- Ask Doctor K - http://www.askdoctork.com -
"How can I change my pessimistic outlook?"
Posted By Anthony Komaroff, M.D. On May 17, 2014 @ In Mental Health | Comments Disabled
DEAR DOCTOR K:
"I’m a 'glass half-empty' type of person. I know that way of thinking adds to my stress and unhappiness. Is it possible to change the way I see things?DEAR READER:
"Yes, there is. Through a type of 'talk therapy' called cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), you can learn to reframe negative thoughts. That, in turn, can help change how you feel.
"CBT can help you challenge overly simplistic, irrational, negative thoughts. It’s easiest when the thoughts are patently untrue: 'I never do anything right,' for example.
"It’s harder when there’s an element of truth mixed in: 'At my age, I’ll never reach my goals.' If your dream was to be a famous opera singer, that statement may apply. Most likely, though, there are other goals you did reach. And other goals you can still reach.
"I’ll describe a four-step process taught at the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine at Massachusetts GeneralHospital. It’s one way to counteract distortions and negative thoughts:
"STOP. Call a mental time-out when you feel stressed.
"BREATHE. Take a few deep breaths and step back from whatever is causing you stress before you react.
"REFLECT. Ask yourself: Is this thought or belief true? Did I jump to a conclusion? What evidence do I actually have? Is there another way to view the situation? What’s the worst that could happen?
"CHOOSE. Decide how to deal with the source of your stress. For example:
- Problem-solve what you can control. Gather information, make a plan and take action.
- Accept what you cannot change.
- Challenge distorted, irrational thinking. Ask yourself: How else can I think about this? What else can I do to cope more effectively?
"Yes, I know this sounds simplistic and obvious. And I was skeptical, too, when I first heard about cognitive behavioral therapy. But I’ve seen enough examples of success that I’ve become a believer."
I'm going to try this. I definitely need it.
Posts
11 comments:
good advice, hard to catch yourself to do it tho. definitely worth trying.
The Powerlessness of Positive Thinking
According to a great deal of research, positive fantasies may lessen your chances of succeeding. In one experiment, the social psychologists Gabriele Oettingen and Doris Mayer asked eighty-three German students to rate the extent to which they “experienced positive thoughts, images, or fantasies on the subject of transition into work life, graduating from university, looking for and finding a job.” Two years later, they approached the same students and asked about their post-college job experiences. Those who harbored positive fantasies put in fewer job applications, received fewer job offers, and ultimately earned lower salaries. The same was true in other contexts, too. Students who fantasized were less likely to ask their romantic crushes on a date and more likely to struggle academically. Hip-surgery patients also recovered more slowly when they dwelled on positive fantasies of walking without pain.
As the journalist Oliver Burkeman noted in The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking, “Ceaseless optimism about the future only makes for a greater shock when things go wrong; by fighting to maintain only positive beliefs about the future, the positive thinker ends up being less prepared, and more acutely distressed, when things eventually happen that he can’t persuade himself to believe are good.”
Oettingen and Kappes asked two groups of undergraduates to imagine the coming week. One group fantasized that the week would go as well as possible, whereas the other group conjured a more neutral version of the week. One week later, when the students returned to the lab, the positive fantasizers felt that they had accomplished less over the previous week.
In a provocative new analysis, Oettingen and her colleagues have suggested that public displays of positive thinking may even predict downturns in major macroeconomic outcomes. They used a text-analysis program to measure the tone of articles in USA Today between 2007 and 2009, and found that especially positive articles predicted a downturn in the Dow Jones Industrial Average between a week and a month later. The researchers also analyzed all twenty-one U.S. Presidential inaugural addresses between 1933 and 2009, and found that Presidents who waxed optimistic about the future saw a rise in unemployment and a slowdown in economic growth during their terms in office. It’s perhaps too strong to suggest that positive thinking, alone, produced these large macroeconomic changes, but the staggering results in this most recent paper are consistent with more than a decade’s worth of studies in Oettingen’s lab.
You will feel better by eliminating Sugar and it's modern day chemically produced substitutes from your diet. No more white bread or bleached white flour. Eliminate Soda and modern snacks. Eat Fruits and Nuts.
Regular exercise with some effort is also necessary. Get a bicycle and go for long rides. Force yourself to sprint up a Hill and get winded! Being outside and getting some Sun helps.
F*ck the power of Positive Thinking. Dealing with Reality works much better.
*PROOF* that dealing with Reality BOOSTS your bottom line, or GDP, as the case may be!
Cocaine Sales to Boost Italian GDP in Boon for Budget
Italy will include prostitution and illegal drug sales in the gross domestic product calculation this year, a boost for its chronically stagnant economy and Prime Minister Matteo Renzi’s effort to meet deficit targets.
Drugs, prostitution and smuggling will be part of GDP as of 2014 and prior-year figures will be adjusted to reflect the change in methodology, the Istat national statistics office said today. The revision was made to comply with European Union rules, it said.
Renzi, 39, is committed to narrowing Italy’s deficit to 2.6 percent of GDP this year, a task that’s easier if output is boosted by portions of the underground economy that previously went uncounted. Four recessions in the last 13 years left Italy’s GDP at 1.56 trillion euros ($2.13 trillion) last year, 2 percent lower than in 2001 after adjusting for inflation.
I took time to write a much better blog than this several months back.
No offense to anyone...but mine is better without the MD after it.
My credentials are NREMT-P, L.E, L.f.D. , B.A.
I tend to rely on all the old adages and try to believe in Karma and the belief that we can try to manage our lives, but what is meant to be, will be, despite our efforts.
The best thing you can do when you are feeling uncertain or stressed is to do what you know. The rest will naturally fall into place.
