What’s disaster-bating?

It’s where you take whatever negative thoughts are running wild in your head and you give them a high dose of caffeine until they’re running so wild that your head is practically exploding. It’s that leather whip we call ‘guilt’ that you use to flog yourself to near-death for making menial mistakes we, as humans, don’t like to make.

Disaster-bating is beating yourself up for losing a ton of money on the stock market that crashes the day after you invest in it. Or choosing a school your child hates after doing 50 tours. Or getting that spur-of-the-moment extreme haircut, after downing a bottle of wine over lunch, that you hate so much you refuse to leave your house.

So why is disaster-bating so bad for your health? Okay, this is really a rhetorical question because we all know the answer. But it’s always good to recap the ‘why’ of our woes. Disaster-bating is a bad habit. And bad habits are hard to break. And bad habits can go on forever. So they’re best to break now.

Disaster-bating floods your system with negative energy that causes your stress levels to run high and your adrenals to run low. It’s like trying to drive a car in first gear on a highway. The car will take a lot of strain, the gearbox will eventually give in and the car will break down.
Daily disaster-bating takes its toll on every system in your body.

  • It produces cortisol, which compromises your immune system making you more susceptible to disease.
  • It puts a strain on your reproductive system that can affect your fertility, your menstrual cycle and your libido.
  • It forces your digestive system to work over-time producing an overload of glucose, which your body won’t be able
    to absorb, which puts you at risk for type 2 diabetes.
  • It sends your central nervous system into fight or flight mode, which wreaks all kinds of havoc on your body and organs.

So the bottom line is: stop disaster-bating. It’s a bad habit and a health risk. But how? One of the best ways to do this is to notice when you’re doing it. This can be a little tricky since you could be sitting at a board meeting disaster-bating like crazy and no one would even know since it’s all happening in your own head.

Oftentimes we need someone else to point out when we are doing this because it can be such unconscious behavior. Either someone who knows us well enough to notice our facial expressions when we’re disaster-bating or someone more neutral like a Health Coach.

Health Coaches are perfectly trained to listen out for the voice of your inner critic or your master disaster-bater. And they’re also perfectly equipped to reflect back when you’re doing it. And they have tricks in their toolbox to help you recognize first, when you are doing it and, second, how to stop, which will be different depending on you as an individual.

So turn to a friend or a colleague or better yet, hire a professional Health Coach to help you stop disaster-bating. Your health will improve and you’ll free up all that negative energy for other, more positive and more pleasurable, behaviors.

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