HI,
For years (most of my life) I’ve been thinking the wrong way. I suffer from severe depression and the way I was thinking wasn’t helping things I’m sure.
Recently I began to change the way I have been thinking, to “man-up” as they say and take on everything with a more adult attitude. I see the difference only from my interactions with people. I believe I am considered more and respected more because of the way I choose my outlook on things and how capable of a person I am… even when things are bad I have forced myself to adopt an attitude that things are going to pan-out and that I’m going to make sure of that because I’m awesome xD haha…
Anyway, my question is this: Is it possible from all those years of thinking the wrong way that parts that were important to manage my life and myself better atrophied in my brain. Science has proven in many cases if not all -how chemically based our thinking and behavior is.
The reason I ask is because I have more headaches now… maybe it sounds stupid but that’s why I’m “Think Tank”… I’m not coming up with the best solutions I’m just full of questions…
I am not a medical doctor, and I hate to bring you down, but if you are having a lot of headaches, that you were not having before, and if your personality or outlook on life changed (even for the better, as it seems to have done) at around the same time, then I think it might be a good idea to see a doctor about it.
You may be fine, but those symptoms, especially if they began more or less together, just might be signs of a problem with your brain. With luck, if it is caught early enough, you will be fully curable, and you may even get to keep the improved mood and lose the headaches.
Or it could be that your headaches are completely unrelated to your think positive attitude. IANAD, but I did a little research, and the personality changes associated with scary stuff like brain tumors seem to be negative ones: increased anger and impatience, for instance. Could the stress of trying to stay positive give you headaches? Dunno, but it’s always a good idea to check out recurrent headaches with your doctor.
I’m not fully qualified to answer your question (up to MSc level only), but the broad answer I think is: it’s complicated.
It’s true that connections that don’t get used very often may have a diminished influence or even atrophy. Positivity may be a bit of an exception though: it’s pretty fundamental, and actions as simple as reaching for a cup may involve a (subtle) feedback of positive expectation, pleasure in having succeeded etc.
Regarding the chemistry of the brain, it’s interesting. Chemical changes can cause depression, and depression causes chemical changes (you can even see the difference, in some kinds of brain scan). But it can’t be separated from the mind’s interaction with the environment.
I know when I went through depression, I went through some pretty bad shit. And the more down you get, the more life kicks you in the teeth. It wasn’t imaginary.
The phrasing of this wasn’t very good: what I mean is, some objectively awful things happened to me to trigger my depression, and bad things continued to happen while I was depressed.
It’s not like I look back on that time and think: Boy did I make a mountain out of a molehill…
There may have been changes in my brain chemistry but they were parallel to, or influenced by, events in my life.
I think the real question, though, was might the headaches be caused by the change to a more positive way of thinking (because parts of the brain that had become atrophied during depression are now being put to use). I do not think that is likely at all. That is not really how the brain works (or how headaches work, for that matter). What concerns me is that both the change in attitude and the headaches might have been caused by something else, possibly something not good, happening in Thinktank’s brain. That is why I think he (or she) ought to get it checked out pronto, and should be sure to tell the doctor not only about the headaches, but also the emotional and attitudinal change.
Is the brain affected by long-term patterns of thought and behavior? Absolutely, this is the definition of a habit. This is also why counseling is an important part of recovering from any mental illness. Even if we could be certain that someone’s mental illness had a purely physical cause that was entirely corrected by medication, they’d still need help breaking their old habits and forming new ones. (You didn’t mention if you’ve worked with counselors before or not - if you can stand them, I recommend it. There are good ones out there.)
To your second question, could your changes in thought process cause headaches? I am not a doctor, but I doubt it. There could be a connection (it’s possible that you’re suppressing bad feelings in an unhealthy manner right now and they’re coming out as a physical symptom instead, or some juju like that), but I’d be surprised.
As others have said, please go see a doctor and get yourself checked out. That’s just good practice for anyone who notices a significant change in their usual pattern of headaches, and the doctors may be able to give you something for the pain. It’d probably be helpful to keep a written record of when you get them and how long they last to show the doctor. Good luck, and congratulations on your better outlook on life!
Point of note for the o.p.: cephalalgia (which is the medical term for “headache”) occurs in the tissues of the sinuses, meninges (inner cranial tissue), periosteum (scalp tissue), cochlea (inner ear), and musculature and blood vessels of the head and neck. Brain tissue itself has no pain receptors and victims of trauma to the brain do not feel or otherwise directly percieve damage to brain matter, though they may experience obvious or non-obvious loss of function.
While major depressive disorders are commonly thought to be a dysfunction of normal managment of neurotransmitters (predominately serotonin and norepinephrine), the fact is that depressed people suffer a systemic inbalance of different hormones, both those produced in the brain and elsewhere in the body such as the pancreas and other endocrine glands. Whether this is a cause of depressive illness or a result of a depressive state is unclear, but there are a number of studies that have demonstrated to some degree of epidemological rigor that mood control via diet and exercise can be at least as effective as antidepressent pharmaceutical treatment for many people with unipolar depression or dysthymia, although it is harder for someone in the throes of depression to exercise the necessary discipline to control diet and regular exercise. Depression does produce reduced activity in some parts of the brain, and the converse demonstrates “normal” activity; however, some of this activity may be (according to some researchers, definitely is) stimulated by hormones from outside of the brain. The point of this is that while changes in the brain structure itself arrising from a happier and healthier outlook may not be the cause of your headaches, there may be other physiological changes that have resulted in mood improvements that could possibly causing headaches.
One indirect means by which thought can bring about a headache is stress. If someone focuses their thoughts on dark subjects such as their miserable lot in life or their fears about future events, then they may experience anxiety. Anxiety can raise the heart rate and blood pressure, leading to pressure in the cranium, and thence a headache. Of course, the pain is experienced in the cranium or other areas exterior to the brain, not in the brain tissue itself.
The expression “my spouse/child/customer is giving me a headache” can be literally true. A person who is subject to stress headaches can probably give themself a headache just by remembering, thinking about, or anticipating stressful situations. They might give themselves a headache just trying to think about all the ways that thinking about things might give them a headache :).
Not that I think this describes the OP’s situation. If the headaches were caused by stress, than a positive outlook should lead to fewer headaches, not more.
Hope the headaches get better soon. Get 'em checked out, OK?