From Bears to Breathing: Thought Suppression and its Effects on Dyspnoea Symptoms

Abstract

The famous white bear studies (Wegner et al., 1987) demonstrated that suppressing thoughts about a white bear paradoxically led to more thoughts about a white bear. This ironic process, dubbed the ‘rebound effect’ has been replicated extensively, but few studies have found evidence of this in a health context. This study aimed to investigate whether supressing thoughts about physical sensations led to more focus on body sensations and reporting of worse physical symptoms when participants were subjected to a difficult breathing task. 151 participants were randomly assigned to either a focus, distraction or suppression condition and asked to either focus on their body sensations, distract themselves from their sensations by thinking about their lounge at home, or not think about their sensations. In the first experimental phase each group followed their experimental instructions while breathing against different levels of resistance. In the second experimental phase, they completed the same breathing task, but were given free rein to think about anything they wanted. Mean levels of body focus, symptoms, and the unpleasantness and intensity of the breathing task were assessed. Levels of health anxiety, anxiety sensitivity and daily symptom reporting were also measured at baseline. Results showed that a rebound effect did not exist. Those participants who were asked to suppress their sensations in the first experimental phase did not show an increase in body focus or symptoms in the second phase and did not report higher intensity or unpleasantness of the breathing task. These findings suggest that the paradoxical effects of thought suppression do not apply to dyspnoea symptoms in healthy participants. The present study builds upon existing thought suppression research by investigating the presence of the rebound effect in a novel experimental paradigm. Future research is needed to understand whether a thought suppression rebound effect exists in other physiological symptoms, and illness groups.