Reduce Your Stress With Positive Thinking

Yes, Positive Thinking helps you with stress management and will even improve your health. Have a listen to this video to help you today with your stress. There is so much stress going on in our world now and I do find that the positive self-talk helps me stay grounded, balanced and feel happier despite the uncertain times now. If you would like to read the script for this video please find it below the video.

Are you glass a half-full or half-empty kind of person? How you answer this age-old question about positive thinking maybe a reflection on how you perceive life, whether you are pessimistic or optimistic, how you feel about yourself, and it can even affect your health.

There is research that shows that personality traits such as how pessimistic or optimistic you are can affect many areas of your well being and health. The positive thinking that normally comes with optimism is a key part of effective stress management.  This effective stress management is associated with many health benefits. If you think you are more pessimistic than optimistic, don’t worry — you can easily learn positive thinking skills.

Understanding Self-Talk and Positive Thinking 

Some people believe that positive thinking means that you keep your head in the sand and ignore life’s unpleasant situations. What positive thinking means is that you approach unpleasantness more productively and positively way. You believe the best is going to happen, not the worst.

Positive thinking begins with self-talk. Self-talk is that endless stream of unspoken thoughts that run through our heads. These automatic thoughts can be negative or positive. Some of our self-talk comes from logic and reason. Often our self-talk can come from misconceptions that we create because of lack of information.

If the thoughts that are running through our heads are mostly negative, our outlook on life will be most likely pessimistic. If our thoughts are mostly positive, we are likely an optimist — someone who uses positive thinking.

Positive thinking Has Health Benefits

Some of the health benefits that positive thinking may provide include:

• Better physical and psychological well-being 
• Greater resistance to colds
• Lower levels of distress
• Increased life span
• Lower rates of depression
• Better cardiovascular health and reduced risk of death from cardiovascular disease
• Better coping skills during times of stress and hardships 

No one knows why people who use positive thinking experience these health benefits. One theory is that having a positive outlook helps us cope better with stressful situations, which reduces the harmful health effects of stress on our bodies.

It’s also thought that positive and optimistic people tend to live healthier lifestyles — they get more physical activity, follow a healthier diet, and don’t smoke or drink alcohol in excess.

Identifying negative thinking

Are you not sure if your self-talk is positive or negative? Here are examples of negative self-talk:

• Polarizing. You see things as either good or bad and there is no in-between. You are very hard on yourself and feel you have to be perfect.
• Filtering. You see things as negative aspects and even filter out all of the positive ones. 
• Personalizing. When something bad happens, you always blame yourself. 
• Catastrophizing. You automatically anticipate the worst. One thing goes wrong and you think the whole day is going to go downhill. 

Focusing on Positive Thinking

You can learn to turn negative thinking into positive thinking. It’s not hard to do, but it does take time and practice. Try these:

• Identify areas to change. First identify areas of your life that you usually think negatively about, whether it’s work, your health, your or a relationship. You can take small steps by focusing on one area and begin to approach it more positively.
• Be open to humor. Give yourself permission to smile or laugh, especially during difficult times. Seek humor in everyday happenings. When you can laugh at life, you feel less stressed.

• Check yourself. Throughout the day stop and pay attention to what you are thinking. If you find that your thoughts are mainly negative, start to find a way to change it to positive.

• Surround yourself with positive people. It is important to have those around who are supportive and positive people that you can depend on for feedback and advice. Also, negative people may increase your stress level and have you believe you can not healthily handle stress.

• Follow a healthy lifestyle. Try your best to do some form of exercise you like for 20 -30 minutes a day 3 times a week or break it down into 10-minute chunks of time during the day. Exercise can reduce your stress and positively affect mood. Follow a healthy diet to fuel your mind and body. There are also other techniques to learn to manage stress ie yoga, meditation, music.

• Use positive self-talk. Do this one thing: Don’t say anything to yourself that you wouldn’t say to anyone else. Be kind, gentle and encouraging with yourself. If a negative thought enters your mind, look at it rationally and respond with affirmations of what is good about you and about things you’re thankful for in your life.

Here are some examples of negative self-talk and examples of how you can apply a positive thinking twist to them:

1. I’ve never done this before. -I will take this as an opportunity to learn something new.
2. This is too difficult. – I’m going to look at this from a different perspective.
3. I don’t have the resources. – Necessity is the mother of invention.
4. I’m too tired to get this done. – I wasn’t able to get to this but I will look over my schedule and see if I can fit it in.
5. There’s no way it will work. – I will try to make it work.
6. It’s too big a change. – I am willing to take a chance.
7. No one bothers to talk with me. – I’ll see if I can open communication.
8. I’m not going to get any better at this. – I am willing to give it another try.

Following positive thinking every day

If you are a person who has a negative outlook, don’t expect to become an optimist overnight. But if you keep working at it, eventually your self-talk will contain less self-criticism and more self-acceptance. This may help you to become less critical of the world around you.

The good thing is when your state of mind is generally optimistic, you’re better able to handle everyday stress more constructively. That ability may contribute to the widely observed health benefits of positive thinking.

I am hopeful this will be of some help to you in these difficult times. 

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I lived with an abusive malignant narcissist for 14 years. It was a living hell. I went to a therapist for a year and then I did some intensive healing which actually did more than I could ever imagine to help me. I now help others to heal. I do 1:1 consultations and healing.

Love to each of you

Debbi