theconnectionsnj.com PAGE 44 DINING OUT HEALTH & WELLNESS Where Your Smile Matters! TREAT CHILDREN, TEENS, AND ADULTS BRACES AND CLEAR ALIGNERS Dr. Amanda Albin is dedicated to helping patients achieve healthy, confident smiles. Complimentary Consultations Phone: 908-222-0101 www.warrenhillsortho.com Email: info@warrenhillsortho.com 9 Mt. Bethel Road, Unit 37b, Warren, NJ 07059 ow! What a title for an article! Such a downer, but many people live their lives with these types of thoughts occurring frequently. Some people’s thoughts are even dominated by this type of negativity and doomsday perspective. Does this sound like you? Our thoughts paint our emotional landscape. If you are prone to these types of thoughts, then your emotional landscape will be riddled with stress, anxiety, fears, and even depression. So instead of it being a sun-drenched glen with tall trees, beautiful flowers, green grass, and blue skies, your dale will be cloudy, stormy, rainy, with trees destroyed by wind gusts. As if all these dismal worries are not enough, many people have anticipatory anxiety. So, when you are not worried or riddled with pessimistic thinking about a specific event, you experience a negative, anxious feeling about something that potentially might occur. Worst-case scenarios racing through your mind may be triggered by earlier, similar experiences that had unhappy or even disastrous endings. Alternatively, they can be a way of preparing for the worst. If you are not surprised, then, arguably, you will be better able to cope with a bad outcome. Pain-pleasure preparation can become a common defense mechanism. Ironically, pain and pleasure share the same neural pathways, so they are easily paired, neurologically. Since we are programmed to seek pleasure and try to avoid pain, it is understandable why some people anticipate pain instead of pleasure. Another dynamic, rooted deeper in an individual’s psyche, is the seeking of pain and negativity due to low self-worth. In other words, “I am not worthy of pleasure or positive experiences, so I set myself up for painful, negative experiences and relationships.” If you are beginning to see yourself as this type of thinker, you could be experiencing anxiety or depression. The negative thinking becomes circuitous. Your thoughts are negative, which causes you to experience anxiety. Then your anxiety causes you to continue having negative thoughts and expectations. It is more common than you realize because most people have these internal discussions without anyone else knowing it. Fortunately, understanding that the real culprit is the thoughts swirling around in your head-the prescription for change is to invert those thoughts into positive outcomes. Challenge your negativity and use rational, factually based thoughts about the specific situation in which you are obsessed. By doing this, you can circumvent the anxiety, worry, and depressive feelings. With persistent practice, your thoughts can become optimistic and positive, resulting in a completely different outlook and feeling. Practice it. It doesn’t come quickly or easily, but if you are diligent, like many other exercises, you will eventually feel the result. Dr. Michael Osit is a Licensed Psychologist practicing in Warren, and author of The Train Keeps Leaving Without Me: A Guide to Happiness, Freedom, and Self Fulfillment (2016), and Generation Text: Raising Well Adjusted Kids In an Age of Instant Everything (2008). MIND THE MIND Negative, Catastrophic, Pessimistic, Depressive, What If, and All or Nothing Thinking By Dr. Michael Osit Wow! What a title for an arti
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