Negative thoughts cause the same changes in your body as physical stress. Learn how to stop negative thoughts, and you can change your biology.
We all know that stress is bad for us. It is associated with both mental and physical illness. Some stress is inevitable. A tight deadline at work. A tough commute. A sick family member. These we have little control over. But did you know, your self-generated thoughts can cause the very same detrimental physiological changes as these stressors? It turns out, while we cannot control all the stress in our lives, we can control our thoughts and this can help us reduce the negative effects of stress.
When a stressful situation arises, be it a looming deadline at work or a car swerving into our lane, our body reacts by triggering a cascade of events. Our heart pounds, our muscles tighten, our breathing quickens. This stress response evolved to help us either fight off a threat or run from it. However, in modern life, this stress response is not always beneficial and can even do harm.
When we experience stress, our body releases corticotropin-releasing hormone. This hormone stimulates the release of cortisol, a major stress hormone. This same hormonal release happens whether the stress is physical or just mental (Engert et al. 2014). While we cannot always control physical threats, we can control our thoughts and what goes on in our heads.
The design of our stress response is such that it should respond to an immediate stressor, be active for a brief time, and turn off when that stressor passes. However, in our modern society with constant stress from work, family, and social pressures, our stress response is often on for long periods. This is how the damage happens.
Both corticotropin-releasing hormone and cortisol have potentially harmful effects on the body. Corticotropin-releasing hormone binds to mast cells in the gut, activating them. These activated mast cells release inflammatory cytokines, increasing gut permeability along with systemic inflammation.
Chronic, systemic inflammation not only weakens the immune system but also contributes to numerous chronic diseases associated with lower quality of life and reduced longevity. Everything from cardiovascular disease to cancer to depression risk increases with chronic inflammation.
In addition to increasing inflammation, corticotropin-releasing hormone stimulates the synthesis of cortisol. Cortisol plays a role in how our brain works both in the short-term and in the long-term. In the short-term, cortisol disrupts the dopamine system. Dopamine is involved in reward, motivation, memory, and attention. Do you know that high you get after a good workout? That’s dopamine. Disrupting the dopamine system increases the risk of addiction and depression.
In addition to affecting the dopamine system, cortisol also disrupts neuronal connections in both the hippocampus and the cortex, negatively affecting both memory and judgment. This creates a harmful loop. Negative thoughts increase cortisol. The increase in cortisol increases depression. Depression further increases negative thoughts and so the loop continues. But you can stop it. Keep reading for tried and true ways to stop negative thoughts in their tracks.
In addition to the immediate effects on how your brain works, chronic stress can also increase the risk of neurodegenerative disease. Elevated cortisol levels increase the development of amyloid-beta plaques in the brain. These plaques disrupt the connections between neurons leading to neuron cell death while increasing the risk of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s Disease.
The effects of chronic stress are not limited to the brain; it affects every cell in our body. Every cell in our body contains a pair of chromosomes that contain our DNA. At the end of each chromosome sits the telomere, a structure that protects the DNA from damage. The length of our telomeres is a measure of biological age. As we age, our telomeres naturally get shorter and shorter. However, the rate at which our telomeres shorten is influenced by our lifestyle, stress level, and even our thoughts. Negative thoughts, independent of stress, are associated with shorter telomeres (Epel et al. 2012). Merely changing your thoughts can slow the shortening of telomeres, leaving you with longer telomeres, a hallmark of longevity.
While negative thoughts can arise from a stressful event or seemingly out of nowhere, our physiological state can contribute to negative thoughts. Exhaustion, stress, hunger, illness, sleep deprivation, chronic inflammation, or dysbiosis in the gut can all increase the likelihood of negative thoughts. Therefore, one of the best ways to reduce negative thoughts is to take care of yourself. Make sure you are getting enough sleep. Manage stress. Eat to nourish your gut and reduce inflammation. Try my Body, Mind, Goal program. A 30 Day program designed to heal your gut, optimize your mitochondria, and reduce inflammation. Laying the foundations for a healthy physical state can boost your mental state.
