by Amanda Rosinski, M.A.
It’s that time of the year again, where the weather fluctuates and keeps getting colder and colder. I often find myself vulnerable to head colds during this time of the year as my body adjusts to the colder temperatures. I have my methods for coping with colds physically, such as using medicines, drinking hot tea, and drinking lots of water. But what about coping with colds psychologically? Head colds always seem to drain my energy, but how much of this is related to my irrational beliefs about colds, too? Using REBT, I realize that I usually place demands on both myself and the head cold, catastrophize about the head cold, and become less tolerant to the frustrations around the head cold. For example, I demand that I should be able to get more things accomplished even when I’m sick. I demand that the cold should not happen right now because I’m too busy. I catastrophize by saying, “This is the worst time for me to get a cold.” I exhibit frustration intolerance by saying, “This is too much. I can’t stand it when I get these colds.” All of these irrational beliefs lead to my feelings of anger and anxiety. So even though I may be coping with my cold using medicine and hot tea, how can I cope with my cold psychologically?
Instead of demanding that I get so many things accomplished even when I’m sick and that the cold not come because I’m too busy, I can adapt these rigid beliefs into more flexible ones. For example, “I prefer to still get many things accomplished even though I’m sick, but I don’t necessarily need to,” and “I prefer that this cold didn’t happen right now, but there’s no rule that I absolutely cannot get sick right now.” Also, instead of believing, “This is the worst time for me to get a cold,” I can adapt this into, “It may be unfortunate that I’m sick right now, but it is not awful, and I can still enjoy some things.” Finally, instead of, “This is too much. I can’t stand it when I get these colds,” I can say, “I don’t like that I got this cold, but I can stand it. I’ve withstood many colds before, and will get through this cold as well.” These beliefs allow me some flexibility, and therefore change my feelings of anger into annoyance, and feelings of anxiety into concern. It’s much more tolerable to be concerned and annoyed when I get a head cold, rather than anxious and angry. With these new rational beliefs in mind, I am now able to cope with the psychological aspects, in addition to the physical symptoms, of my head cold.
