Do negative thoughts trigger Dementia?

This week, I quite deliberately considered negative thoughts. More specifically the correlation of negative thinking and generally gloom on long term emotional health and memory.

I bumped into two articles from 2020.

One from Queens University in Canada* suggested we have over 6000 thoughts a day

And the other from University College** London study which found persistently engaging in negative thinking patterns may raise the risk of Alzheimer’s disease.

In the study of people aged over 55, published in Alzheimer’s & Dementia, researchers found ‘repetitive negative thinking’ is linked to subsequent cognitive decline as well as the deposition of harmful brain proteins linked to Alzheimer’s.

And it strikes me that if sending yourself into a downhill spiral of repetitive negative thoughts up to 6000 times a day is potentially pushing you towards a diagnosis of dementia, it might be time to change your thinking.

Now there are lots of ways to do that – open any google search and you will be deluged.

But before you dive in, if you’re at home, look around you.

Go on, do it right now.

What can you see which might be triggering a negative thought –

Something incomplete?

Mess?

Clutter?

A photo?

Something you don’t really like?

Now suppose you dealt with it so it wasn’t there anymore. There’s no reason for that negative thought to come back ever again is there?

That’s Interiors Therapy in its simplest form.

You can use it to improve your mood and harness positive thinking which stays with you.

In the light of the research, I think that’s a good thing!

References:

* Queens: https://www.queensu.ca/gazette/stories/discovery-thought-worms-opens-window-mind

** UCL: https://www.queensu.ca/gazette/stories/discovery-thought-worms-opens-window-mind