Positive thinking: 3 ways it could help your vitiligo

Last Updated on 31st January 2022 by Caroline Haye

Can we think ourselves better?

Are you a believer in the power of positive thinking? Most of us like to think of ourselves as generally more positive than negative. For a start, everyone needs to project a positive image at work. But we don’t always take it home with us. Sometimes we reserve our positivity for our friends and family and don’t leave enough for ourselves. We all have problems that get us down. Having vitiligo can be a real attitude test, even for the most optimistic among us. But, as we all know, giving in to dark feelings doesn’t help. It just makes us feel worse. And it probably makes our vitiligo worse too.

Being British, I have to admit to having a cultural aversion to over-the-top expressions of positivity. That part of my psyche cringes when exposed to excess energy and enthusiasm. I even wince when strangers tell me to “Have a nice day”. And my heart sinks when I hear mind-over-matter clichés or see yet another self-help book join the bandwagon (unless it is exceptionally well researched and well written). I’m not particularly proud of this: it’s just my upbringing. And yet, I do consider myself a positive thinker and I do believe that the human mind is far more powerful than most of us realise. So I am definitely open to the possibility that we may possess the mental ability to heal ourselves… To actually think ourselves better, to a greater or lesser extent.

Do our thoughts affect our body?

The question of whether or not positive thinking can help vitiligo (or any other health condition) may sound wacky. You may even feel insulted that I should ask it at all, especially if you have tried any number of treatments already without any success. But I am not suggesting you can magically re-pigment your skin simply by willing it to happen. (Believe me, I tried that on many occasions and it didn’t make an iota of difference!) I am simply suggesting that thinking positively about things can help and, if so, how?

The best way to answer that question may be to turn it on its head: can thinking negatively about things make vitiligo worse? For some reason, this question seems easier to answer, and less wacky. In my opinion, negative thinking can definitely make it worse. Not in some supernatural way, but in a completely rational one.

Negative feelings like bitterness, self-pity and despair are all understandable and normal. We have all felt them at one time or another. But if we dwell on them for too long, they have a way of spiralling downwards into a state of depression. And when that takes hold everything seems bleak and hopeless. Not surprisingly, this can make a person sick… physically sick. It can cause all kinds of symptoms like headaches, nausea, insomnia and loss of appetite. And if it becomes a habit it creates ongoing stress, which is bad news for our overall health.

Science and experience both indicate that anxiety and stress actually bring about chemical changes within the body that can adversely affect our health. And stress is often cited as a trigger factor in the onset of various autoimmune conditions, including vitiligo. So it makes sense to avoid it as much as humanly possible if we want to stack the odds of recovery in our favour.

Do thoughts go beyond our body?

We all know that thoughts are produced in the brain. But, as I have just described, they can lead to changes elsewhere in the body. And they don’t stop there either. Sad, pessimistic thoughts can also cause us to make poor decisions about our lifestyle. And these, in turn, harm our health in other ways. Feeling depressed and hopeless makes us feel less inclined to look after ourselves… Less interested in eating healthily, exercising and getting enough sleep. We may not bother to protect our skin from excess sun or other environmental hazards… Because we think, what’s the point? Some people can even find themselves sliding into seriously harmful behaviours like addictions and self-harm.

So if thinking negatively can damage our general health (and potentially our vitiligo), surely the opposite must also be true. Thinking positive, happy thoughts must be beneficial to every aspect of our health.

3 examples of negative thoughts about vitiligo

1. Expecting the worst

It seems ironic – or maybe appropriate – that Positive Thinking Day this year fell on Friday 13^th, a day when superstition invites the very opposite of positive thinking. It brings to mind a particular kind of negative thought process that can occur with vitiligo (and other progressive diseases). This is an attitude of expecting the worst to happen. The initial diagnosis of vitiligo might be a shock. But shock can soon turn to fear and anxiety when you are told that this is an unpredictable and progressive condition. Even if it remains stable for a long time, some people feel anxious about the possibility of finding new lesions. And if it does spread you can find yourself expecting to see more white spots every time you look in the mirror. This is an understandable, but unhelpful, outlook to adopt. I know, because it is how I felt at times.

2. Feeling victimised

After expecting the worst, feeling victimised was a natural next stage in my downward thought process. I sometimes looked at other people with their perfect skin and felt as if I had been singled out for this disfiguring (as I thought of it) condition. I’m no psychologist but I’m betting that it is a short step from this kind of thinking to full-blown paranoia. At the very least, it can lead to a state of dejection, self-pity, bitterness, even self-loathing. Again – these emotions are obviously not conducive to good mental or physical health.

3. Feeling helpless

Incurable, hard-to-treat diseases tend to leave a person feeling helpless. Helplessness and hopelessness are common themes in many of the vitiligo stories I come across. Sadly, some sufferers find it hard to escape such feelings. (And, in my opinion, doctors must take some of the blame for this because they often paint such a negative picture.)

