• Pain from any body part is a protective danger signal that guides our behavior and physical responses to avoid danger and remain safe.
• This system is called the nociceptive system, which guides behaviors to not exceed the limits of a given structure.
• Feedback from internal organs is called interoception, and the nervous system maintains a delicate balance through hormones, inflammatory responses, neurotransmitters, and metabolism (fuel consumption).
• Unpleasant mental input is perceived in similar regions of the brain as physical pain, but there is no automatic withdrawal or avoidance response. Suppression increases the intensity. We have no protection from mental pain.

Although humans are programmed to avoid or resolve physical threats, we do not have inherent mechanisms to deal with mental threats.

Staying Alive

Every living creature, from single-celled organisms to mammals, has two biological mandates. The first is to survive, and the second is to pass their genes to the next generation.

In order to avoid danger, seek safety, and stay alive, data is gathered through sensors located on every cell in your body. All this information continually interpreted by your nervous system to assess whether the situation is safe or dangerous. Signals are then sent out from the nervous system to regulate and control your body’s next actions to optimize survival. So, a major point is that the nervous system is necessary to interpret the intensity and type of input from the pain sensors. Otherwise, pain would not exist.

There are many different pain signals such as hot/cold, loud/soft, sharp/ dull, pressure, light touch, and position. When these pain receptors send messages to the brain that a given structure in the body is at risk for danger, the brain sends out automatic signals to withdraw from the dangerous situation. Pain is protective and we cannot survive without it. It is a gift.

This unconscious protective system is called the nociceptive pain system. What you may not realise is that this system is focused on guiding our actions and behaviours in order to avoid pain and we can get on with our lives safely. So, we are not aware of its role most of the time. It is only when the limits of a given bodily structure are approximated or exceeded that your brain receivesan intensity of signals that it interprets as, “danger!” These signals have evolved to be so unpleasant so as to compel action. It is how living creatures evolved and survive. It is also the reason why when the finely tuned protective pain system becomes unbalanced and suffering from chronic pain is so tragic.

Protective responses

There are four levels of responses to input from your external environment and internal organs. The variables are intensity and duration.

1. None/protective: Your body is guided to remain safe.
2. Withdrawal: Any physically perceived threat is met with a quick response.
3. Symptoms/Illnesses: Prolonged threat – diminishes/resolves with a lower threat load.
4. Diseases: Sustained threat – your body breaks down, causing structural damage.

There are rare instances where people are born without pain fibers. Since they lack protective sensation, their tissues and joints break down, become deformed, and infected. They live only 10-15 years and usually die from infection. There are also diseases that destroy protective sensation such as leprosy and diabetes. Again, the limits of the tissues are regularly exceeded, and they break down. Often a joint will become a “bag of bones.” Survival depends on your brain accurately processing sensory input, detecting threats, and sending out signals to take protective actions.

Uniquely human

In addition to input from your eyes, ears, nose, mouth, skin, and internal organs, humans also receive input in the form of threatening thoughts. Unpleasant thoughts are processed in similar regions of the brain as physical pain¹, which creates a flight or fight response. Hence the phrase, “You hurt my feelings.”

The brain generates survival signals that are intended to be so unpleasant that the organism is compelled to respond in a way to resolve the threat. Once the problem is solved, your body returns to its baseline. Whenever a given response doesn’t solve real or perceived danger, the body’s physiology remains in an activated threat state. Sustained threat causes symptoms, illness, and disease.

Many, if not most, people have stresses that are not solvable, and avoiding stress becomes its own stress. As your body kicks in more of a stress response, you’ll feel angry. The longer and more intensely you feel trapped, the greater the effects on your body.

There are many ways of minimizing the impact of stress. However, a universal problem is the inability to escape from unpleasant thoughts. This may be a powerful force in driving chronic disease with sustained threat physiology keeping your body in overdrive.

Your brain on fire

A significant percentage of your brain is intertwined with the immune system, and signaling molecules (cytokines) fire up an inflammatory response. Your brain is not only hyperreactive but also inflamed. So, thoughts fire up the nervous system, and then your brain fires off disruptive thoughts.

