Welcome to the Phoenix Helix podcast dedicated to autoimmune resilience. Today, I have a mindset minisode for you, so let's dive right in.

Thank you.

Our brain tends to focus more on what's wrong rather than what's right. And this can impact the way we use our imagination.

We tend to spend worst case scenarios in our minds. And there's a branch of therapy called cognitive behavioral therapy, and they call

this catastrophizing. It's such a great word and explains so well what that process is like.

Now, on the positive side, it's one of the ways our brain tries to prepare us for danger.

But what it really means is that we're constantly facing imaginary threats that

never actually happened. And our brain responds to imaginary threats very similarly to actual threats.

So have you ever felt your heart race while reading a thriller or screamed while watching a

horror movie or cried when a

fictional character died? We have real emotional and physical responses to mental imagery.

And this is also true for the ones we generate ourselves with our own thoughts. Those are the

movies in our minds. Now, once in a while, this is fine.

It can be entertaining and lightning and even cathartic.

Our bodies are designed to move in and out of a stress response,

letting go of that ramped up feeling and allowing peace to rain again.

This is called resilience, which is something I also love to talk about on this podcast.

However, when we continually use our imagination to trigger an inflammatory stress response, it can become our

default state, leading to chronic inflammation and a loss of resilience. Half the time, we don't

even know we're doing it. So many of our thoughts run on autopilot, that that catastrophizing, that worst case scenario,

that negative mindset can just be happening in the back of our minds, really impacting us

unconsciously.

...