Psychology Today reported in 2013 that 70% of our thoughts are negative.
In 2005, The National Science Foundation did some research on how humans think. They found that humans had about 12,000 to 60,000 thoughts per day and of those thoughts, 80% were negative. Even worse, they found that 95% of the thoughts we have today were exactly the same as the thoughts we had yesterday.
Oftentimes, the thoughts we think are negative and cause us to worry. This leads to stress, which causes a rise in cortisol. Excessive and continued production of cortisol impairs our immune system and opens the door to disease and infection.
How about your thoughts?
Have you thought about the riots that have been in the news lately? What about the results of the 2020 Presidential Election? Have you given any thought to all the deaths caused by Covid-19? Or, how about all of the murders constantly reported by the media?
Every day I see people interacting on social media about things that are outside their control. Some of the interaction gets heated and its clear those things are causing stress.
Because the media knows we react more to negative news than positive news, they force feed us negative news, just to get clicks.
There is virtually nothing you can do about most of the negative things you read or think about. When you read or think about negative things you can’t control, it leads to long-term stress because you cannot change the outcome of those negative things. Those thoughts will repeat inside your brain over and over again causing long-term stress.
You should only be thinking about things you can control in your life. Focus only on thoughts about things in your life you have complete control over.
Why?
Because you can take action on those things, fix whatever needs to be fixed, and then move on, allowing those thoughts to go away.
Stop thinking about things you can’t control. It’s a waste of your time and impairs you health.
I REALLY needed to read this because I tend to dwell on things I cannot control. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you for sharing. You help me with my emotions whenever I dwell on the past that can never be changed and to help inspire me in moving on and to be more positive. Any newspaper or media really should stop reporting on these things that make people angry, but we also need the USA Government to stop private citizens from owning guns or using social media that hurts others with bad or negative emotions and provide more money or incentives for people to network with others and being a good neighbor. That’s why government should be teaching young people but there is a long way to go with what they have now.