SciePro/ AdobeStock

Your thoughts, concepts, and behavioral reactions eventually become permanently embedded (memorized) in your brain and are unresponsive to rational interventions.² They become your “demons” that strengthen over time. Essentially, all humans have some level of annoying, undesirable thoughts that aren’t problematic. Many experience them at a level that interferes with their enjoyment of life but doesn’t affect their capacity to function. Others are greatly affected without carrying a diagnosis of OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder). Coping behaviors include suppressing thoughts, rigid thinking, binge eating, eating disorders, skin picking, nail biting, hair pulling, “worrying,” hyper-focusing on appearance, body image issues, and addictions.

Repetitive Unpleasant Thoughts (RUTs) are worsened when trying to fight or control them³. Attempts at mental control drive them much harder, as more attention reinforces them. Suppressing them is even worse. Then, feeling trapped creates intense angry, irrational reactions. The resultant dysfunctional behaviors create a lot of damage to you and others around you, in addition to illness, symptoms, and disease. We do not have an automatic withdrawal response to mental pain – we have no protection at all.

Recap

This inability to protect ourselves from unpleasant thoughts drives threat physiology, creates many dysfunctional behaviors, and causes symptoms, illness, and disease. There are many benefits to human consciousness, but this aspect of it is “the curse of cognitive consciousness.” We have learned to physically survive but have not consistently figured out how to thrive.

References

1. Eisenberger N. “The neural bases of social pain: Evidence for shared representations with physical pain.” Psychosom Med (2012); 74: 126-135.
2. Feldman Barrett, Lisa. How Emotions are Made. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, New York, NY, 2018.
3. Wegener DM. The Seed of Our Undoing. Psychological Science Agenda (1999)/ 10-11.

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The title of this song¹ is a common way many of us deal with adversity. However, it encompasses both halves of the “ironic effect” and the actual well-documented outcome of this approach to life is more worry and sadness.

What is “the ironic effect” and how does it work?

There two aspects of it.

First, it is well known that if you suppress unpleasant thoughts, not only will they become stronger, but there is also a trampoline effect where they become much stronger.² We often joke about it, but it is serious problem that disrupts your quality of life, drives fight or flight physiology, and causes many symptoms, illnesses, and diseases. “Don’t worry” is thought suppression.

Secondly, and less known, is that setting high ideals and standards for yourself  will take you down in the other direction. For example, if you strive for happiness, you will experience sadness. If you allow sadness, you will be happier.³ So, the higher your ideals and intentions, the higher your chances of being riddled by anxiety.

Why does this phenomenon occur? The answer lies in the massive impact of the unconscious survival brain compared to the limited power of the conscious brain. Your unconscious brain processes about 40 million bits of information per second compared to your conscious brain dealing with about 40 per second. It is a million times stronger. Let’s look at the problem of “being happy.”

The pursuit of happiness

“Happy” is a conscious construct. The problem is that your conscious brain is no match for your survival reactions that evolved to be so unpleasant as to compel us to take actions to survive. The data shows that by trying to outrun or compensate for your stresses by pursuing pleasure, you’ll cause a highly inflammatory reaction. Your DNA dictates the production of destructive inflammatory cells call, “warrior monocytes” that attack your own tissues in addition to bacteria, viruses, and other foreign invaders.⁴ The sensation generated by this inflammatory response is anxiety.

Another aspect of this ironic effect is that by pursuing happiness, you’ll worry about the ways you might not achieve it. You have set a largely unconscious standard of what happy is for you. As you monitor your happiness, you are in ongoing self-judgmental mode that wears you down.

Happy is also a label, which is a core cognitive distortion.⁵ What is it and how encompassing is it? What percent of the time do you have to be in a happy state to label yourself as “happy?” What activities and accomplishments are required to reach your criteria? How do you react when daily challenges interrupt this state of mind?

Philosophers and psychologists have viewed attachment as the root of suffering. Anthony DeMello has a concise definition of it.⁶ If something feels good you want more and if it is unpleasant, you want less. Being attached to “happy” will paradoxically increase your suffering. The most well-intentioned people are the most subject to the ironic effect in that the higher their ideals, the greater the chance they’ll be riddled with racing thoughts and anxiety.

“Don’t worry?”

We all know the problems that occur when you try not think about something. One classic paper was published in 1987,² The Paradoxical Effects of Thought Suppression.” Again, more well-intentioned people will suppress a higher percent of “unacceptable” thoughts and also give meaning to them. They are just thoughts but will become more powerful as they keep being interpreted as good or bad.

