MYTH 7:
‘RECURRING NEGATIVE
THOUGHTS LEAD TO
DEPRESSION. SO THINK
POSITIVELY’
There’s no doubt that bad, evil and
sad thoughts, if allowed to take
over our lives, minds and bodies is
unhealthy for us in the long run. If
thoughts are recurring, you need
to be aware that your body’s alarm
system is telling you that there’s
something that needs attention.
What happens when you ignore
the smoke alarm ringing in your
house? You risk a fire burning it
down. So take stock! Our brains
have neuroplasticity, which means
that they’re constantly changing and
being re-shaped by our experiences.
We develop habitual ‘neural
pathways’ when we do or think the
same thing over and over again. This
can be both helpful and unhelpful.
Rumination or over-thinking is one
of the unhelpful ones.DO THIS: “The good news is
that we can change these neural
pathways through mindfulness
practices and training our attention
away from the thoughts that don’t
help us live the life we want to live.
We can also develop those thoughts
and behaviours we want to develop
(the positive ones). And learn how
to respond to other unhelpful ones
with a definitive ‘mind, talk to the
hand, meh’.” says Briar.
“Our minds are there for us to
use to our benefit. However, most
of the time we allow our minds
to use us,” Briar points out. “We
spend hours doing all sorts of other
stuff in our lives, but somehow
don’t dedicate that time to learning
to relate properly to what goes on
in our minds.” QMYTH 6:
‘IF SOMETHING
GOES WRONG,
THINK
POSITIVELY AND
YOUR REALITY
WILL CHANGE’
There’s truth to this, but only when
your emotional body and mental
body are equally aligned. When we’re
emotionally and physically upset, our
minds operate with cognitive distortions.
These are thought patterns that include
out-of-control thinking like: ‘What if?’.
They tend towards black-and-white
reasoning, superstitions, over-foxes on
the threatening elements of the situation,
too much future and past focus, and often
magnified future prediction.
“When we’re in a ‘thought and emotion’
storm, our minds are hijacked by our
limbic system (the emotional, more
automatic part of the brain). When this
happens, we are in fight-or-flight mode
and our ability to think fairly, logically, and
effectively is limited due to the pre-frontal
regions of the brain (parts responsible for
higher reason and impulse control) going
‘offline’,” says Briar.
When we try to beat these distortions
with positive statements, rational thoughts
and thinking strategies, it has limited
impact and we end up with an argument
in our head. When we are experiencing
such a reaction, it’s best to disempower
the thoughts—both negative and positive.
Then, centre the mind’s attention outside
our thoughts, in reality, and focus on
breathing through the feelings—the anger,
the annoyance, the frustration, the fear—
and not feeding them with the thoughts.
DO THIS: “When we withdraw attention
from thoughts and focus on our breath and
the body senses, emotions (unless they are
being stimulated by a real-life emergency
situation) will last for about 96 seconds in
our body and then subside. Then positive
and rational thoughts may be used to bring
the mind back to a state of equilibrium,”
says Briar.