To those with injuries, she advises: "Don't catastrophize your pain.

It is often reasoned that the tendency to catastrophize causes the person to experience the pain as more intense.

"People tend to catastrophize, and that leads to depression.

The less resilient often "catastrophize" when something happens.

For example, the tendency to misinterpret and catastrophize your sensations as symptoms of a serious disease may be challenged.

The modernist greens . . . don’t catastrophize.

Don’t catastrophize

Higher values I has been well documented that, during times of uncertainty, people tend to "catastrophize". That is, we tend to imagine the worst possible outcome.

"Don't catastrophize," said Dr. Richard Heimberg.

Recently, a study examined the emotional characteristics of individuals who catastrophize, and the cross-situational consistency of catastrophizing using an experimental analogue of acute pain.

Most times I can choose to work on adjusting my belief systems that tend to awfulize and catastrophize far too many situations, resulting in me feeling like a helpless victim.

"You're sitting on your couch and you hear a car go down the street, and you think it's going to come through your house -- so you kind of catastrophize things automatically," Peacock said.

However, the researchers said that the "most intriguing" finding was that the pain-killing effect of swearing didn't work for males with a tendency to catastrophize, or think the worst in terms of their own outcomes.

Remember not to blow things out of proportion or catastrophize, remind yourself of the good in your life and that things really will change Recognize that you have a choice in how you handle challenges.

As with any abnormal behavior, the focus of CBT is on bringing the cognitive distortions into light, challenging them, allowing the individual to catastrophize (fantasize about the worst-case scenario) and finally to work on cognitive restructuring.

"Some people have a tendency when an event takes place to catastrophize it, and make it appear more intense or difficult than it actually is," he said, so the training seeks to reinforce constructive reactions to combat and life-threatening situations.

In this study, too, the researchers found that those who had had moderate exposure to adverse experiences were less likely to catastrophize and felt less pain and less associated negative emotion, compared with those with histories of high or no adversity.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Kids who dwell on or "catastrophize" chronic stomach pain are likely to have lower quality of life than children with a better attitude, but parents can help their kids learn to cope, German researchers say.