The Psychological Reality of Positive Thought and Complex Thought
by Dr Leo Kady
A whole new school of psychiatry
has grown up around the development of positive thinking. The key is
intercepting negative thoughts. Surprisingly, no matter how positive we think we
are, many of us have internal, mostly negative chatter that ties up thecerebral
circuits all day long. Much of this chatter is actually pretty idiotic if you
stop and listen to it. Most of the time we're simply ripping ourselves apart.
The more negative our mood, the more we're apt to nag ourselves. The science of
positive thought can be learned through certain therapies, of which cognitive
therapy is one example.
Cognitive therapy teaches you to catch the negative thoughts in this gnawing
pitter-patter and substitute much more reasonable,reassuring, and, most
important, more accurate thoughts. During cognitive therapy, the therapist uses
various techniques of talk therapy and behavioral prescriptions to help the
patient alleviate and change his or her negative thought patterns and beliefs.
For example, a salesman fails to get through to an account on a sales call and
actually encounters a very rude rebuff from the secretary. His inner voice might
say, "See, you're no damned good, never were." He'd do better to catch that
negative thought, judge it, and turn it into a more accurate reply such as: "Gee
it was early and the secretary must have had a bad night. Her boss probably had
a bad night too and she was taking it out on me. I'm actually a pretty good
salesperson; I'll just try again at a better time of day." This is cognitive
therapy at work.
Let's take a closer look at cognitive therapy as proof of the concept that
positive thought does truly change the brain.
Cognitive Therapy
Cognitive therapy is based on the theory that people's emotions are controlled
by their views and opinions of the world. Depression is the result when patients
constantly emotional attack themselves, expect to fail, make incorrect
assessments of what other persons think of them, feel hopeless, and have a very
negative attitude toward day to day living, the world, and the future.
You may think that "talk" therapy is all nonsense, but consider this. Using the
accredited standard PET scan, researchers noticed that patients who engaged in
cognitive therapy had changes just as marked on the PET scan as patients taking
Prozac. This shows that positive thinking on its own can change the way your
brain functions, a true revolution in modern psychiatry. This "talk therapy" can
be at least as good as drugs. Why? First, after repeated talk therapy, new and
important connections are created between one set of neurons and another. That
means that your brain is fundamentally, even if ever so slightly, changing.
Second, even without drugs, cognitive therapy increases levels of
neurotransmitters that battle depression and anxiety.
Cognitive therapy can change the brain circuitry, concludes Richard Davidson,
Ph.D., after reviewing hard data. For example, it's been shown that in
obsessive-compulsive behavior, cognitive therapy can produce changes in
circuitry - actual biological changes in the brain.
Susan C. Vaughan, M.D., convinced of the effectiveness of talk therapy, has
written a book named after Freud's phrase, The Talking Cure. "Talking changes
the structure of the brain itself; the nerve cells end up with different
connections so they grow differently and the new connections form new
structures. It is through the change in connections that you learn and that's
how you store information; that's how you make links between cells that weren't
connected before and there's knowledge in that link," Dr. Vaughan says. So
talking makes new connections between brain cells; experience changes the shape
of and connections between brain cells. The cerebral cortex and the association
cortex (in the parietal lobes) are mainly implicated in "talk therapy"; those
are the highest level of cortex - they put together the most information from
that part of the brain. After several years of psychotherapy, the brain may look
different; but because changes are occurring between neurons, at a very small
cell-to-cell level, they're hard to see. Still, these cerebral cortex changes
are longer lasting than medications because you're changing the structure of
your brain, whereas medication is only changing brain chemistry. In treatment of
depression, the best results are achieved with a combination of drugs and
psychotherapy, because the two are synergistic.
The Argument for Complex Thought
A new publishing industry has grown up around the concept of dumbing down
complex ideas. One sees that in many aspects of life in America, where nearly
everything has to be nugget-sized and simple, from our basic foods to our music.
The dumbing-down effect would have us watching Seinfeld reruns instead of
plowing through important new technological information, philosophical argument,
or historical texts that could improve our minds and further our career. Our
approaches to diet and exercise are so timid that it's a wonder we're not all
hopelessly overweight and out of shape. This great timidity in America is
transforming us into a nation of Iemmings. There is a much broader world out
there - not one that is more intimidating, just more rewarding, a world that
challenges us to master greater complexity.
Simply put, the greatest joy in life can be undertaking and mastering complex
activities such as learning a new language or listening to and understanding a
symphony or studying the classics or mastering an unfamiliar historical period.
In Part One of the book, we looked at all the comparatively simple ways of
improving mood and brain energy. No one, however, wants to be the happy fool. In
fact many believe that happiness is a non attainable condition ... that we can
never be free of yearnings and anxieties. But we can achieve great satisfaction
by developing the positive thought that encourages us to tackle complex tasks
and succeed. That hard work pays off quickly.
As we master complex thoughts and develop greater successes, work actually
becomes far easier. Fran Shea says: "At the beginning of my career I spent a
huge number of hours at work. I could spend up to fifteen hours a day working.
But I was absolutely in love with my job. There was nothing about my job I
didn't like. I had way more ideas than I could fulfill. I was lucky. I was in a
business that was booming. I was there at the right time." Now she is president
of E! Entertainment Networks and one of the top women in broadcasting. Dr.
Richard J. Haier, of the Department of Pediatrics at the University of
California at Irvine, has used brain imaging to measure brain activity and
metabolism. The student subjects in his laboratory were tested at the video game
Tetris. These students were scanned during the first day of practice, when they
showed great metabolic activity. They were scanned again after two months of
practice. Although the subjects had increased their abilities sevenfold, the
scans showed their metabolic activity to have lessened dramatically. So the
study showed that the more gifted we become at something, the fewer circuits in
the brain we use. In other words, we're able to do the same activity with less
effort. While Tetris is not a sophisticated or complex mental activity, the
experiment does show that success in conquering mental complexities is a case of
the brain working smarter, not harder.
In future articles I'll look at specific steps to build a strong pattern of
positive thought. Here's a brief road map.
Step 1: Be an Optimist Learn the heart of a positive mental attitude by
transforming yourself into a tough-minded optimist. This is rigorous science,
not pop psychology.
Step 2: Seize the Moment Shed your anxieties and the distractions that pull you
from success by learning the skills of accomplished actors and committing fully
to the moment at hand.
Step 3: Play to Your Strengths Take a unique test to determine the way your
personality is wired. Then learn to use that knowledge to relate better to
others. Learn how to chase success based on how your brain is wired.
Step 4: Learn Emotional Broadcasting By learning emotional broadcasting, learn
to convert those around you to allies who will give you the emotional support
and team strength you need to succeed. "Emotional Broadcasting" is the
"networking" of the twenty-first century, literally changing the emotions of
those around you.
Step 5: Look to the Hereafter Learn prayer to gain an even greater sense of
optimism and positive thought. As with optimism, the new interest in
spirituality is based on firm scientific studies.
Step 6: Create a Blueprint for Success This final step will help you channel and
focus all your mental energy and positive thought into creating and embodying
your life's story.
Stay tuned for more. Dr Leo Kady
About the Author:
Dr Leo Kady is a retired
physician and researcher and relishes information in a variety of fields. His
accomplished writings in the medical and psychological field are long standing.
Dr Kady is an editor for uPublish.info ...
http://www.upublish.info
. Please feel free to peruse more
free psychological articles
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