Flipping the Script: How to Recognize and Correct Patterns of Negative Thinking.

Think about a carton of milk that’s been left out for a month. Imagine what it might look or smell like. Think about what it may taste like. How do you feel?

Thoughts are remarkable things. We have developed the capacity – through imagination and language – to create complex and evocative ideas with enormous consequences. When you thought about the milk, perhaps your mouth turned in a scowl. Your eyes tightened, your heart rate rose. When you thought about the smell maybe your nose crinkled. It was upsetting, and you may have become annoyed that I asked you to imagine such a thing.

Myriad studies have been done to show the power of thoughts on our physicality. From perceptions of pain, to ideas of health, and even perceptions of self like intelligence, what goes on in the brain matter has far reaching implications. In short, the mind does indeed shape reality.

What is Thinking?

We’re going to get into some pretty esoteric concepts here, but it’s important in order to understand what thoughts are and how we are meant to interact with them. To begin, we’ll do a little Chinese language lesson. Here is the word for ‘nature’, written in pinyin as zìrán:

自然

Although ‘nature’ is its most common interpretation, there is a rich world of underlying meaning to both the characters themselves and the meaning they represent. Zìrán is broken into two parts, zì and rán. Zì means self and pictographically represents a nose (Chinese people will point to their own noses to indicate themselves sometimes when speaking). Rán means thusly, correct, or as such. So, taking them together, the word zìrán can be interpreted as ‘such as itself’ or ‘as itself so’.

How does this mean nature? Because in ancient Daoist philosophies, nature isn’t just leaves and trees and clouds. Nature is the spontaneous doings of the world and everything in it, acting of itself. As the philosopher Alan Watts put it, “Your hair grows by itself, you don’t have to think how to grow it. Your heart beats by itself, you don’t have to make up your mind how to beat it. That’s what they mean by ‘nature.’”

All of that is contained in two syllables. A complex view of the world, clumsily condensed into some squiggly lines. But this isn’t special, all words are concepts and we can only conceptualize them using the words and grammatical rules we grew up with.

So, what are thoughts? They are ourselves trying to explain experiences using the limitations of the language we were born with. Put in this way, it’s pretty remarkable that they have so much power. Despite their imperfect nature, thoughts are how we try to make sense of our reality and sometimes that can lead to problems.

What Our Thoughts Do to Our Bodies

Stress is an integral part of modern life, but prolonged or chronic stress can have detrimental effects on our health. Numerous studies have shown that stress activates the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, leading to the release of stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline.

Research published in the journal "Psychoneuroendocrinology" (Cohen et al., 2012) demonstrated that chronic stress is associated with increased inflammation, impaired immune function, and higher susceptibility to various diseases, including cardiovascular conditions, metabolic disorders, and mental health issues. These findings highlight the close relationship between our psychological state and physiological responses.

Stress defies definition, but it “is either seen as an aversive stimulus we are exposed to, as the response we show in reaction to this stimulus or as an interactional process, assuming that it is the ‘lack of fit between the environment and a person’ (Mulhall, 1996, p. 459).” Two of those require our perception of and thoughts on the stressful stimuli.

Conversely, prioritizing positive thinking has been found to make significant changes in the lives of people suffering from chronic diseases and conditions like Generalized Anxiety Disorder. Thus, the way we choose to interpret the world is reflected in our health.

How to Take Back Control, Then Give It Away

If thoughts are our interpretation of events, and these thoughts influence our physicality, then we can affect great change by simply changing our thought patterns. That’s why the adage ‘mind over matter’ is so enduring. Of course, sometimes changing our way of thinking means going against cultural and familial upbringing, and years of bad habits. Patience and persistence are key.

1.      Identify and Reprogram: You can’t fix what you don’t know. Spend some time observing your thoughts. Ask if they are an accurate representation of reality. Ask if they’re helpful. If they aren’t, replace them with other thoughts that may be more supportive. Something like this Thought Record can be a good starting point.

2.      Get Some Distance: As we explored, you are not your thoughts. Your thoughts may not even necessarily represent reality. However, we can put a great deal of stock in them. It’s important to get some objectivity and separation, so find practices that can help give you some distance from the chatter in your mind. This can be breathing techniques, visualization exercises, or guided meditation.

3.      Change the Narrative: Negative thought patterns create a negative feedback loop. Since we become hyper-aware of negative stimuli, we become convinced that’s all there is. We can always find what we’re looking for, so instead we have to reprogram our perception to not just account for, but to actively seek positive reinforcement. Begin with the accounting part; write down a few things that you appreciate, that you can be grateful for. This can be as small as a nice cup of coffee, or as big as a loving and supportive family. Do this every day, so that we become used to recognizing and looking for things in our lives we can be grateful for. In the same vein, affirmations can be helpful in focusing our intention and attention on more helpful avenues. Even if you might not initially believe them, even the act of saying and thinking a positive thought elicits a physical response. Eventually, as we recognize more positive influences in our lives, we may begin to believe these affirmations and they’ll support us even further.

4.      Get Physical: We know that what we have going on in our heads will also manifest physically. This works the opposite way, too. If we can help the body to let go of tension, it can help us release stubborn thought processes. Progressive muscle relaxation is one good tool, but so is just exercising. Going for a walk or doing some yoga – these are all ways to get out of your head and into your body.

5.      Look for Support: Like attracts like. When we’re in a negative headspace we tend to surround ourselves, intentionally or not, with negativity. This can take the form of a messy living space, negative media consumption, or negative people. Part of extricating ourselves from this pattern is to make changes in environment and find support in the process. Build a space that supports your new way of thinking. Seek out those who are positive influences, who are more interested in building up rather than breaking down. Focus on those things, people, places and activities that inspire.

The end-game is learning not to let thoughts possess so much power over us. Hopefully, as we learn to break patterns of negative thinking we will also learn that we are the ones who give our thoughts power. They don’t define us, and relying on our thoughts is like defining ourselves by the clothes we wear.

Can Chinese Medicine and Acupuncture Help?

When you boil Chinese Medicine down to its core, the idea is to identify and correct harmful patterns. Persistent negative thoughts are just that – a pattern of harmful thinking that becomes supported through habit and environment. Chinese Medicine excels at ‘shaking things up’, to break these patterns and offer the opportunity for making a change.

Treating emotional issues in Chinese medicine differs from the process of, say, resolving shoulder pain. We don’t identify with our shoulder pain and make it a part of who we are, but we can do this with our thoughts and emotions. Acupuncture and herbs allow us to touch on aspects of ourselves that may be suppressed, or to draw power away from parts that are in excess. It can pave the way for us to address and resolve the root of these harmful patterns.

Ultimately the things we nurture in our lives are the things that bear fruit, good or bad. Regardless of circumstance, the responsibility to choose our focus lies with us. If you lay the foundation for a more positive headspace then that’s what you’ll build. It may not always be easy, and there may be times when that foundation shifts, but with the right support and a commitment to yourself, any amount of negative thinking can be changed.