Cognitive Therapy for Surgery Success

Cognitive therapy has been shown to be helpful in managing the stress that people experience when undergoing surgery. Stressed about an upcoming procedure (or know someone who is)? Here are some cognitive therapy tips that can help.

Be Realistic

Have you ever waited for someone who was late showing up somewhere? The minutes seem to drag on, and it can become very frustrating. Healing from surgery at a slower rate than you’d like can bring this type of frustration—compounded! Know what to expect in terms of healing time and recovery. Then, keep in mind that everyone’s different. It’s important to know if you’re not healing at the expected rate (so you can discuss this with your doctor), and it’ll help your emotional state if recovery seems to be taking longer than you’d like, but is within the realm of what is to be expected.

Stay Positive

You may think that the reason to stay positive is related to others: if you complain too much, it’s stressful for them, or they may not be as supportive and interested in hearing how you’re feeling. Actually, staying positive has bigger payoffs for you. If you focus your attention mostly on the negatives of your experience, you’ll notice them more and more, and perhaps not notice the positives as much. If you actively seek out positives in your experience (challenge yourself to find one thing per hour for which you can be grateful, for example), you’ll see them more and more. It’s not about ignoring real problems, but more about selective attention: focusing mainly on what will make you feel good, and focusing less on things that will make you unhappy.
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Watch Your Language

Be careful--the language you use can color your experience. I’m not talking about four-letter words here (although you may be tempted to use these, too!), but the regular adjectives you use to describe your experience, and statements you make to explain how you feel, can actually change the level of stress you feel! For example, if you label something ‘excruciating’, you may actually perceive it as more painful than if you keep referring to it as ‘uncomfortable’ or even merely ‘painful’. (There are complex reasons for this that involve your subconscious mind.) Likewise, if you label something in a positive way, you may feel more positive about it.
_{Learn More About Self Talk}

Surgery can be stressful in itself, but these cognitive therapy techniques can help reduce the stress of surgery and recovery. Good luck!