Thinking Badly Hurts The Brain

As in most of life’s difficult situations, having negative thoughts over a problem only heightens its seriousness and makes us feel bad from an area deep inside the brain called the amygdala. As these thoughts fester in the mind they develop anxiety and also focus awareness centered in the frontal cortex and insula. What makes this worse is when the negative thoughts are distortions of the truth, not even reasonable or realistic.

From the Tinnitus Practitioner’s Association, here are 12 common cognitive distortions to avoid, 1). Tinnitus is completely destroying your life, 2). Predicting that tinnitus will ruin your whole day … tomorrow, 3). You discount any improvements that occur over time as not important, 4). Labeling something is true about tinnitus because you “feel” it is such, 5). Concluding that there will never be any help, 6). Grossly magnify the smallest negative and minimizing the positive, 7). Giving too much attention to one negative aspect and not letting go of seeing the whole picture, 8). Feeling others think your crazy because you can’t adjust, 9). I will never be happy again because I have tinnitus, 10.) You believe people are having negativity because of you, 11). I should have dealt with this differently, 12). You only see negative aspects and feel you are the only one. These distortions about tinnitus are unrealistic and not true, don’t do it!

Although sound therapy and environmental counseling are important, at the top of the list is cognitive-behavioral therapy. How your actions, thoughts, and behaviors place control over your tinnitus determines, in part, how much it reduces. Most of the information on this website is geared in this direction and when used daily relief!