I have a constant stream of negative thoughts in my head. It's like a subconscious routine. I want it to stop.
Orb's, ANYTHING that makes you feel better Is worth a try. My glass Is Half Empty, and I'll certainly try this. As a matter of FACT, I'm using the process right NOW as I write.
Bad drivers piss me off. I've used this process in traffic to successfully defuse my anger a number of times.
BLB, thank you for your blogs and contributions to this site. As I've said before, I don't know how you do it all.
I saw this DR K column in the print newspaper the other day. The 4-step process to go from negative to positive resonated within me, so I linked to it online.
You can't compare this blog to the one which you wrote yourself: From HELLth to Health
Your blog is entirely of your own making. This blog is a copy-paste job. It caught my eye, and I copied and pasted it.
There was absolutely no intention of offending you or your blogs.
Thank you, again, for your contributions to the JTI
Here r my thoughts:
xoxoxoxo
Here are my credentials
BS
BS
BS
Glad u could understand
Proof that you can have an extremely pessimistic view of how Industrial Civilization ends, YET, be happy, healthy and productive.
A response to my critics and further adventures in Ecuador
I continue to receive abundant criticism for driving an automobile and taking flights on commercial airlines. These critiques obviously originate from caves to which water is carried via gourd from the nearby stream and the only meat is derived from insects.
As I’ve explained for many years, I will gladly stop participating in fossil foolishness when these enterprises reach their overdue end. If my lack of participation in these activities would terminate car culture and airline culture, I would’ve stopped years ago. Actually, I did, for about two years. Sadly, the beat goes on.
Conservation is largely irrelevant, as explained by Jevons’ paradox, the Khazzoom-Brookes postulate, and reality. Not surprisingly for people born into this culture, the irrelevance is lost on the culturally conditioned masses. Indeed, conservation is another attempt, among many, to bring austerity to the masses. Perhaps you could join me in driving up the price of oil instead of furthering civilization by doing the opposite.
...
The notion of near-term human extinction is anathema to mainstream climate scientists, including the likes of James Hansen and Michael Mann, among the most famous climate scientists in the world...
...
The train not only left the station, it fell off the trestle. Now we’re simply contemplating who gets the best view before the train hits the bottom of the rocky canyon. According to David Wasdell’s May 2014 analysis, which includes a critique of the IPCC’s ongoing lunacy, “equilibrium temperature increase predicted as a result of current concentration of atmospheric greenhouse gasses is already over 5°C.” I see no way for humans to survive such a rise in global-average temperature, and it’s baked into the proverbial cake.
If only I’d offer a civilized path forward, I’d be popular. If I promoted false hope, contrary to abundant evidence, I’d be able to make a living by speaking in public to sold-out crowds. If I’d finish each presentation with three tasks everybody can pursue, I’d be featured on the mainstream nightly news. Alas, no dice. Evidence is priceless.
...
The trip to Ecuador brought mixed feelings. The natural beauty is stunning. The dependence on industrial civilization is, too. Ecuador has access to sophisticated technology and infrastructure, including hydrofracturing and refineries. Even small villages rely heavily on modern, truck-based importation of food and other “necessities” for everyday life. Contrary to the typical Western approach, most Ecuadorian people with whom I interacted are content to pursue joyful, simple lives rather than an abundance of money. Sadly, though, there is little evidence that many of these people will survive collapse of American empire (for example, their official currency is the U.S. dollar, and typical billboards tout the same two soft drinks battling for American minds mouths).
The government also lied about the Moon Landings - but I don't let the delusional fakes and phonies get me down!
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Moon
Award winning filmmaker Bart Sibrel presents his highly acclaimed (and much hated) controversial documentary showcasing newly discovered behind-the-scenes out-takes from the first mission
to the moon, proving that the crew never left earth orbit.
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The Essential Role of Volatility, Stress and Dissent
The individual or system that never experiences dissent, volatility or stress is systemically unhealthy and increasingly prone to sudden "gosh, I didn't see this coming" collapse.
In other words, the notion that stress and dissent are to be avoided is scale-invariant: it works the same for individuals, households, enterprises, economies, governments and empires.
What got me thinking about this was some recent research that suggests short bursts of physical exertion several times a day yields the equivalent positive results as 20+ minutes of strenuous workout in the gym.
Doing some strenuous exercise for 60 seconds a few times of day appears to trigger the same immune response and repair systems that longer duration exercise engenders.
Why does this matter? On a practical level, many of us have a hard time finding time to go to a gym every day. Those of us over 50 find that sustained vigorous exercise increases the odds of injury.
On a natural-selection level, the benefits arising from short bursts of strenuous exercise fits into our basic survival need to be ready to sprint, lift a heavy object, etc., that is, perform some brief exertion to escape danger or obtain the necessities of life.
In the hunter-gatherer world that shaped the human genome, calories are too scarce to squander on 20+ minutes a day of vigorous workout; the payoff simply isn't worth the costly expenditure of calories.
So the fact that three 60-second bursts of exertion are enough to maintain strength and endurance makes sense in a natural-selection analysis in which the minimum number of calories are consumed to maintain the optimum sustainable fitness for survival.
There is another form of survival fitness, of course, the ability to walk/jog for miles/kilometers a day, day after day. We clearly need both types of fitness to be resilient and healthy.
The key to the benefits of short bursts of exertion (fort example, 50 jumping jacks or 20 burpees, etc.) is that this stress signals the body to rebuild muscle tissue and activate multiple immune responses to the damage caused by the exertion.
In terms of systems, stress, volatility and dissent are essential because only these forces trigger systemic reform, repair and rebuilding.
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