her own.”
Why it works: Researchers have found that when people describe their problems in the third person, they self-regulate better, think more clearly, make better decisions, and are more willing to consider other perspectives. This is called illeism, and it interrupts rumination, the generally unhelpful tendency to dwell on troubled thoughts or feelings.
Over to you
Here are some reflection / journaling / conversation / comment prompts to help you bridge the gap between reading and doing:
- Did you find yourself particularly drawn to any of the techniques? What is it about those techniques that resonated with you? Do they have anything in common?
- Did you find yourself turned off by any of the techniques? What about them pushed you away and what does it tell you about yourself?
- How will you remember a few of these techniques in order to try them out when you need them?
- If you were to design your own cognitive distancing technique, perhaps for one of the three categories or a variation of one offered here, what would it look like?