• 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.

The post We have no protection from mental pain first appeared on Back in Control.

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1. Repetitive Unpleasant Thoughts (RUTs) are solvable with a multi-pronged self-directed approach.
2. Consider the four aspects in the metaphor of a popcorn machine.
3. They are 1) the kernels 2) the cooking pot 3) the storage compartment 4) the power source.
4. All facets must be addressed daily, so the only person that can solve them is you.

You cannot control your thoughts and the “need for mental control” is what causes so much trouble. RUTs are solvable by approaching them from all of these perspectives.

• Thought diversion
• Calming the nervous system
• Redirecting your brain towards positive circuits
• Dissolution of your ego

Consider these aspects of calming your mind as a metaphor of a movie theater popcorn machine. The kernels of corn represent your disruptive thoughts. The cooking pot is your fired up nervous system. Obsessive thoughts are the popped corn, and the storage area is your working memory.

Thought diversion

Having fewer kernels of corn enter the cooker is an important step. You can divert your thoughts in several ways.

• Expressive writing
• Mindfulness/ active meditation
• Cognitive behavioral approaches – recognizing and separating from cognitive distortions.

Expressive writing in its various forms is simply a separation exercise. Your thoughts are on a piece of paper separated from you by vision and feel, both part of the unconscious brain. It is critical to immediately destroy it, so you can write with absolute freedom. It is the most miserable and disturbing thoughts that we suppress the most. As your body chemically reacts to them, they become real and part of your version of reality. The reality is that they are who you are not. The other reason to destroy them is to not analyze them. They are not “issues”, they are just thoughts. Rehashing them creates more of a tangled mess.

Mindfulness/ active meditation puts your attention on physical sensations that creates a shift away from your racing thoughts. It can be any sensation and can last for just a few seconds . Or you can train yourself to live much of your day in a mindful manner. Instead of doing battle with these thoughts, you have turned away from them.

Another strategy is cognitive behavior therapy (CBT). David Burns has defined ten categories of cognitive distortions that impact our decision-making and quality of life. Instead of believing these distortions, you can train your brain to recognize them for what they are, separate from them, and move on. The beauty of cognitive distortions is that there is nothing to do since they are not real in the first place.

Turning down the heat – anger

The second aspect of calming down the nervous system, is represented by “turning down the heat” of the cooker. We know that unpleasant thoughts fire up the nervous system, but an inflamed brain also throws off more extraneous thoughts. Notice how your mind races when you are upset or feel trapped for any reason. You are fighting for a way out. This is the basic survival response for a physical threat that increases your chances of survival. It doesn’t work for emotional survival. Fighting your thoughts not only increases the intensity of them, but you are also consuming a lot of fuel (glucose), as your brain consumes between 20-25% of your metabolic energy. Additionally, the activity of your brain shifts from your neocortex (thinking region) to the limbic region (survival areas) and you are unable to think clearly. The creativity you need to solve a problem is compromised.

Anxiety is the sensation generated by an activated threat response and anger is a hyperactivated one. They are physiological states and not primarily psychological. Your unpleasant thoughts are sensory input and emotions are what you feel (physiology). Anxiety and anger are the same entity, varying in intensity. Anxiety evolved to be extremely unpleasant, as it is the driving force to avoid danger and survive. The solution to anxiety is solving the threat. But when the problem is unsolvable, your body increases the survival response, and you’ll be angry. They are both activated physiological threat states.

Anxiety and anger are hardwired reactions that we have no control over. If you are triggered, you are triggered. What you do have a say about is your response to it. You can regulate your physiology through three different portals.

• Input – how you process your stress
• Lowering the reactivity of your nervous system – sleep, diet, exercise, somatic therapy
• Output – tools to stimulate the vagus nerve, which is highly anti-inflammatory – breath work, humming, listening to certain pitches of music, and vagal stimulation.

My term for dealing with anger is “anger processing.” There are many layers to it and none of these are difficult. It is a learned set of skills that are used daily and indefinitely. Unless you learn to lower this powerful (and addicting) survival reaction, you will continue to experience intense repetitive thoughts.

To have a good life, you must live a good life

The real and definitive healing occurs as you nurture and live the life that you want. Re-directing your attention to pleasant circuits is a separate set of skills. You cannot be really creative if you are continually fighting RUTs.

This is represented by how you deal with the popped kernels of corn. Over time, your attention may become consumed by unpleasant thoughts and the holding area of the popcorn machine is filled up. There is nowhere to go. By diverting the thoughts and turning down the heat, there will be less popcorn. But regardless of how quickly the machine fills up, it must be emptied to create some “space” for new input to allow for the sequence of stimulating your brain to change (neuroplasticity). The sequence is awareness, creating some space, and then redirecting your attention to what you want.

