Posted by JLx on October 7, 2004, at 10:28:12
In reply to Re: Brainwave training boosts neurotransmitters.... » JLx, posted by tealady on October 6, 2004, at 17:24:20
Hi Jan,
> nope..can't get that book from the library..or Uni library drats..sitting at the computer there now. Maybe I'll look at Amazon, but usually shipping costs are the killer.
It's too bad you can't get "Feeling Good" there. I've been kind of resistant to the cognitive therapy idea because I thought either I knew it already (hehe) or that it was a "blame the victim" idea, but I was wrong on both counts. Here's what he calls "cognitive distortions":
ALL OR NOTHING THINKING: You see things in black-and-white categories. If your performance falls short of perfect, you see yourself as a total failure.
OVERGENERALIZATION: You see a single negataive event as a never-ending pattern of defeat.
MENTAL FILTER: You pick out a single negative detail and dwell on it exclusively so that your vision of all reality becomes darkened, like the drop of ink that colors the entire beaker of water.
DISQUALIFYING THE POSITIVE: You reject positive experiences by insisting they "don't count" for some reason or another. In this way, you can maintain a negative belief that is contradicted by your everyday experiences.
JUMPING TO CONCLUSIONS: You make a negative interpretation even though there are no definitive facts that convincingly support your conclusions.
*Mind reading -- You arbitrarily conclude that someone is reacting negatively to you, and you don't bother to check this out.
*The Fortune Teller Error -- You anticipate that things will turn out badly and you feel convinced that your prediction is an already established fact.
MAGNIFICATION (CATASTROPHIZING) OR MINIMIZATION: You exaggerate the importance of things (such as your goof-up or someone else's achievement) or you inappropriately shrink things until they appear tiny (your own desirable qualities or the other fellow's imperfections).
EMOTIONAL REASONING: You assume that your negative emotions necessarily reflect the things really are: "I feel it, therefore it must be true."
SHOULD STATEMENTS: You try to motivate yourself with shoulds and shouldn'ts as if you had to be whipped and punished before you could be expected to do anything. "Musts" and "oughts" are also offenders. The emotional consequence is guilt. When you direct should statements towards others, you feel anger, frustration and resentment.
LABELING AND MISLABELING: This is an extreme form of overgeneralization. Instead of describing your error, you attach a negative label to yourself: "I'm a loser." When someone else's behavior rubs you the wrong way, you attach a negative label to him: "He's a louse" Mislabeling involves describing an event with language that is highly colored and emotionally loaded.
PERSONALIZATION: You see yourself as the cause of some negative external event which in fact you were not primarily responsible for.
That's kind of the foundation of the book, I think (I'm not done reading yet): exploring those distortions and what to do about them. I wrote these out to give you an idea if you wanted to buy it and also because I need to hear them as they are my habitual mode of thinking! I really had no idea that my thinking was so counterproductive. All I've been doing so far is simply notice, which seems to help in itself, but he also has many exercises such as learning to "talk back" to that negativity.
> Went and got depressed after an endo visit yesterday...no comment about Oz endos! Just felt like giving up..better today.
Glad you're better, sorry to hear that you had a frustrating time. Doctors can be the worst pain when they can't figure out what's wrong and/or won't listen. DON'T give up, please.
>Maybe I've let my blood pressure drop too low?. I think I'll need a bloodpressure monitor..just to see if when I get like this, if it has dropped(and the depression is linked in too..probably low oxygen to the brain I suspect).
> I can make my blood pressure go from say 90/60 to 128/88 just by adding or lowering salt...wonder if I should be able to change it that much.Have you ever been to a naturopath? Someone really good, I mean. Changing your blood pressure just by adding or lowering salt seems like an exaggerated reaction that might mean something significant.
> I know..I'm strange. and I can never work out how much is caused by psychological things..like the bad endo appointment brings on the physical symptoms as well as the depression?
Both probably, which is why it's so frustrating.
> Wouldn't it be good if you get both job offers...do you think they would do that?
No, I think they'd only hire me as a transcriber if they weren't going to hire me as the director. Or maybe they'd hire me as a transcriber and leave the director position open for a while. That would save them money and they'd have a chance to check me out for a while.
I just got a note from the guy who interviewed me saying he will be talking to the CFO later today. I also have to fill out an application so they can check my references. I hope they don't also check my credit history as it's terrible nowadays.
I'm still using my brainwave CD after all, at least the relaxing one. I decided to give it a good trial before I send it back. I suspect it may be acetylcholine that it is boosting that feels uncomfortable to me as I noticed I don't like the effects of lecithin either.
Do you know about Babblemail? I just twigged to it after all these months. ;)
JL
poster:JLx
thread:398366
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/alter/20040928/msgs/399944.html