The three-column technique, drawn from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), is a structured way to challenge your automatic negative thoughts (ANTs).
Here’s how it works:
Write down the negative or stressful thought exactly as it arises. Don’t censor or justify it—just capture the raw mental reaction. Example: “I’m never going to get better.”
Identify the cognitive distortion behind it. Common examples:
All-or-nothing thinking (“If I’m not perfect, I’m a failure.”)
Catastrophizing (“This is going to ruin everything.”)
Mind reading (“They must think I’m incompetent.”)
Labeling (“I’m lazy.”)
Emotional reasoning (“I feel anxious, so things must be bad.”) Recognizing the pattern separates you from the thought—it’s not truth, it’s a habit of mind.
Rewrite the thought in more balanced, factual terms. Example: “I’m learning to manage my health better every day. Setbacks happen, but they don’t define my progress.” This process shifts brain circuits through awareness and substitution rather than suppression. Over time, it rewires your stress response, lowers anxiety-driven inflammation, and builds emotional flexibility.
Pro Tip: Destroy the page afterward. The act of writing and releasing helps your brain detach from the old narrative instead of rehearsing it. If you keep it, you may tend to cling to it!
CBTi
In 2021, after a year of struggling with insomnia, I turned to a CBT Coach ([Caroline Isreal](mailto: caroline@tastebudrehab.org)) who worked with me for 6 weeks. I'm happy to report my insomnia is finally cured. She had me log me sleep to improve my Sleep Efficiency. To calculate your sleep efficiency simply divide total sleep time by total time in bed. A healthy sleep efficiency is 90% or better. Many adults are in the 80% range. At the start of my CBTi therapy, I was in the 70% range occasionally dipping into the 60% range. But after 6 weeks, I was consistently in the 90% range and feeling much better. What did I do and what changed? Logging my sleep was key. I used a Halo device to track when I fell asleep and when I got out of bed. I put all my data in a google sheet, but you can also use the free CBTi App. A word about the Amazon Halo. I found the data to be inaccurate. Many users on Reddit agree. It would report I was up for an hour, yet I know I was only up for 30 minutes. So I typically adjusted the 'time awake' by cutting it in half. What the Halo was good for was tracking when I fell asleep and when I woke up. Less so for the actually time I was awake in the middle of the night. Also, ignore the sleep score. It seems counter intuitive, but Caroline had me going to bed later to build up my sleep drive. The practice is known as Sleep Resistant Therapy.
Exercise is Key
While some people can get away working out 3-4 days/week, I need an hour of strenuous activity every day. It's not optional. Also, if I can't sleep, I have to get out of bed. I bought a nice warm robe to slip into when I get up because I didn't like to get out of my warm bed. Your bed is for sleep & sex. Nothing else. Turns out one of the main culprits of my insomnia was due to going to bed too early. Often I would be in bed by 9pm and quickly fell asleep. Yet I often would wake up at 2 or 3am unable to fall back asleep. Also, I was waking up a 4am. Today, I go to bed between 10-11pm and always get up at 5am. I was going to bed too early. Just because I felt tired - but I'm guessing that feeling tired was due to my increased sedentary time. My body was thinking since I wasn't moving, it must be time for sleep. The solution was to move more. Less screen time, more sunshine.
CBT for Sleep
Cognitive distortions are the mind’s way of playing tricks on us and convincing us of something that just isn’t true. While many cognitive distortions are common, there are some that can indicate a more serious condition and take a toll on our mental health, which could lead to an increase in symptoms of stress, anxiety, or depression. If you think that cognitive distortions may be altering your sense of reality and are concerned about how these thoughts may be negatively affecting your livelihood, talk to your doctor about a referral to a psychotherapist and find out if cognitive behavioral therapy could work for you.
All-or-Nothing Thinking
This type of thinking involves viewing things in absolute terms. Everything is black or white, everything or nothing.
Overgeneralization
Overgeneralization happens when you make a rule after a single event or a series of coincidences. The words "always" or "never" frequently appear in the sentence.
Mental Filters
A mental filter is an opposite overgeneralization, but with the same negative outcome. Instead of taking one small event and generalizing it inappropriately, the mental filter takes one small event and focuses on it exclusively, filtering out anything else.
Discounting the Positive
Discounting the positive is a cognitive distortion that involves ignoring or invalidating good things that have happened to you.
Jumping to Conclusions
There are two ways of jumping to conclusions: Mind reading: When you think someone is going to react in a particular way, or you believe someone is thinking things that they aren't. Fortune telling: When you predict events will unfold in a particular way, often to avoid trying something difficult. Here's an example: Jamie engaged in fortune-telling when he believed that he wouldn't be able to stand life without heroin. In reality, he could and he did.
Magnification
Magnification is exaggerating the importance of shortcomings and problems while minimizing the importance of desirable qualities. A person addicted to pain medication might magnify the importance of eliminating all pain, and exaggerate how unbearable their pain is. An example of how magnification can lead to addiction or relapse: Ken spends his life savings looking for a pill to take away his pain and depression.
Emotional Reasoning
Emotional reasoning is a way of judging yourself or your circumstances based on your emotions. For instance, Jenna used emotional reasoning to conclude that she was a worthless person, which in turn led to binge eating.
"Should" Statements
These statements are self-defeating ways we talk to ourselves that emphasize unattainable standards. Then, when we fall short of our own ideas, we fail in our own eyes, which can create panic and anxiety.
Labeling
Labeling is a cognitive distortion that involves making a judgment about yourself or someone else as a person, rather than seeing the behavior as something the person did that doesn't define them as an individual.
Personalization and Blame
Personalization and blame is a cognitive distortion whereby you entirely blame yourself, or someone else, for a situation that in reality involved many factors and was out of your control.
Resources