Many of us know the saying,
Wherever our focus goes,
We invite an energy to flow.
And catastrophizing is one of the unhealthiest places our mind can focus.
It increases our stress,
It re-triggers anxiety,
It has a spiral into depression or exacerbates any past trauma.
So today I wanna talk to you about two things to help get catastrophizing under control.
And the first thing is why our brains are more like Siri,
Alexa and ask Google than we think.
And the other thing is a piece of science that's been a total game changer for me and understanding where I need to focus in order to dial down catastrophizing,
Creating a greater sense of personal control,
Ease and calm in my life and the people that I've led and taught throughout the years.
Hey,
If you're new here,
My name is Dr.
Elisha Goldstein.
I've been working for the past couple of decades to support people and reigniting a sense of personal control within their minds and their lives to be able to focus more on what matters and ultimately really enjoy life more.
Okay,
The first thing to understand in getting our catastrophizing under control is the impact questions have on our mind and then how we feel and the reaction that follows.
So when I learned this was a total game changer for me and I've taught it to many people and it's made a huge impact.
And the question is really like,
Why is our brain more like Siri and ask Google and Alexa than we think?
And I'm trying to be company independent here.
And so when we ask questions such as,
What's the worst case scenario here?
Or what's the worst thing that can happen here?
Which our brain naturally does and some of us more than others.
What happens is,
And if you've ever asked Siri or Google or Alexa anything,
You'll see what it does is it searches the web and just comes up with a bunch of responses.
The problem with our brain is that when we do that and the more emotional we are,
The more it actually believes what we think.
So if it's trying to plan for the future and thinks of the worst case scenarios,
Which it naturally will,
Cause it's wired to survive,
Then it's gonna throw up images or stories in your mind of the worst possible thing that's gonna happen.
You can lose a friend,
You might die,
You might lose your job.
All of these things,
The country or world is gonna go to hell in a hand basket,
All of these things.
And then our nervous system believes that thought and gets ready to go into fight,
Flight,
Freeze,
Or becomes helpless and falls into more of a depression loop or retriggers some kind of trauma from the past.
So we have to be aware that questions create feelings.
Now also,
So that's very important,
Right?
What questions is my mind asking?
I'm obviously just kind of convinced by the response that's there.
On our reverse side,
By the way,
You could actively ask questions such as,
What's right with me today,
Or what am I,
I'm just taking a moment,
Taking a breath and looking around like,
What's good in this moment right now?
And you can just see what floats to mind.
If you asked yourself more of those questions,
Just consider if that impacts how you feel,
What would the days,
Weeks and months ahead be like?
Questions create responses which impact our feelings.
So one of the first things you have to understand around catastrophizing and how to really end it is to be aware of the questions that our mind is asking and maybe start asking different questions.
Now,
The science I'm about to show you has made a huge impact on my life,
From helping heal insomnia for me,
To panic attacks,
General anxiety.
And it's really helped me feel a great deal of personal control in my life.
And so I wanna show you it right now.
Let's kind of switch over to that screen.
So here was a study that came out many moons ago that by Norman Farb at the University of Toronto and Zindel Siegel and others,
That was basically took a few different groups and had them run through a particular program to help them train their mind.
Another group just went through a cognitive program and had them watch these movie clips.
They showed the film,
The Champ.
They showed,
These are 45 second movie clips from Terms of Endearment.
One was a movie clip of her mother watching her daughter die of cancer and a son watching his father die after a boxing match.
That was The Champ.
And so what they found was that after watching these movie clips,
Both groups showed the same perceived sadness.
Now the clinical effects of that,
That was the group that went through the mindfulness training,
And I'll tell you like why this was,
Showed substantial reductions in depression,
Anxiety and somatic distress following the training.
And the group that did not go through the mindfulness training showed statistically significantly higher results around the Beck Depression inventory,
Meaning they were experiencing more depressive state afterwards.
So then we say,
Okay,
So what gives around this?
So you look at the neuroimaging around this,
And what you find is that the group that went through the mindfulness training showed more activity in this part of the brain right here called the insula.
And this area sits behind the prefrontal cortex is more involved with mapping our bodies.
And what we found is in the study is that when that part is lit up,
The part of our brain that's worrying and trying to problem solve and distress,
Catastrophizing dials down.
And so we show this inverse relationship between being able to be present to our emotions and our body,
Then being able to problem solve,
Figure out and catastrophize.
Why is that important when it comes to catastrophizing?
I mean,
So think about it.
If you're present to actually what's here,
Your body,
Your emotions,
Sensations,
The environment,
The part of your brain that's catastrophizing is gonna dial down.
If you're catastrophizing,
And that part of your brain is active,
Then the part of you that's actually present to your body and the environment is actually dialed down.
So when one is up,
The other one goes down.
And so why this was so impactful for me is that I knew when I couldn't fall asleep and my brain was catastrophizing,
That everything was gonna be terrible the next day.
That if I,
Just because of the science,
If I was able to bring my attention to my body and just trust that if I can stay steady with my breath and my body in a particular way,
This part was going to dial down.
The part of my brain that was known as the default network is gonna dial down.
And so I could trust that.
Even though my brain was telling me everything else,
Like such as,
Don't do this,
Get out of this,
Toss and turn,
Get out of bed,
Do this.
Or with a panic attack,
One time when I was driving,
I just knew that if I could just stay steady with my body and with my breath,
Even though my brain was telling me that all this catastrophize,
All this terrible things were gonna happen,
But I knew that I could dial this down because this is exactly how our brain works.
And the study pinpoints that.
And so,
And you know this too,
Because if you eat a delicious sandwich and you're really present to that sandwich,
You're probably not worrying a whole lot in that moment.
But when you're worried and you're eating that sandwich,
You're not really tasting that sandwich.
So there it is.
And so that is exactly one of the things,
The neuroscience behind how we can begin to attend to trust the science to begin to attend to our body,
Our breath and or our environment.
And to be able to dial down the activity in the part of our brain that's actually catastrophizing and exacerbating us into places maybe like depression or retriggering trauma and things like that.
You wanna practice this type of presence stuff in your life.
You wanna practice even a simple one called the B practice.
Makes sense,
B.
That stands for take a breath,
Take a few deep breaths,
Bring your attention to your breath.
That's something that's here and portable in the present moment.
You can just take a few deep breaths and then expand into your body.
B stands for breathe,
E stands for expand,
Expand into your body,
Feel your fingers,
Feel your toes,
Feel the connection of your feet connecting to each step as you're walking and just feel your whole body alive in this moment and just let that be.
So you can just play with that.
Do that a few times a day,
Breathe,
Expand.
That's a way to kind of train your brain towards presencing.
That's going to be inversely correlated with the natural catastrophizing that you might be in an unhealthy pattern with right now.
So the bottom line here is we can turn the volume down on catastrophizing,
Which is gonna impact anxiety and depression and retrigging of trauma in our lives or mistakes that we make because our mind is unfocused in that way to focus on something in the actual moment,
Our breath,
Our bodies,
Something in our environment.
And that has an inverse relationship neurologically in our brain with a part of us that is,
That's actually lighting up with the catastrophizing.
So pinpoint a couple of things you wanna kind of play with.
Could be the B practice,
Could be something else.
Could just be walking and feeling your feet as a way to kind of train your mind to be aware of this healthier pattern.
That's going to turn the volume down on catastrophizing in the future going forward.
