Cognitive Power

WELLNESS WEDNESDAY-
COPOWER YOU WAY TO BETTER HEALTH


We've all seen health news reports that tell us about foods that increase our risk of cancer or heart disease and we get advice from experts who tell us to eliminate or severely limit our consumption of some of our favorite foods. You know, foods like  red meat, fried chicken, ice cream and many other beloved treats.
Lots of us hear this and we think " I don't want to cut back on ( fill in your favorite food )  because I'll be miserable without it." That thought becomes our excuse for eating large quantities of every unhealthy food we eat. That thought rattling around in our heads convinces us that we literally can't improve our nutrition. That thought becomes a locked door between us and better health. 
But there is a key to that locked door. The key is rccognizing that that thought is just another example of a destructive form of thinking known as a NEGATIVE PREDICTION ( Defined as assuming that the future will turn out badly). NEGATIVE PREDICTIONS are irrational by definition because they assume we have the ability to accurately know what the future will be. But when  we're really honest with ourselves we know we've been wrong before, about things we predicted in the future.
How does that help us? Well, all we need to do is write down or type the common sense fact that "It's foolish to predict misery and failure before I've made a strong effort to find a strategy to conquer a problem." "I can look for articles (in print and on the Web) or biographies of people that I respect, who've made healthy changes in what they eat so I can try them out and see if I can still be happy while eating healthier now."
Now tomorrow we'll discover how letting go of NEGATIVE PREDICTIONS can help us get great tasting recipes for health.

Dale J. Anderson, M.D.