How Our Inner Critics are Faulty: A Logical Exercise

For those of you who don't know, I am studying for a philosophy degree at the moment. This year I'm taking a logic module, which involves picking arguments apart. It's quite complicated sometimes, but useful, and on Friday I had a little break-through in analysing my own thoughts.

So in my logic seminar on Friday we were looking at the structure of arguments. I'll give an easy example:

• If I work at Tesco I park in the Tesco car park sometimes.
• I park in the Tesco car park sometimes.
• Therefore, I work at Tesco.

Just looking at this argument, it's clear that there's something wrong with it. There could be loads of reasons why I park in the Tesco car park sometimes - it might just be to do my shopping - it doesn't have to mean that I work there! 

But it's not always so obvious. This particular argument example can be separated into algebraic parts. Bear with me if you hate maths!

So I'm going to take the argument apart now and assign each part a letter:

• A - I work at tesco
• B - I park in the Tesco car park sometimes

So the argument above can be restructured like this (look back at the original argument to work it out):

• If I work at Tesco I park in the Tesco car park sometimes (if A, then B).
• I park in the Tesco car park sometimes (B). 
• Therefore, I work at Tesco (therefore A). 

The academic part will shortly be over and I will relate this to thinking! But basically, the letters can be replaced with other sentences, for example:

• If it is raining then it is cloudy (if A then B)
• It is cloudy (B)
• Therefore it is raining (therefore A)

This argument (the raining/cloudy argument) is said to have the same logical form as the Tesco argument, because the letters are the same. This lettering order is said to be invalid because you can replace the letters with any sentence and the argument still won't 'work'. If you understand this, you'll understand the next bit!

So in last week's seminar, a nice girl sat next to me and we chatted quite a lot. This week I walked in and sat down. She came in after me and took a seat at the front away from me. At that moment I had a negative automatic thought (types of thoughts I'll look at in another blog post):

• If she didn't enjoy sitting next to me last week she wouldn't sit next to me this week. 
• She didn't sit next to me this week.
• Therefore, she didn't enjoy sitting next to me last week.

You might notice, this argument has the same lettering structure as both the Tesco and the clouds argument:

• If she didn't enjoy sitting next to me last week she wouldn't sit next to me this week. (if A then B)
• She didn't sit next to me this week. (B)
• Therefore, she didn't enjoy sitting next to me last week. (A)

Of course the argument came out from my inner critic in a rather convoluted way, like most arguments, but the basic structure is invalid. Even though thoughts from our inner critic are usually quite believable, when looked at closely like in CBT, they are often completely invalid. 

There could've been a different reason she chose not to sit next to me. And as it turned out, there was - she had to be at the front to do her presentation this week! 

The take away message from what I'm saying is that being aware of your negative thoughts means you can unpick them, analyse them and usually discover that they're complete rubbish! 

Image from here

How Meditation Could Help Your Grades

An update: I would like to do some Q+A posts with questions from my regular readers! If you have a question you'd like me to have a go at answering, please send it to me at this email address. Or put a comment on a post. All Q+A posts will be anonymous.

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Like many students I am in the middle of revising for my summer exams. And earlier I was sitting revising when I realised that revision is not all that different from meditating itself. In this blog post I'll expand on that and then go onto a few general reasons why meditating is great for students.

When I am revising, what I want to focus on is learning the material. Distractions which come up for me include my phone going off, accidentally finding myself scrolling on Facebook, or thinking about my next meal.

Similarly, in meditation, we also have one thing we want to focus on. For instance, in a breathing meditation it is our breath. Distractions which come up include trails of thought, worries about how well the meditation is going and wondering how close to the end of the 20 minutes we are.

So given the similarities, it sounds fitting that someone who meditates is better able to focus on their work without succumbing to distractions. But here's some actual scientific evidence showing that students who meditate have been shown to learn better:

1. More likely to study something they enjoy.
   
   This is one of my own thoughts about meditation for students. When we meditate we learn a lot about ourselves - our feelings about things, our most common thought patterns, etc., and by getting to know ourselves we are more likely to know what we want to study.
   
   Students who are studying a subject they enjoy are 'likely to perform better', according to Charlie Ball, editor of What Do Graduates Do?
   .
2. More present.
   
   According to a study (here), African American students who engaged in 15 minute meditations sessions at home and school every day for 4 months were less likely to show absenteeism than the control group. Studies show (here) that absenteeism leads to worse performance in studies.
   .
3. Reduced testing stress.
   
   Less stress on the day leads to a clearer head, and this study (here) showed that 64 medical students who participated in deep breathing meditation exercises experienced:
• Decreased test anxiety
• Decreased self doubt
• Increased concentration
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4. Helps you further down the line.
   
   In the same sample of medical students, those who participated in the meditation exercises claimed that they felt meditation would help them in their future jobs as physicians. 

As if those reasons weren't enough, students who tried meditation regularly have been shown in all sorts of studies (one of them here) to have grade improvements.

So next time you're setting your alarm to get up for a lecture or exam, consider setting it 20 minutes earlier to try meditating. Alternatively, try meditating before bed - you could even try my very own bedtime meditation (here). Good luck!

Image from here