Reframing your Fears

In the past I would think things like “I hate needles.” My body is notorious for not having good veins. Nurses have taken 8 or 9 tries to get blood out of me. When I try to finger-stick myself for at-home cholesterol tests I literally go through all 10 fingers before I get enough blood. But clearly needles are an important part of current health care. Getting myself all stressed about it hurts my own health. Both directly, as the negative hormones flush through me, and then also indirectly, because it causes the blood-removal process to be even harder. Which exacerbates something I’m already having trouble with.

So today, as I prepared to go in for a blood-drawing session, I worked hard to reframe my fears. I focused on the thought that I *approve* of needles because they are necessary for proper health maintenance. I want to be as healthy as I can be. I have a lot of people depending on me. So I repeated, over and over, that I approve of needles. I said it out loud as I drove to the clinic. I mentally repeated it as I sat in the waiting room.

When they brought me in to the room, the nurse asked if I’d mind if their new intern gave it a try. Normally this would be a stressor for me, but I plowed ahead and said sure. After all, I want to help the new, incoming nurses be as good as they can be. I reminded myself that I approve of needles.

The intern was friendly, quick, and amazing! It went super-fast and I barely felt it. I told her she was superb and that usually people have trouble finding my veins. She said it was no problem at all, that my arm was easy.

So it seems all my relaxation worked! It made the vein easy to use, which made the process go easy, and I was out of there in minutes flat.

I don’t have to *love* needles – but it hurts me if I *fear* them. So the more I can train myself to accept them, the better my future health situation will be.

This can be applied to anything :).

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