Some people’s response to a sense of helplessness is to try to take back control of their appearance in any way they can find, even if this involves risk. The ultimate example has to be Michael Jackson. (Maybe because he had the money to be able to pursue his compulsion.) I don’t believe he deliberately set out to change from a good-looking black man into a “strange-looking white woman”, as some people cruelly claimed. I think he was just trying – one disastrous treatment or surgery at a time – to hide his spreading vitiligo and to change the things he felt he still had some control over. Needless to say, his struggle was ultimately unsuccessful. And I do not believe it added to his health or happiness – quite the reverse.

Plastic surgery, tattoos and even run-of-the-mill self-tans and hair dyes all represent ways of achieving some control over vitiligo. And using them with great care and in moderation can help some people feel more confident. But they all carry their own risks and can end up making matters worse instead of better if they cause further pigment loss.

3 positive thinking strategies

So what thought processes are likely to help our health, including our vitiligo? Again, the best way to answer that question might be to turn things on their head. Knowing that some of the most destructive attitudes involve expecting the worst, feeling victimised and feeling helpless, it seems logical that reversing these thought processes is bound to help. Easier said than done? Yes – but not impossible. Here are my suggestions.

1. Expect good things to happen

What if every day could be the opposite of Friday 13^th? That might encourage us to expect the best, not the worst. Seriously, I know from personal experience that having a positive expectation really helps to reduce stress. Even just having no particular expectation either way can help: just remaining neutral can be liberating.

When I started to take nutritional supplements in the vague hope that they might improve my vitiligo, I didn’t have any real expectation that they would. Nothing else I had tried had ever helped, so I had become conditioned not to raise my hopes. The only thing I was confident of was that they would not make things worse. So my attitude was pretty relaxed.

But, when I started to re-pigment a few weeks later, I began to get really excited. I started to expect more and more new pigment (and I was right). Did that positive expectation help to reverse my vitiligo? I have no way of knowing if it did or not. But I’m certain that it helped reduce my stress levels even further and made me feel happy. It started me on an upward spiral of positive thinking. And that has to have been beneficial in every way.

My realisation that vitiligo can actually be reversed was an absolute revelation to me. It made me aware of how much time and energy I had wasted over the years dwelling on negative thoughts. I can remember thinking to myself “If I had known during all those decades of losing pigment that I would one day recover most of it again, I would have been a lot more accepting of my situation and a lot more positive about life in general.”

So, if you have been expecting the worst, just bear in mind the fact that vitiligo can be reversed, given the right circumstances, and one day (quite soon, I think) it will even be curable. You never know what might help yours to improve and you never know when new treatments will become available. So why waste your life expecting bad things to happen when, in fact, it is becoming increasingly likely that good things will?

2. Realise you are not alone

Realising that you are not alone with your vitiligo is a powerful antidote to feeling victimised. We are so fortunate today to be able to connect with millions of others online who share the same experiences of living with this condition. When my vitiligo was spreading, and at its peak, I had no idea how many other people had the same disorder. I genuinely thought I had been incredibly unlucky to get it and I felt totally alone. I didn’t know anyone else who had it and there was no internet. Focusing on the fact that you are in good company and taking advantage of sharing your thoughts with vitiligo friends is a great way to avoid sinking into the self-pity-and-depression trap.

3. Empower yourself in positive ways

Again, thanks to modern media, it is possible to draw strength and inspiration from the examples of others. Examples of people taking control of their lives and their skin can be found all over the internet, as well as on TV, in advertising, in fashion, the arts and virtually every walk of life. So, if you haven’t already found ways to banish your feelings of helplessness, there are plenty of role models to choose from. You can take a leaf out of their book (or you can decide to write your own book).

It’s not as if there is only one way to take back control of your life, so it’s a matter of finding what’s best for you. For me, taking control of my health, and then creating this website to turn my experiences into something positive, gave me a huge sense of confidence and satisfaction. Some people find that “owning”, or embracing their vitiligo is empowering. For others, simply finding ways of forgetting about it (camouflaging it or simply ignoring it) is their way of taking control. The net result is the same: if you take charge of your life you stop feeling helpless and hopeless.

Final (positive) thoughts

You may think positive thinking is a bit of a cliché and that it doesn’t have much effect on your health, happiness or success in life. But, if that’s the case, how come negative thinking can have such disastrous results? You really can’t believe in one without believing in the other.

So, although I am not about to do anything as un-British as telling everyone I meet to “have a nice day” or start writing a self-help book, I will nail my colours to the mast. My belief is that thinking good, uplifting thoughts does improve our health. I know, for a fact, that it makes me happier and less prone to stress and minor ailments. Feeling fitter, sleeping better and making better life choices all seem to come more naturally whenever I look on the bright side of life. (I am also much nicer company!) So, can I prove that positive thinking is good for vitiligo? No – I can’t prove it. But if you make a habit of it, it just might prove itself. 😉