system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5 Why do your symptoms feel more severe when you think about them?
gpt
Psychologist's perspective:  Distraction is a powerful tool.  There is a technique called body scan, in which you hone in on bodily sensations to feel them more powerfully.  Mindful meditation is also similar but has more of a focus on un-focusing element to it.  Lastly, there is a technique called "The Wave" that has you hyperfocus on one specific craving/pain/ache to better understand it.  


Our brains are not actually all that good at multitasking.  So by changing the level your brain is focused on a thing and you will change how much perception you have of that.  Despite the fact that the symptom itself may be the same.  This gets MUCH harder to do cognitively the bigger the symptom.  A splinter is easy to distract from, but an amputation would be impossible.