by PBateman

Created on: January 17, 2009

Thinking can be bad for your health!

Well then it follows that eating can be bad for your health, if you eat the wrong things. Eating and thinking are both processes which can be good or bad for your health. The deciding factor is the content. So then, thinking can sometimes be bad for your health.

Types of thinking that can be good for you:

Productive thinking - Thinking that produces a positive result can be very good for your health. A business person who thinks up solutions to problems will prosper. The ability to make reasoned decisions and evaluations are important for everyday life, and avoid scams which play on peoples trust rather than thinking skills.

Quick thinking - The ability to think clearly in reaction to a sudden dangerous situation is important and can be life saving. Paramedics, army generals and many people use these skills every day in their occupations.

Reflective thinking - Someone once said 'the unexamined life is not worth living'. Reflecting on your ideals and plans for the future, and your life so far can be an important skill in making the most of your life.

Types of thinking that can be bad for you:

Worried thinking - the more you think about what worries you, the bigger it becomes. This thinking produces negative results as the worry becomes bigger and bigger and fear takes an increasingly larger place in your thought life. I'm a natural worrier and can worry over small things even when life is great! I've learned over the years that the best thing to do with worry is talk to someone you trust about it. After that I choose to stop myself thinking about it. I choose to leave it be, again and again, even though my mind keeps returning there like a dog with a bone, I choose to let it go.

Paranoid thinking - this is dangerous because again the more you think about something the bigger it becomes. In this case one of the negative by-products is that it encourages isolation. If you believe that everybody hates you, you will act accordingly and avoid people. This emphasises the mistaken thought and your thinking sinks lower and lower in a downward spiral. Again, the best thing is to talk to someone as a more balanced view can be acheived with 2 people. Sometimes we need to admit that our thinking is wrong!

Our ability to think independently is an amazing gift which we can use to help ourselves and others. Sometimes though thinking too much about what is worrying us or about paranoid thoughts can only make these things grow bigger. It is at times like these we need other people to help us straighten out our thoughts, so our thinking can be a positive and helpful thing again.

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