breakingcycles
Lesson 5
6 Stories We Tell Ourselves that Can Cause Stress and Mental Illness: Carl Benedict, LCPC, Serenity Online Therapy
The Negative Impact on Health and Wellness Lesson 5
Rewriting your story means that we try to find meaning in our lives/narratives that propel us to be our best selves caring for our mental, emotional, and physical needs.
Negative Stories Can Wreak Havoc on Our Mental Health
Mental health issues affect over one billion people worldwide. It’s amazing to think that a lot of these issues could be down to the stories we tell ourselves.
If you are constantly narrating negative stories in your head, it’s going to increase stress, trigger anxiety, and possibly lead to depression. When you are struggling with your mental health, it’s difficult to live a life of contentment.
Negative Stories Impact Our Physical Health
It isn’t just your mental health that is impacted by the stories you tell yourself. Your physical health can also take a hit if you are constantly negative.
Negative stories can increase the amount of stress that we feel. Too much stress is known to drastically impact our health and wellbeing. It affects your relationships, sleep, anxiety levels, and it can even impact your life expectancy.
By focusing on more positive stories, it helps to strengthen the immune system, eliminate stress, and protect both your mental and physical health.
Lesson Resources
How negative thinking affects your body ~ MIndBody Breakthrough
Your thoughts are electrochemical impulses that signal a cascade of hormonal responses that puts your entire being into a state of relaxation or anxiety, depending on the nature of our thoughts. If you think negatively, your brain produces negative chemicals that transform into negative feelings, and negative feelings eventually metamorphosize into physical symptoms. But it doesn't end there. There are other important implications you need to be aware of in order to become an active participator in your physical, mental and emotional wellbeing. In this 60 seconds video, Wale shares how you can start to gradually elevate your body out of a perpetual state of anxiety, pain and other psychosomatic conditions.
Re-Scripting the Stories We Tell Ourselves
Does the voice inside our head dictate the kind of life we’ll lead? In her fascinating talk on positive psychology research, personal experiences and critical reflections, Dr. Georges uncovers what happens when we let our internal mindsets affect our relationship with the world around us.
Comments
"People who believe their lives are meaningful tend to tell stories defined by growth, communion and agency." ~Northwestern University psychologist Dan McAdams is an expert on a concept he calls “narrative identity.
Share a story that you tell yourself that speaks to your personal growth and development.
breakingcycles
How to stop telling the negative stories from defining your life. Change your story, change your life.
Finding fulfillment in your life's lessons. Unleash joy by rewriting your stories with empathy, compassion, and self-love