Repetitive Unpleasant Thoughts  (RUT’s) are universal. When you have a bizarre, even unspeakable thought, of course you would suppress it. Why wouldn’t you?  It has nothing to do with anything about you or your value system. As it arises again and again, it is instantly suppressed.  Eventually suppression becomes automatic, which is called repression. Seems pretty normal, right? Except what happens is that your nervous system inadvertently gave this random thought a tremendous amount of power. Every time that thought is suppressed/ repressed, that neurological circuit has been reinforced. These circuits become stronger and connected with more experiences.⁷ Eventually, you may end up spending a lot of mental energy dealing with these anxiety-producing, disruptive thought(s). As you feel trapped and frustrated, these circuits are driven even harder from your brain being inflamed.

These disruptive thoughts become your “demons.” They are not your demons. They are the opposite of who you are and who you are not. My term for these irrational, non-responsive neurological patterns are “robots”. You cannot deal with a robot. You cannot talk to it or reason with it. There is absolutely nothing that can be done from a rational standpoint to change an unresponsive neurological circuit. In fact, when you discuss your demons and try to figure out why they are there, you are firing up and adding even morecomplexity to the circuits. They become even stronger and you can’t unlearn them. How do you “unlearn” to ride a bike? You can’t. They really are RUT’s.

Allow worry?

No one wants to talk about the existence of RUT’s because they are so disruptive, and often feel shameful. The initial step is to understand the nature of the problem and realize that these thoughts are emanating from your unconscious brain. You must separate your identity from them. They are just thoughts, are also universal, and you don’t have to personally identify with them.

The unpleasant emotions connected with them are your body’s physiology responding to the perceived threats. Remember, they are actually the opposite of who you are as a well-meaning person.

Fortunately, there are solutions that have been known for centuries, but don’t seem to be readily apparent in our modern world. The principles revolve around allowing yourself to be with your painful emotions, use strategies to calm down your threat physiology, and then choose joy. With repetition you’ll reprogram your survival reactions into more pleasant alternatives. As emotional pain is processed in similar regions of the brain as physical pain, it hurts.⁸ Professional support and direction are often needed.

Joy

Choosing joy is different than positive thinking, which is another form of thought suppression. It entails having a positive outlook, “taking the hits,” and consistently making positive choices. But you can’t make the positive choices without knowing where you are at in the moment. “What you can feel, you can heal.”⁹ As you learn to be with your mental pain instead of fighting it, these unpleasant circuits will become less active. It is similar to any skill that fades without practice.

Be with worry and choose happy. Learning skills to accomplish this allows you rise above your “RUT’s” and live a more enjoyable life.

References:

1. McFerrin, Bobby. Released 1988; Number 1 single from album Simple Pleasures.

1. Wegener, D.M., et al. “Paradoxical effects of thought suppression.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (1987); 53: 5-13.
2. Wegner D. The Seed of Our Undoing. Psychological Science Agenda, January/February, 1999, 10-11.
3. Cole SW, et al. Social regulation of gene expression in human leukocytes. Genome Biology (2007); 8:R189. doi:10.1186/gb-2007/8/9/R189
4. Burns, David. Feeling Good. Avon Books, Harper Collins, New York, NY, 1999.

6. DeMello, Anthony, The Way to Love. Double Day, New York, NY, 1992.
7. Mansour AR, et al. Chronic pain: The role of learning and brain plasticity. Restorative Neurology and Neuroscience (2014); 32:129-139. DOI 10.3233/RNN-139003
8. Eisenberger NI, et al An experimental study of shared sensitivity to physical pain and social rejection. Pain (2006); 126:132-138.
9. John Gray, author of Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. Harper Collins, New York, NY, 1992.

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Thought suppression

Disturbing thoughts are universal. When you have a bizarre, even unspeakable thought, of course you would suppress it. Why wouldn’t you?  It has nothing to do with anything about you or your value system. Then, as it arises again and again, it is instantly suppressed.  Eventually the suppression of the thought is automatic. Seems pretty normal, right? Except what happened is that your nervous system inadvertently gave this random thought a tremendous amount of power. Every time that thought is suppressed, that neurological circuit has been reinforced. Over many years, this circuit becomes much stronger and becomes connected with more experiences. (2) Eventually, you may consciously or unconsciously end up spending a lot of mental energy dealing with this anxiety-producing, disruptive thought(s). As you have less success in controlling the ever-increasing and powerful thoughts, you will probably become frustrated, which drives the circuits even harder.

