Have you ever had a niggly little pain in your back or your neck which becomes worse the more that you think about it? Don’t worry, we all do it. It’s the same thing when we have something that we’re not looking forward to; the human mind, wonderful as it is, has a tendency to exaggerate the things that we focus on. For instance, if you’re not that keen on flying, do you find yourself thinking more and more about the flight the closer the time comes to you having to step on the plane? Does it go from a vague sense of uneasiness to imagining yourself sitting on the plane, fingers clenched around the arm rest, to imagining what it would feel like if the plane caught fire? Your mind has taken you from sitting on the plane to it crashing within the space of a few minutes and that’s before you’ve even set foot on the damn thing!
Fortunately there are things that we can do about it. Going back to the niggly pain and the mind exaggerating what we focus on; if you feel a twinge of pain when you’re doing something you really enjoy you probably won’t take any notice of it and it will go away but if it happens when you are at work or sitting at home with little to do it can turn into real pain and discomfort very quickly. If this goes on for any length of time, your exaggerating mind will do its thing and you will start imagining that there’s something really wrong with you. This is because we tense up when we experience discomfort or sometimes even the thought of discomfort. If you have a slight headache and you start to worry about it you will probably, unconsciously, tense the muscles around your neck and shoulders which will then make the headache worse. So the answer is to not panic and to relax your muscles which will relieve tension and help your headache. Find something else to focus on; try a guided meditation, let someone else talk to your mind:
When you listen, don’t feel like you have to try – your mind and your body will do the work for you and afterwards you will feel relaxed, calm and hopefully pain free.
All About Life 