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Senior Living

2010-07-01 12:50:00

Changing thoughts

Answer: As Charlie would say, I’m glad you asked that. Actually we have much more control over what we think, than most of us realize. In reality, we control every thought. Consciously though it is impossible for us to monitor every thought we have and to therefore control it because there are too many to think about.

However, there are many ways to control our thoughts, and therefore our state of mind. Our state of mind is the real crux of the matter. Our state of mind can affect every part of our lives, whether it be relationships, job performance, health, or anything else. We as human beings are complex combinations of body, mind and soul. Anything off in one area is likely to affect the others. In some cases, I have seen people who let themselves get into a downward spiral because they felt helpless in changing one part of their lives. They began to experience problems on all levels and it continued to get worse. I’m certain that you too have met these people. I have heard, and read in many reports varying percentages quoted on how many physician visits are linked to stress. However, the number seems to be somewhere above 75% in all reports. The American Institute for Stress says somewhere between 75 % and 90 % of all visits are stress related. The Mayo Clinic says psychological stress is the best predictor of heart attacks. I don’t know about you, but to me that is downright scary. Stress is a thought process. Oh I know. A lot of people will laugh at that. They will tell you that stress is caused by outside forces like the economy, by the baby crying all night, by the bad weather that is ruining their crops, or by the kids who just won’t mind. Sorry, but that is just not true. Stress is caused by what you think about those occurrences, not by the occurrences themselves. For instance, how stressed do you think a businessman who earns millions of dollars each year would be if the weather was bad and he didn’t have a very good crop on his 40 acre hobby farm? He might consider buying an irrigation system for next year’s new toy but I doubt he would be very stressed about it. He would just think about all the fun he had with his machinery. However, the man farming a few thousand acres of dryland crops, might get pretty stressed out seeing the fields burn up during a drought. He would be thinking, "This is terrible. I don’t know if the bank will finance my operation next year and what am I going to feed my family with this year?" The difference in the stress is the thoughts they are thinking. How about two drivers, each on their way to the lake for a wonderful summer weekend. Traffic is bad and slow. One driver is thinking how bad the traffic is and how all those idiots on the road are keeping him from his fun at the lake. He gets angry, his blood pressure increases, as does his heart and respiration rates. The other driver, listens to his favorite music, thinks about what fun he will have at the lake and how lucky he is to be able to take the weekend off. Both are in the same traffic, moving at about the same speed, going to the same destination for the same reason. Yet one, because of how he thinks of if, is terribly stressed, the other because of his thoughts, is relaxed. Stress is a thought process. There are all types of stress, but we can basically divide them into good stress and bad stress. Good stress helps you, bad stress is unhealthy So how do we sort them? We look at the physiological changes they cause in our bodies. Good stress, might be the joy of playing basketball with your friends. Bad stress would be getting angry at other drivers on the way to the game. Good stress could happen if you fall in love. Stressful yes, but so much fun! In all cases, our thoughts are the stress, not the occurrences themselves. That is why we need to be able to change our thoughts. Changing our thoughts is extremely easy, once we accept that it is a natural thing to do. There are so many very good reasons for changing our thoughts to less stressful ones. Of course we feel better if we are not stressed, but there are great physical changes taking places also. Anger, along with feelings of depression, have been shown in healthy men to increase the levels of IL-6, a protein that causes inflammation, and may be a part of arterial thickening. In situations where people are angry and feel they have little control over their lives causing increases in cortisol and epinephrine resulting in higher cholesterol and blood sugar levels. Diverting those thoughts which harms us is essential if we want to live good, happy, healthy fulfilling lives. A good technique, which I used to use when I had a lot of anger in my life was really quite simple I don’t remember where I read about it, but I give thanks to the author. I thought about five things that made me happy when I thought of them. Then, when I began to feel angry and think angry thoughts, I would take three deep breaths, and then think of one of the things that brought me happiness for at least 10 seconds. Usually, I liked that good feeling so much better that I would think of it longer. As I worked with that technique, I noticed something interesting happening. I was getting angry less often. And when I did it wasn’t as intense as before, when the anger would really grow. I seldom do that technique now, because anger is not an important part of my life. If I do find anger starting to poke up it’s nasty little head, I have different, even more effective ways of dealing with it, i.e., of changing my thoughts. Another technique for changing your thoughts, or at least of knowing when to change your thoughts is almost as simple. I really believe that if we are thinking the right thoughts we will be happy. As we mentioned earlier, you have so many thoughts in your conscious mind that you cannot possibly monitor all of them. However, monitoring your emotions is pretty easy. It’s as simple as "Do I feel good, or do I feel bad?" If you are not feeling good, it is because you are thinking unhappy thoughts. You are thinking thoughts that make you unhappy. Use a part of the technique that I told you earlier and find five things that make you happy when you think about them. (As you do this exercise over time you will have many more happy things than five to think about.) When you feel yourself getting stressed, depressed or unhappy in any way, think about one of those five things, and notice how the happiness grows within you. Now I know that there are times when we have a challenge and we have to think about a solution. Sometimes thinking about those challenges is not something that makes you happy. However, to manage the stress of the challenge, take a short break to think happy and then go back to problem solving. You will probably find that you are much more able to deal with finding a solution if you first take a few seconds to de-stress. Sometimes, the stress is so strong, or has become such a habit that it behooves us to use the help of an expert in order to change the situation faster. In those cases, hypnosis can be a very effective means of not only dealing with current stressors, but negating those that might come in the future. It’s another way of changing your thoughts. An hour of deep relaxation focused on living, and thinking, better is a great way to change your life Happiness is always in style. Murl Webster, LNHA, BCH has been helping his fellow man with hypnosis for more than 30 years. He has appeared on television and has given hypnosis advice over radio in 14 countries. He is the founder of Lifemasters llc where he gives classes in hypnosis and provides clients with personal hypnosis sessions. He is an ordained minister and a spiritual healer. You may e-mail him at Lifemastersllc@yahoo.com