This “space” can be created in many ways including adequate sleep, exercise, anti-inflammatory diet, not discussing pain, etc. If you are trying to compensate for your anxiety with distracting activities, it is not possible. Your survival brain is too powerful. It is the reason that thought diversion and effectively processing anger are so critical. Then you have choices. Eventually, as you become more engaged in the life that you want and remain connected to it, obsessive thoughts are crowded out.

Pull the Plug – Ego dissolution

The driving force of ego is the pursuit of self-esteem, which It is an ongoing judgment pattern without an endpoint. It consists of an endless stream of thoughts and stories, most of which are cognitive distortions. You’ll wear down, RUTs will increase, your physiology attacks your own body, and you may become ill. BTW, self-esteem is a core cognitive distortion of “labeling.” As you develop your own story of who you are, it takes a lot of mental energy to maintain and defend it. Hence, a whirlwind of competing thoughts.

The final step of dissolving your ego, is the definitive solution. You cannot force or make it happen. You are allowing it to dissolve with awareness as the other three aspects are in play. The kernels of corn (unpleasant thoughts) dramatically decrease when there is no need to defend your ego and let go of pursuing self-esteem. You have “pulled the plug”  and remain connected to the present moment.

Recap

RUTs fire up the nervous system and an inflamed nervous system fires up RUTs. Both aspects must be addressed to decrease and essentially resolve RUTs. Definitive healing happens as your brain shifts to creative and functional circuits. Eventually, you’ll understand the futility of chasing self-esteem to offset your powerful flight or fight neurochemistry. Without having to defend your “identity”, disruptive thoughts will fade away.

Instead of being all that you can be, it is much easier to “just be.” There is no place, physically or mentally, that you have to go to. As your mind quiets down, you can just enjoy your day and appreciate the moment you are in.

Questions and considerations

1. Consider how much RUTs interfere with your enjoyment of life. Maybe they are minimal. Or have they been present for so long that they seem normal?
2. OCD is a diagnosis that has limited value. It does imply an intensity of bothersome thoughts that disrupts your ability to function in daily life. But at what tipping point would you call RUTs OCD?
3. Consider all aspects of healing. They are all important and happen simultaneously every day without an endpoint. As you increase your skills, they become habitual, requires little effort, you create “space” to reprogram your brain, and move forward away from these circuits.

The post The Popcorn Machine – Healing RUTS first appeared on Back in Control.

The post The Popcorn Machine – Healing RUTS appeared first on Back in Control.

• Mental and physical pain are processed in similar regions of the brain.
• Our inability to escape from RUT’s relentlessly drives flight or fight physiology, and people may become ill.
• There is a healing sequence to solve them – separation of identity, thought diversion, lowering anger, moving into creativity, and dissolving your ego.
• It is a dynamic process with all of these happening daily. Eventually, as it becomes automatic, and you are free to live your life.

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is manifested by extreme anxiety that is driven by Repetitive Unpleasant Thoughts (RUT’s). Most people associate it disruptive compulsive behaviors such as hand washing, climbing up and down stairs, following a rigid daily regime, and the list is endless. However, there is also a form of OCD called, “internal OCD” where a person has an unpleasant thought and “counteracts” it with a pleasant thought. Either form has no endpoint and is considered a diagnosis to be managed and not solved. That is simply not true.

RUT’s are universal

Essentially every human being has some level of RUT’s. At what point do they become severe enough to be considered OCD? Why not discard the diagnosis and consider the process on a spectrum of human consciousness. The classic definition of OCD is when the thoughts/behaviors interfere with your capacity to carry out activities necessary to live a functional life.

What about enjoying your life? With internal OCD, there are no outward manifestations, but your quality of life might range from unremarkable to miserable. There also many “acceptable” behaviors such as working hard, overexercising, “passionate pursuit” of a hobby or vocation. All of these can be just fine, but what is driving them?

As I have talked to patients carefully over the 40 years, I gradually learned that mental pain is a much bigger problem than physical pain. I would ask patients that if could get rid of their physical pain with surgery and they would still have their ongoing anxiety versus resolving their anxiety and living with the pain, the majority of people wanted to get rid of the mental pain.

Related behaviors

There are also come cousins of OCD. Consider them in the context of behaviors to cope with the unpleasant sensations created by anxiety (threat physiology). They include:

• Hair pulling
• Nail biting
• Eating disorders
• Excessive attention to physical appearance
• Hoarder’s syndrome
• Skin picking
• Cutting
• Extreme convictions regarding religion, politics, or any social issue
  • Imposing these “ideals” on others is the next step because control lowers inflammation. The more power the more control.

Any addiction is an attempt to mask anxiety.

Avoiding anxiety (threat physiology) drives most human behavior

Avoiding anxiety is the driving force keeping all living creatures alive. It is the result of stresses and challenges, not the cause. Amongst the many stressors in our lives, the inability to escape from our thoughts is a major one, maybe the worst. Although we cannot control our thoughts, many activities create sense of control. Suppressing RUT’s just makes them-worse.

