What are some examples of CBT activities for adults?
Written by the clinical team at The Lyceum Clinic. Clinically reviewed by Sanah Younis, Clinical Director, BABCP-accredited (no. 1000792). Published 28 October 2026. Last reviewed 28 October 2026.
CBT activities are practical tests of the thoughts and behaviours that keep a problem going: thought records, behavioural experiments, graded exposure, activity scheduling, worry postponement and response prevention. The right one depends on your formulation, not your diagnosis.
Thought records
You write down a situation, the thought it triggered, how strongly you believed it, and the evidence for and against. In the first fortnight we use these purely to observe; later they become the raw material for experiments.
Behavioural experiments: the one we set most
The experiment we set more than any other tests a catastrophic prediction about other people. The classic is "if I pause and don't answer immediately, people will think I'm stupid". So the experiment is to deliberately pause for three full seconds before answering a question in a meeting, and record what actually happens. It almost never matches the prediction.
For more detail, read about how CBT works.
What happens when the experiment goes wrong
Occasionally the feared thing happens. One client with social anxiety tested whether people would laugh if they stumbled over their words, and someone did laugh. It was not the "see, nobody cares" result the textbook promises. So we processed reality instead: the worst happened, and they survived it. The earth did not open. It turned out to be the most powerful session of the course, because they learned they could handle the worst case, which is a stronger lesson than learning it never happens.
Dropping safety behaviours
This is the activity people resist most. The crutch feels essential. What we say is that we cannot learn the water is safe if you refuse to take off the armbands; the brain has to see you survive without the armour.
Graded exposure and response prevention
For phobias and panic, we build a ladder of avoided situations and climb it step by step. For OCD, response prevention means resisting a compulsion long enough to learn that the anxiety falls on its own. Both are planned carefully and done with you, not handed over as a worksheet.
Activity scheduling and worry postponement
For low mood, we plan small, meaningful actions into the week before motivation returns, because action creates motivation rather than the other way round. For worry, a fixed daily worry slot stops it spreading across the whole day.