Let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes. Ephesians 4:23 (NLT)
Do you ever think about what you think about? According to Cognitive Neuroscientist, Dr. Caroline Leaf, the average person thinks over 30,000 thoughts a day. If we don’t place healthy boundaries on our thinking, we leave our emotional and physical well-being to chance.
Thoughts dictate your moods and emotions. When certain thought patterns become habitual, the emotions that are associated with them also become habit.
Some emotions have a negative physical fallout. For example, fear causes your body to prepare for crisis. Adrenaline is released, heart rate increases, breathing becomes fast and shallow, digestion slows and muscles tense. According to Dr. Don Colbert, constant worry and fearful thinking increases your risk of developing cardiovascular diseases, hypertension, digestive-tract diseases, headaches and skin disorders. However, you can learn to place boundaries on your thoughts.
What are you going to allow yourself to think about today? If you find yourself imagining the worst-case scenario or replaying painful past events, switch your focus. Interrupt what-if, if-only, could-have, would-have and should-have statements, replacing them with something more positive. To combat negative thoughts like, ‘I never get anything right,’ have a substitute ready and say, “I can do all things through Christ to strengthen to me!”
At first, changing the way you think will feel like hard work but, as it is with developing any habit, it will become second nature if you stick with it.