“Worrying” seems normal to many people. But is not particularly enjoyable. Why do we spend so much time worrying about so many things, many of which we have no control over? One reason is that it provides a feeling of control. Somehow, worrying enough will help solve the problem. What it does is that it keeps your brain and body fired up and you have less energy to effectively deal with challenges.

Or maybe you have an “anxiety disorder.” Everyone has anxiety, so why would we call it a disorder and why would you personalize these intentionally unpleasant sensations that evolved to keep you alive. It is what you have, not who you are.

What about those who don’t have any of these behaviors. Even many well-adjusted people living normal enjoyable lives can experience a level of RUT’s that interfere with their quality of life. Actually, when life is relatively calm, these repetitive thought patterns can significantly increase. Then as one pursues pleasurable activities to distract themselves, it doesn’t work and is actually highly inflammatory. The data shows that a hedonistic lifestyle creates aggressive inflammatory cells called “warrior monocytes.” In addition to attacking viruses and bacteria, they also go after your own tissues. The other factors that stimulate their formation is social isolation and CHRONIC stress.¹ Your body knows how to effectively deal with acute stress, but it needs a break to rest and regenerate.

Degrees of OCD

Obsessive thought patterns are inherent in human cognitive consciousness. There are degrees of intensity, and they vary day-to-day depending on the level of your stressors and the state of your nervous system – calm or hyperactive. Again, even if your life is relatively calm, they can also be problematic.

OCD, the extreme manifestation of this situation is considered a diagnosis to be managed and can’t be solved. However, medicine has not consistently addressed the body’s physiology. When you are in a flight-or-fight state, your brain also becomes inflamed and these thoughts will fly out like clay pigeons at a shooting range, except there are trillions of them. The medical profession has also not acknowledged the seriousness of the effects of less intense RUT’s on people’s sense of well-being and health. They still drive threat physiology. They are often referred to as a “monkey mind” or he/ she is just having a nervous breakdown. These thinking patterns are a problem and our inability to escape them is even more problematic.

Solution principles

There are four aspects of solving RUT’s and each of them will be discussed in detail in future posts. They all happen simultaneously and indefinitely. Eventually, as your brain evolves away from them, you no longer have to “work at dealing with them. They are:

• Diverting, not controlling, them – mindfulness, expressive writing, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)
• “Turning down the heat” – when you are trapped by anything, your threat state fires up even more, and you are angry. Anxiety is activated and anger is hyper-activated threat physiology.
• Nurturing creativity and joy. This is where the real healing occurs as you move away from these spinning circuits.
• Dissolution of your ego – we work hard to attain enough self-esteem to feel better about ourselves. However, most of it is based on cognitive distortions that drive RUT’s even more. Without an ego to defend, these racing thoughts will abate – often dramatically.

This set of approaches evolved from my own 15-year ordeal with severe “internal OCD.” Not only do I not experience these vivid, almost visual thoughts, I don’t seem to have the random distracting thoughts I had before I became ill. There is also a vast amount of research looking at the mechanisms of why and how they occur, and now there is lot of neuroscience data supporting these ideas. The challenge is to present them in a manner so you can pursue your own healing journey. No one else can do it for you.

As your brain heals, your body heals. As your body heals, your brain will heal. The reality is that they are just part of one unit – you.

Recap

Our inability to escape our unpleasant thoughts is inflammatory. Since half of your brain has inflammatory receptors, it also fires up. The diagnosis of OCD is considered to be relatively uncommon, except many people suffer from RUT’s that interfere with the quality of their life. Obsessive thought patterns are considered to be unsolvable and just managed. However, medicine is not generally addressing the physiology. There are four aspects of dealing with OCD that will lower the intensity of these thoughts:thought diversion, lowering anger, moving into the creative part of your brain, and allowing your ego to dissolve. They are solvable.

 Questions and considerations

1. What percentage of your waking hours are you occupied with racing thoughts?
2. Do you find yourself avoiding thinking about certain things? Do you notice how often they keep popping up?
3. Are you aware how common they are and how many people are bothered by them?
4. The medical world doesn’t consider OCD a problem that can be solved and the lesser issue of RUT’s is not often addressed. By using all of the approaches presented, they are not only solvable, but you can move into a wonderful life
5. RUT’s are a function of the mechanics of the mind. Talk therapy alone is ineffective and it can be likened to having a conversation with the engine of your car.
6. It is important to understand that these “stories” and thoughts become embedded in our brains as concretely as any physical object. The problem is that since this is your frame of reference, how can you really see the problem? They become normalized.

 References

1. 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

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The post Four Aspects of Solving RUT’s appeared first on Back in Control.

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

The post Your Demons are Robots first appeared on Back in Control.

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