What path do your thoughts lead you down?
Thinking about symptoms.
There are different ways to think about symptoms.
For example, you can think of symptoms like nature’s alarm system. The alarm alerts us to possible trouble within the body. They make us pay attention to where there could be injury or disease.
Some ways of thinking are more helpful than others. What happens in our thoughts has an impact on our bodies. Each thought creates a ripple that resonates through us.
Worries and overthinking drive bodily stress which maintain fatigue and other symptoms. Staying calm by embracing accepting thoughts can help our bodies enter a state of physiological rest and repair.
It’s valuable if the way you view your symptoms allows for the possibility that symptoms can change. Our thoughts are the foundation on which we can build the path to recovery. When you anticipate your body getting better, you’re more likely to take actions that support that process.
Explore interactions
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Attention.
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Dysfunctional breathing.
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Interoception.
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Symptoms and the internet.
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The predictive brain.
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Sensory sensitisation .
Stay curious about symptoms
Why?
Our thoughts have a real impact on our bodies. Thoughts can help the body switch from emergency into healing mode or keep us stuck in emergency mode, where real healing is impossible.
Here is some advice to explore:
1. Trust your body to recover.
Many people recover from functional symptoms, and trusting things can and will change is always an important part of that recovery.
2. Know that the body has many inbuilt healing mechanisms.
This means you do not always need to find a specific cure for symptoms to improve. There are many ways we can support the healing process.
If your doctors do identify a disease process for which a specific cure is available, trusting your body and its remarkable ability to heal will not harm you. In fact, it will help you get the most out of the treatment.
3. Be open to being reassured.
It is helpful to learn to see normal test results for serious illnesses as reassuring rather than a cause for further anxiety.
If your anxious mind keeps trying to figure out why you have certain symptoms, it’s important to know that once symptoms are triggered, they can continue to show up without a new reason each time.
So, it’s okay to give your mind a break from constantly searching for explanations.
4. Thoughts generate more thoughts.
It’s easy to get caught up in the virtual reality world of anxious thoughts. It is important that the body has some space to just be, between thoughts.
To encourage thoughts to quieten down, try telling yourself: ‘I am not my thoughts. There is space beyond my thoughts.’
5. Feel the feeling beneath the thought.
When we get a thought, there is always a feeling tone that underlies it. Sometimes we over-think as a way to avoid feeling.
Ask yourself: ‘What is it I am not prepared to feel?’
If we don’t get caught up thinking about them, many feelings pass through the body quickly.
6. Explore switching.
Notice during the day when your attitude is apathetic, judge-y or avoidant. Switch your attitude to one of interest and gentleness.
For example try welcoming a symptom in a friendly curious way.
How do symptoms feel different once you have done that?
7. Speak kindly to yourself.
Gentle, compassionate self-talk gives the body permission to relax. This is the state where restoration and repair happen best.
Try putting your hand on your heart and sending yourself kind, caring words.
Without kindness towards ourselves, our pattern is usually to sabotage all our best efforts, time and time again, ending up back where we started. This is a particular problem for people who are prone to feeling shame or guilt.
If you recognize this pattern of critical self-talk, you can interrupt it by instead offering yourself care. Placing a hand on the heart can help. Bring to mind a caring phrase or wish for yourself that resonates. Offer that phase to yourself with as much love and gentleness as you can manage. Do it a few times until you feel it is sincere.
Support
Talking therapies (also known as psychological treatments), are often recommended as part of the treatment of functional disorders. It can especially help if you recognize that thought or emotional patterns make your symptoms worse, or if you have a difficult time speaking kindly to yourself.
Cognitive behavioural therapy is the treatment with the largest evidence base. There are also other evidence-based types of therapy. It varies which you can access through your local healthcare provision. It probably matters less what form the talking therapy takes. The important thing is to find a therapist who understands you and your difficulties.
When we feel trapped with our thought patterns, medication can be helpful. Anti-depressant medications, such as Duloxetine or Amitriptyline, are commonly prescribed for health anxiety, somatic symptom disorder and chronic pain.
These medications do not just improve mood. They can help the body relax and help new neural pathways to form. This can help us start the process of change when we feel trapped and helpless.
