The document discusses how thoughts and thinking patterns can impact health and discusses cognitive distortions that can negatively impact health outcomes. It notes that guided imagery has been used successfully by champion athletes to visualize success and create mental pathways. It then outlines and explains various cognitive distortions like all-or-nothing thinking, overgeneralization, mental filtering, jumping to conclusions, labeling, and emotional reasoning that can impact stress levels and health. The document advocates questioning beliefs and thinking patterns to address cognitive distortions.

1. The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling,
but in rising every time we fall.
Nelson Mandela

2. Begin to think your way
into health
Your thoughts are the single most
powerful weapon you have
to fight disease.

3. What does health mean to you?
What everyday conditions can affect your health, for the
good and bad?
If you have a disease (HIV, depression, hepatitis, anxiety,
high blood pressure, diabetes, cancer, asthma), can you
treat these only with medications?

4. What does this have to do
with thinking and health?
•?
What is Stress?
“Stress is the internal mental and physical tension we feel
when we get upset because things are not going the way
we expected or wanted” Fight or flight reaction.
Is all stress bad? Can good stress be as bad for you as
bad stress?

5. The full power of the mind is beyond
current scientific understanding.
Mind - Body : same whole, different role
• Sports psychology
• Psychoneuroimmunology
• Performance anxiety
• Guided Imagery
– Cancer
– HIV
– Surgery

6. Guided Imagery with
Champion Athletes
Psychological skill
-a clear advantage.
When the brain imagines in detail doing an
activity, it creates a pathway just as if it is done
physically.
Smell, touch, taste, sight, feel the emotions-
visualize success.

7. Stress, anxiety or sadness can cause:
Back pain
Change in appetite
Chest pain
Constipation or diarrhea
Depression
Dry mouth
Extreme tiredness
General aches and pains
Headaches
Lightheadedness
Palpitations (the feeling that your
heart is racing)
Sexual problems
Shortness of breath
Stiff neck or jaw
Sweating
Trouble sleeping
Upset stomach
Weight gain or loss

8. We can't solve
problems
by using the
same kind of
thinking
we used when
we created
them.
Albert Einstein

9. What upsets people is not things
themselves but their judgments about
the things.
—Epictetus (ca. AD 50-130)

10. All or nothing thinking
You group things either in black and white, or good and bad
categories.
If you are not perfect, you see yourself as a total failure.

11. Overgeneralization
You see a single
negative event as a
never-ending
pattern of
defeat.
(nobody loves me, it will never
work out)

12. You pick out a single negative detail and to stress
about—so that your reality is darkened, like the drop
of ink that stains the entire glass of water.
Mental filter

13. Disqualifying the Positive
You reject good or positive things, like compliments or
actions, by believing they "don't count" for some reason or
another. This will keep you in a negative belief state.

14. Jumping to conclusions: No facts
You make a negative interpretation, even though there
are no definite facts that strongly back up your belief.

15. Jumping to Conclusions : Mind Reading
For no particular good reason you believe that
someone is reacting negatively to you, and you don't
bother to check this out.

16. Jumping to Conclusions : Fortune Telling
You anticipate that things will turn out badly, and you feel convinced that
your prediction is an already established fact.

17. Magnification or Minimization
(the Exaggerate or Disregard Trick)
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).

18. Emotional Reasoning
You believe that your
negative emotions are
definitely the way
things really are:
"I feel it,
therefore it
must be true."

19. Emotional reasoning = emotional self-judgement.
You judge yourself
primarily on how you think
and feel.
The world judges you on
your actions, not on your
thoughts and feelings.
Which is more accurate?

20. Should Statements
Encouraging yourself with should and shouldn't.
"Musts" and "ought's" are also offenders.
The emotional consequence is guilt.

21. Labelling and Mislabelling
Not describing your mistake, but placing a negative name to yourself:
"I'm just a f- up." When someone gets on your last nerve, you call
them something negative: "He's a goddam fool."
Mislabelling explains an action with emotional, harmful or rude
language.

22. Personification
You think you
caused
something
negative to
happen, but in
reality, you had
nothing to do
with it.

23. Thinking too much,

24. Clarify
Make sure you understand.
• What did you mean?
• Why did you say that?
• Can you give me an example?
• Can you say that to me another way?

25. Question the “How and Why”
of your beliefs
• What else could it be?
• How did you come to believe in that?
• Can you “prove” or “disprove” that?
• If this happened to your best friend, would you cut
them a break?

26. What’s the Evidence??
• How do you know this to be true?
• Can you give me an example…?
• Can that be the only explanation or reason?
• Does it make sense?
• Would a court admit this as evidence?

27. Who, what, why and how questions
Be a great detective!
• Who benefits from thinking this way?
• What does it do for you to continue to believe and
think this way?
• Why is ___ better or worse than ___?
• How can you see this differently?

28. Cognitive Distortions
• Why should I keep taking my
insulin?
• What good is it to watch my
weight?
• It won’t make a difference if I drink
one more beer.
• I’ve tried before and it hasn’t
work. Why try again?
• She doesn’t care about what
happens to me, why should I care
about me?
• He must be mad at me, look at the
way he hasn’t talked much since
he got home. What’s the use?
• Why bother anymore, all I do
seems to be wrong anyway.
• No medications ever works for me,
it’s no use going to the doctors
anymore.
• Why not share kits? I’m already
HIV positive.