Take Control: Strategies for managing your thoughts with clarity

Controlling one’s thoughts is essential for managing behaviour, particularly one’s lifestyle.

Knowing how to manage our thoughts is crucial for coping with emotions, maintaining adherence to treatment and, in most cases, improving quality of life — especially for those living with a chronic illness.

Discover the importance of managing your thoughts through strategies and tools that will improve not only your health but also your quality of life.

Thoughts are representations that involve images, sounds, smells and information. They have a significant impact on our emotions, behaviour and physical health. They influence the way in which people living with a chronic illness cope with that illness and its symptoms.

Throughout the day, we have thoughts that we pay attention to and others that pass by without us focusing on them. Some of these thoughts may be dysfunctional, whether positive or negative. The brain gathers information from all our thoughts, trying to piece them together and make sense of them.

Thoughts can be negative and distorted interpretations of reality (dysfunctional thoughts). They can increase suffering, cause anxiety, depression or other emotional problems, as well as negatively impact adherence to treatment, resulting in behaviours that are harmful to health. E.g.: ‘I’ve reached an age where it’s too late to change my habits.’

Or, conversely, they can be adaptive when assessments are realistic and balanced, enabling stress management and having a positive impact on daily life. E.g.: It’s never too late to change and improve my health. I’m going to sign up for a workshop on healthy eating and stop being so sedentary.

Controlling one’s thoughts is essential for mental and emotional wellbeing. Thoughts shape emotions and behaviour, and this affects the challenges and adversities of everyday life.

1. Recognise the automatic thoughts that arise in response to stressful situations associated with your condition.
2. Assess the validity of your thoughts and ask yourself whether they are based on facts or whether they are exaggerated and distorted.
3. Regular physical exercise helps to reduce stress and improve your mood.
4. A healthy diet and sufficient, good-quality sleep also make it easier to manage negative thoughts.
5. Practise mindfulness techniques to increase your awareness of your thoughts and reduce the impact of dysfunctional thoughts.
6. Instead of focusing on problems, train your mind to focus on possible solutions and positive actions.

Regularly practising the identification, assessment and restructuring of dysfunctional thoughts not only improves mental health but also contributes to more effective adherence to treatment and the adoption of healthy behaviours, helping to manage NCDs.

Monitoring, identifying and reframing negative thoughts is essential for changing behaviour and managing the risk of chronic illness.

Successfully replacing dysfunctional thoughts with adaptive ones significantly reduces not only the emotional impact of illness, but also improves adherence to treatment.

Knowing how to apply strategies to transform dysfunctional thoughts into positive ones improves not only mental health, but also physical health and quality of life.