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I saw this topic at one of ms. stewarts posts and the topic really interests me as someone that is really interested in biology and believes in the science of medicine. possible research topic.

Studies suggest a link between negative cognition (a.k.a. negative thinking) and increased propensity for guilt, chronic anxiety clinical depression. (Apparently, women are more prone to negative cognition than men.) Psychology professor Emeritus Tom Stevens of California State University describes some common negative thinking pitfalls and offers advice as to what you can do instead. Research has supported the efficacy of cognitive therapy (called cognitive restructuring) that replaces these styles with more positive thinking. 1. Negative bias. Negative bias is a tendency to look at the more negative side of some event, person, object, or situation. It gives a negative interpretation or a negative point of view for looking at a situation. Instead think: I will assume the best instead of assume the worst. Positive self-fulfilling prophesies tend to create positive outcomes; negative self-fulfilling prophesies tend to create negative outcomes. Negative explanations of my own or other peoples' underlying motives cause me to intensify my anger or other negative feelings. Assuming the world is a hostile place creates fear, anxiety, and anger. 2. Negative selective abstraction. Selective abstraction means taking negative features of a situation out of context and exaggerating their significance. Usually it also means negating positive features. Example: A student who gets four "A"s and one "C," then focuses on the "C's." Instead think: I will list at least one positive feature for each negative feature. I will limit my focus on negative features to constructive thoughts about how I can either accept or change the negative features. 3. Overgeneralization. When we overgeneralize, we assume far-reaching conclusions from limited data. A student made a "D" on one test. She overgeneralizes, she doesn't just think "Well, I messed up on that one test. Instead, "I may not pass the course, not ever finish college." "I must be stupid and a failure." "My whole life is ruin

"Change has occurred so rapidly for our species that now we are equipped with brains that are super sensitive to threat but also super capable of planning, thinking, forecasting and looking ahead," said Ahmad Hariri, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University. "So we essentially drive ourselves nuts worrying about things because we have too much time and don't have many real threats on our survival, so fear gets expressed in these really strange, maladaptive ways." Dr. Hariri studies the amygdala, an almond-shaped structure that has been called the seat of fear (there's one in each hemisphere of the brain). But it's really the seat of anticipation. The amygdala primes you to react - your pulse quickens, your muscles tense and your pupils dilate - even before other parts of your brain can figure out if you need to be scared or not. Nowadays, our amydalas can be overactive, thanks to 24/7 awareness of disasters around the world and/or stress/instability in one's personal and professional life. Remaining in this state of wary hypervigilance can contribute to issues like social anxiety, hypochondria, post-traumatic stress disorder, insomnia and all manner of phobias. It also plays a role in racial and religious intolerance because fearful people are more inclined to cling to the familiar and denigrate the unfamiliar. If you can sense and appreciate your fear - be it of flying, illness or social rejection - as merely your amygdala's request for more information rather than a signal of impending doom, then you are on your way to calming down and engaging more conscious, logic-dominated parts of your brain. At that point, you can assess the rationality of your fear and take steps to deal with it.