A psychotherapist shares the 3 exercises she uses every day ‘to stop overthinking'

Overthinking is an anxious tendency that I encounter often in my psychotherapy practice. There are many ways we tend to overthink, such as rehashing the past — replaying the same scenario over and over in our head. Worrying is another form, in which we obsess over what the future might bring.

I can empathize. When I was younger, overthinking decreased my quality of life. Research has shown that overthinking can decrease energy, limit creativity and cause sleeping problems.

Eventually, I knew I needed a healthy way to cope, and I created a career out of helping other people do the same. Here are three strategies I use every day to stop overthinking:

1. Positive reframing

This is often confused with “toxic positivity,” which asks people to think positively — no matter how difficult a situation is.

Positive reframing, on the other hand, allows you to acknowledge the negative aspects, then asks you to evaluate whether there’s another way to think about the situation. Perhaps there are benefits or things you can change about it.

Example:

You constantly find yourself complaining: “I hate being a boss. On top of all these deadlines and responsibilities, it’s hard to manage so many complex personalities. It’s emotionally and mentally exhausting. My job just sucks.”

Venting might feel good for a second, but it doesn’t solve anything. And you’ll likely continue to dwell on how much you hate your job or how bad you think you are at managing.

To practice positive reframing, replace the thought above with: “Things are challenging right now and I’m feeling disconnected from some things on my plate. I wonder if I can change anything about this situation or my expectations about it.”

This thought pattern gives you the power to change your situation. You could start small by examining what important tasks needs to get done first, then either delay or delegate the rest until you are feeling less anxious. The key is to take a step back and deal with things one at a time.

2. Write down your thoughts once, then distract yourself for 24 hours

When our brains think we are in conflict or danger, a built-in alarm system goes off internally to protect us.

One thing I have found success with is writing down my feelings and waiting at least 24 hours (or just a few hours if it’s an urgent matter) before replying or taking any sort of impulsive action.

Then, I put that draft away while I distract myself with another task.

Example:

You just received an email about something that went awry. You are upset, your heart starts to race, your breathing gets shallow, and you become hyper-focused on what’s going wrong and why it’s your fault.

If you respond to the email while your brain is in “alarm mode,” you might say things you’ll regret later on, which may then fuel the vicious cycle of overthinking.

Writing negative thoughts down takes the power out of them; I often don’t feel the need to take action based on my anxious thoughts once I’ve written them down. 

3. Practice ‘specific gratitude’

In psychology, we know that expressing gratitude can increase our happiness. It can help us contextualize our frustrations against what we love and help us connect to something larger than ourselves — whether that’s other people, animals, nature or a higher power.

But I find that repeating the same gratitude practice over and over again can become rote and diminish the returns. For me, it can start to feel like a meaningless chore instead of a mindful practice. So, I like to practice something that I call “specific gratitude.”

Example:

Instead of writing in my journal every day that “I am grateful for my health,” I’ll write something like, “I am grateful that I woke up today without any back pain and have the ability to do today’s workout.”

This helps me stay focused on the here and now, rather than overthinking on general abstractions. Tomorrow, I might still be grateful for my health, but I might specifically be grateful that I have enough energy for a long run.

Jenny Maenpaa, LCSW, is a psychotherapist and founder of Forward in Heels, an intersectional feminist group therapy practice in New York City that empowers all women to stand tall and own their worth.

 

This is only for your information, kindly take the advice of your doctor for medicines, exercises and so on.   

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Opioids do not improve quality of life or depression in OA patients

New research presented at the 2019 ACR/ARP Annual Meeting suggests that opioids contribute no measurable benefit to quality of life or depression for patients with osteoarthritis (OA).

Researchers also found only small benefits on pain and function after two to 12 weeks of treatment, and interestingly, strong opioids had consistently worse pain relief benefits and a greater risk of any safety-related outcome than weak opioids in this meta-analysis.

Osteoarthritis is a common joint disease that most often affects middle-age to elderly people. OA is a disease of the entire joint, involving the cartilage, joint lining, ligaments and bone. OA is characterized by breakdown of cartilage tissue, bony changes of the joints, deterioration of tendons and ligaments, and various degrees of inflammation of the joint lining (called the synovium).

Opioids, long prescribed for chronic pain, have many safety concerns. The lack of information about opioids' efficacy for OA pain relief, and no clear delineation between overall efficacy and safety between strong and weak opioids, prompted the study.

Given the current controversy regarding the use of opioids in chronic pain, we wanted to delve deeper into the efficacy and safety profiles of oral opioid drugs in osteoarthritis patients. Temporal assessments can reveal peak periods of efficacy and can provide clinicians with a blueprint for optimal durations of treatment regimens.
Our study also provides an important update to the evidence body by evaluating patient reported outcomes of quality of life, depression and sleep that are relevant to clinicians and patients alike,"

Raveendhara R. Bannuru MD, PhD, FAGE

Bannuru is the director of the Center for Treatment Comparison and Integrative Analysis at Tufts Medical Center in Boston and the study's lead author.

