How to Cope with Overthinking Through Brain Retraining

If you feel worried about your next doctor’s visit because of negative thoughts that bring you down, or you’ve gained weight you may wonder if you’re pre-diabetic or is there a chance you have cancer? It’s these and more ways the brain leads us to believe we might have a disease. 

As a society, we’ve developed overthinking. The catch is: overthinking leads to believing those thoughts. While it’s normal to have questions about health, the point is fear affects how we think, and is behind developing toxic behaviors like poor eating habits. etc. 

It’s essential to remind ourselves our brain is in control. The danger is if it believes something as true, this is where the disconnect happens. 

Here are some effective ways to retrain our brain. 

Identify Triggers 

Beyond your internal conflict, it is important to find out what caused this fear inside of you that is not making you question your health. An instant would be where you were constantly told by your family that you were chubby which therefore lead you to believe not only are you much more prevalent to develop illnesses such as obesity, diabetes, and breast cancer to name a few, you believe there is nothing you can do to change that. Try to determine where this ideology came from. 

Have realistic self-talk 

As we’ve discovered what caused us to believe those ideologies came from, we can now have a positive talk with ourselves. Come to terms with yourself and as you look in a mirror, remind yourself that your negative thinking stemmed from somewhere else and that you have control over what you would like to do next. Even though it is a scary thought that your health might be at risk, you never really know what the doctor will say. Think about a time a doctor congratulated you for coming into his office or when they would give you recommendations on how to get better. Address those uncertainties and then start filling your mind with positive remarks and affirmations. 

Educate Yourself 

According to Kari E. Gray, AlternaCare CEO, a method we can in corporate is by educating ourselves in health and prevention literacy. Education helps in many ways and this is one topic a person can’t be over-educated on. 

Once you’ve had your self-talk, you can do your research on how to cope with feeling those negative thoughts and find out what best works for you. To be specific, if the individual is suffering thoughts about having Type 2 diabetes, she might want to avoid going on the scale and start focusing more on what she eats and how it makes her feel afterwards since it is an external disease based on the food you consume. However, she can eat foods she enjoys in moderation as it establishes balance within the body.  

17 seconds 

The negative thoughts won’t go away as soon as possible which is why reparenting the way you think is highly important. Dr. Patricia Knox recommends that whenever you have these triggering moments before your appointment, set 17 seconds in which you remind yourself that everything will be alright and if something does happen to me, it is all about getting the help I need and deserve but for now, I am healthy and I am going to be okay. This settles your body into thinking it is in a safe space which is essentially what you want when the thoughts tighten up your body. 

Taking care of your mental state is as important as taking care of your physical body. The brain is the controller of the body so if there are thoughts as negative as the ones you are thinking, it can be very detrimental to your health as it can believe whatever those thoughts are. However, you have a choice to become the better version of yourself and change those negative aspects in your life. It takes only those positive thoughts that can further your stakes at a better existence.