Another variation of this phenomenon is the development of obsessive thought patterns around “forbidden activities or topics.” (3) Just inadvertent  curiosity will stimulate barrages of thoughts. What is perverse is that it is the more well-intentioned person who is more subject to this sequence. This programming process is similar to an accomplished musician or artist learning their skill. It requires years of repetition to reach the highest level. Disruptive thoughts hit the nervous system like a machine gun without an endpoint.

Your reality – your thoughts

You might ask what is the big deal? These are just thoughts. Neuroscience research has demonstrated that thoughts are your version of reality, similar to learning a cat is a cat. Your brain has to unscramble sensory input from all receptors every second to define anything. Your eyes have no capacity to interpret anything. For example, if a person suffers a stroke of the occipital lobe at the back of the brain, they can’t see even though every other component of the visual system is functioning. The term is “cortical blindness.” This is true for all sensations. To develop consciousness, your nervous system has to interpret words, body language, tone of voice, visual cues, etc. for every thought to decide where it fits and what it means. Thoughts and concepts are embedded in the same way as physical reality. We are programmed by our past and the lens through which we interpret the present. As disruptive thoughts strengthen with repetition, they even become associated with physical reactions making them even more “real.” Every human has to deal with this problem of consciousness at some level. It is often overwhelming efforts to escape result in many untoward behaviors and acting out.

Demons

These disruptive thoughts become your “demons.” They are not your demons. They are irrational, non-responsive neurological patterns that I call “robots”. You cannot deal with a robot. You cannot talk to it or reason with it. There is absolutely nothing that can be done from a rational standpoint to change an unresponsive neurological pathway. In fact, when you discuss your demons and try to figure out why they are there, you are firing up and adding complexity to the circuits. They become even stronger and you can’t unlearn them. How do you “unlearn” to ride a bike? You can’t.

It’s almost surreal that we spend so much time and energy trying to contain and deal with our demons. Not only are they not who we are, they are the opposite of who we are.  Otherwise, we would not have suppressed the thoughts in the first place. It is like changing the oil in your car when your radiator is leaking. Eventually, you are just worn down. The other consequence of this relentless repetition of unpleasant thoughts is that your body is responding with stress chemicals, which affects every cell in your body. People become ill.

A common example is that of a body image disorder. It is my contention that every person has some level of body image issues and at some tipping point they may become disruptive. Consider that there is always some aspect of your body that you don’t like. Usually it is a minimal issue that is “not a big deal”. Why even think about it? Except you live in your body and there is no escape from that tiny thought. By tossing the thought aside, you just gave it attention and it will grow and continue to do so every time the thought arises. It is also why some of the most beautiful people on the planet may suffer more than the average person because their attention is on their appearance.

Solutions

The first step in dealing with all of this is understanding the nature of the problem. These “demons” are as real to you as the chair you are sitting on. They create tremendous anxiety, which is frequently intolerable. Anxiety is not primarily psychological. It is measure of your stress chemicals and intended to create a deep feeling of dread to compel you to take action to solve a given threat. When you can’t escape the “threat”, life can be pretty miserable. It is critical to remember that rational approaches don’t work and actually may be counter-productive.

Second, you have to view these repetitive thoughts from a mechanical viewpoint and depersonalize them.  Everyone has some level of them. They are just there and are NOT who you are. Don’t give them any further personal energy. Your brain will develop wherever you place your attention.

Third, there are many strategies to rewire your brain and create new more enjoyable circuits. The term is “neuroplasticity” and the basic sequence is awareness, separation and redirecting. The tools are simple and effective with repetition. Mental pain appears to be a greater problem for most people than physical pain, although neither one is great. Your “demons” are one of the more intense aspects of it. The DOC process presents many proven strategies to rewire your brain, and each person figures out his or her unique approach.

Consider the solution being similar to cleaning out the lint in a dryer. It needs to be done regularly. Otherwise, the dryer will lose efficiency and eventually break down. I consider the use of these tools “neurological maintenance.” It is the way the nervous system functions. Think in terms of neuroplasticity. THERE ARE NO RATIONAL SHORTCUTS.

1. Wegner
2. Mansour
3. Obsessive

JYR, BF

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