The study included meta-analyses of pain and function at two, four, eight, and 12 weeks. It also analyzed relevant safety outcomes for all opioids, as well as strong versus weak opioids.

They searched various Database from inception to April 2019, and actively sought unpublished data. They included placebo-controlled, randomized controlled trials assessing the efficacy and/or safety of FDA-approved opioids in patients with knee and/or hip OA.

Of the 23 randomized controlled trials included, there were 11,402 participants and 64 percent were female. The participants' mean age ranged from 54 to 67 years.

Their mean body-mass index (BMI) ranged from 28 to 34 kg/m². All of the trials included in the study were of moderate quality, and potential attrition bias was the primary methodological concern.
Overall, the results showed that opioids demonstrated small, statistically significant benefits on pain at each time point.

Similarly, the researchers observed small, statistically significant effects on function at two, four, eight, and 12 weeks. Opioids had no impact on quality of life or depression.

Strong opioids consistently had smaller benefits on pain than weak opioids, the study found. Though results of meta-regression exploring dose effects revealed a relevant relationship between opioid dosage, or morphine equivalency, and the magnitude of pain relief, participants receiving strong opioids were nearly twice as likely to discontinue due to adverse events than those receiving weak/intermediate opioids.

One possible reason is that many participants who received strong opioids were unable to achieve the optimal therapeutic dose as a result of attrition related to a lack of tolerability.

Strong opioids overall showed a consistently worse safety profile than weak opioids, particularly drug withdrawal symptoms and discontinuations due to adverse events.

"Strong opioids' under-performance was the study's most interesting finding, and likely due to the relationship between pain relief and tolerability of opioids based on dose," says Dr. Bannuru.

"We observed a relevant relationship between morphine dose equivalency and the magnitude of pain relief at the final follow-up. However, the relative risk of discontinuation due to adverse events among participants receiving strong opioids was nearly twice that of participants receiving weak opioids. These results suggest that many people who receive strong opioids may be unable to achieve the optimal therapeutic dose due to a lack of tolerability."

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Antibody-based eye drop may treat dry eye disease

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago are the first to identify the presence of a specific type of antibody, called anti-citrullinated protein autoantibodies, or ACPAs, in human tear fluid. They are also the first to demonstrate that patients with dry eye disease experienced reduced signs and symptoms of the condition in response to a new eye drop treatment —- made from pooled human antibodies—that targets ACPAs. 

The findings from their early stage clinical trial are reported in the journal.

Dry eye disease is caused by abnormalities in the tear fluid and results in dry areas over the cornea, the transparent outer layer of the eye, which can lead to disabling eye pain and sensitivity to light in severe cases.

"The burden of autoimmune dry eye is much greater than just having an occasional feeling of dryness," said the senior author of the study. "It can severely compromise quality of life to the point of disability and can compromise a person's vision."

In previous research, researchers discovered that strands of DNA extrude from neutrophils, a type of white blood cell, to form webs on the surface of eyes affected by severe dry eye disease and cause inflammation.

In the new study, the researchers identified ACPAs as another cause of eye inflammation that also contributes to the development of these webs, which Jain calls "a vicious cycle of inflammation."
The new eye drops treat dry eye disease by knocking the immune system out of this cycle, at least partially.

The drops are formulated using pooled antibodies—which are made from immune globulins processed from the donated blood of thousands of individuals, all containing varied types of antibodies—that counteract the negative effects of ACPAs.

The phase I/II drug trial compared the antibody-based eye drops with eye drops without the antibodies.

"There are currently only two approved drugs to treat dry eye, and they don't work for everyone, especially those with severe disease, so having a new drug that can treat the disease by targeting a different mechanism, in this case, an autoimmunity, is very important," the Dr. said.

Twenty-seven participants with severe dry eye disease participated in the trial. The participants were randomized into two groups. One group was given eye drops made from pooled antibodies and instructed to administer one drop to each eye twice daily for eight weeks. The control group was given the same instructions with eye drops made without antibodies.

The researchers evaluated patients' symptoms through questionnaires and measured the extent of corneal damage and the amount of pro-inflammatory biomarkers on the surface of the eye before and for the duration of the study.

They found that people using antibody-based eye drops had a statistically significant and clinically meaningful reduction in corneal damage at eight weeks compared with the control group. 

Questionnaire scores related to symptoms also reflected significant improvement among patients using the new antibody-based eye drops when compared with the eye drops without antibodies. In the test group, the amount of pro-inflammatory biomarkers—or dry areas—also was reduced on the surface of the eye.

"Participants in the trial who used the drops with pooled antibodies reported less eye discomfort and their corneas were healthier," Jain said. "The data from this early clinical trial suggests that eye drops containing pooled antibodies may be safe and effective for treating dry eye disease, and we look forward to conducting larger randomized trials to definitively prove its efficacy."

 this is only for your information, kindly take the advice of your doctor for medicines, exercises and so on.   
https://gscrochetdesigns.blogspot.com. one can see my crochet creations  
https://gseasyrecipes.blogspot.com. feel free to view for easy, simple and healthy recipes    
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