In addition to our physical state, our mental state is also affected by how we filter our experiences. The way we view the world and react to situations can skew our thinking to the positive or the negative. Do any of these thinking styles sound familiar? If so, they could be contributing to negative thoughts.
Understanding the way you think and the way you view the world is an important step in changing your thinking. Once you understand the triggers that lead you down the path of negative thinking, you can begin to change your reaction to them.
There can be many reasons why negative thoughts come to mind. They can arise seemingly out of nowhere, or they can accompany a stressful event. Either way, the sooner you put an end to them, the better you will feel, the faster your cortisol levels will return to normal, and the healthier you will be.
This return to normal after a stress response is especially crucial for stressful events. Often, our thoughts surrounding a stressful event will be worse and do more harm than the episode itself. Try these six simple exercises to stop negative thinking and to move past stressful events.
Mindfulness is being present to what is happening in the current moment. Ruminating, focusing on the cause of your distress over and over again, is the opposite of mindfulness. It not only makes a situation worse but it also further increases cortisol levels. The solution is to break the cycle of rumination and focus on the present moment.
Try 8 minutes of mindful breathing. For 8 minutes focus on nothing but what it feels like to breathe. Feel your rib cage expand and contract. Feel the warm and cool airflow above your upper lip. This simple mindfulness practice is all it takes to get into the present moment and to stop rumination (and the cortisol spike) in its tracks (Mrazek et al. 2012).
A negative mood, not only increases the likelihood of negative thoughts, but it is also more likely to shift thoughts to the past (Smallwood and O’Connor 2011). A double dose of bad news for your cortisol levels. One of the best ways to switch out of a bad mood? Practice gratitude.
Gratitude, the deep appreciation for someone or something, is one of the best ways to stop negative thoughts in their tracks. Making the switch from focusing on all the negative things that are happening in your life to all the positive stuff can reduce stress while promoting a positive mindset (Emmons and McCullough 2003).
It doesn’t take much to experience the benefits of practicing gratitude. Merely listing five things you are grateful for before falling asleep at night can do wonders. Or try my 30-Day Gratitude Challenge. Every day for 30 days it will give you a simple gratitude exercise to practice. Most only take a few minutes and can boost your mood for hours.
Once you accept the past, you can begin to move forward and learn from it. Acceptance is an active practice. It requires time and effort. When you practice acceptance, new neuronal pathways are formed in the brain, making acceptance easier in the future. Once you accept a situation for what it is, your cortisol levels will return to normal, and you can begin to learn and grow from the episode.
While worrying about the future can cause anxiety, focusing on a positive future and all the good things that can come out of a difficult situation can help you move on from the episode while lowering cortisol levels. Take a moment to write down all the positive things you see for the future. New relationships, lessons learned, new opportunities. Out of every difficult situation, some good can come.
Let’s admit it. Bad things happen. We cannot always prevent it. However, when something terrible or stressful does happen, it is within our control to find a solution.
When looking for a solution, start by defining how success looks. Maybe you lost your job. Success would be a new job that you enjoy more. Then set clear, measurable goals that will lead to success. Your goal could be to apply to five new jobs every day or to learn a new skill that will set you on the path to landing your dream job. Write the goals down. Now you have a success to-do list and a place to start. Download my Free Printable PDF Guide to Find Solutions and Set Your Goals.
When you are in a spiral of negative thinking, the hardest part can be figuring out how to stop it. Use these six exercises to stop negative thinking in its tracks and work to create a lifestyle that reduces negative thinking altogether.
If you want to further enhance your abilities to face the difficulties life throws at you, work on building resilience. Resilience is the ability to withstand, recover, return, and thrive in the face of adversity or a traumatic event. Much like practicing stopping negative thoughts, you can practice building resilience as well.
The first step in building resilience is to eliminate negative coping strategies while embracing positive ones. We learn coping strategies through repetition. All it takes to replace our negative coping strategies with positive ones is practice and repetition. The most effective positive coping strategies include positive reframing, use of humor, planning, and acceptance. Click here for the full list of positive coping strategies along with a complete guide on How to Build Resilience.
After all, you cannot control what life throws at you but you can control your reaction. Learning to control your reaction will not only improve your well-being but it can change your life as well.
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