Positive thinking means you look for solutions and expect to find them.You don’t ignore problems, but instead of complaining about them or letting them overpower you, you actively look for ways to overcome them. You take responsibility for your life on a consistent basis because you understand you are in control of how your life’s progresses.A positive thinker finds the benefits — or the bright side — of challenges and expects things to work out well.Having a positive attitude means you have an optimistic outlook. An optimistic attitude means you have hope. You believe things will work out well and ultimately you will have success. Scientists have been studying the health benefits of positive thinking for a long time.
Research suggests that positive optimistic people tend to have better mental health and physical health and even live longer.Having a positive outlook can give you a reduced risk of having a heart attack, getting a cold, or being depressed.Positive thinking can lower a person’s risk of death from serious illnesses, including cancer, infections, heart disease, stroke, and lung conditions. It improves the outcomes of patients with brain tumors and traumatic brain injury and boosts your immune system.A positive state of mind even gives you a higher pain tolerance.When you have a positive outlook, you are better equipped to take action, cope with stress and hardships, think more creatively, and be better at problem-solving.Thinking positively puts you in a better mood and as a result, helps you to form positive relationships with co-workers, family members, friends, and new acquaintances. Listed below are some ways to acknowledge negative thinking and some methods that Can-Am Interventions finds useful for their clients to improve positive thinking.
Signs Of Positive Thinking
How do you recognize a positive mindset? People with positive attitudes tend to have a healthy lifestyle. They smile more, are more pleasant to be around, and are calmer under pressure.Someone with a more positive outlook is often willing to try new things. They have higher self-esteem, love to have a good laugh and point out the silver lining in every gray cloud.A positive outlook is infectious, and people with a positive outlook can’t help but share it with those around them.Positive thinkers are always kind to people and don’t talk negatively about themselves or others.People with more positive thoughts have better coping skills and know how to manage stress better by doing things like exercising more often and having a healthier diet.
The Effects of Negative Thoughts
The opposite of an optimistic attitude and a positive outlook is a pessimistic outlook.Negative emotions and thoughts put limitations on your brain activity and ability to make choices.When you are faced with a destructive emotion, such as fear, you can think of little else except what you are fearful of.This can be helpful when you are in a dangerous situation and you instinctively think of running away from it so you can be safe and protect your well-being.But fear is detrimental when it prevents you from trying something new that could change your life for good because you are afraid you might be laughed at, rejected, or fail.The same is true for anger, jealousy, sadness, loneliness, annoyance, guilt, frustration, and other difficult emotions.
Negative thoughts prevent us from progressing, and having a negative outlook prevents us from being happy. It affects both your mental and physical health and well-being.Pessimistic attitudes attract more negativity to you. Complaining, being cynical, not trusting, and blaming make it more likely that disappointing things will continue to come to you.It is also linked to cardiovascular disease. Emotions like worry, depression, loneliness, chronic stress, and anger are characteristics of thinking negatively, and they can all increase your risk of heart disease.
Signs Of Negative Thinking
Turn a negative thought into a positive one by recognizing the signs of a pessimistic outlook.One sign is perfectionism. When you set standards that are impossible to reach, you constantly set yourself up for failure.Another sign of a damaging attitude is anticipating that the worst will happen without any facts to back that up. You may feel like the whole world is against you and more bad things happen to you than good.When you get to the end of your day and obsess about the negative events that happened but filter out all the many positive experiences you had, you are allowing a harmful attitude to control your outlook on life.Those who do not make a habit of thinking positively see a glass half empty instead of half full. They focus on what they do not have instead of being grateful for what they do have. The forefront of their thinking is about what is going wrong instead of what is going right.
People with negative attitudes tend to:
- Automatically blame themselves when bad things happen
- Blame others instead of taking responsibility for their own thoughts or feelings
- Magnify minor problems into much bigger negative events
- Dwell on past experiences and mistakes instead of looking toward the future
- Focus on minor details instead of seeing the bigger picture
- Have poor stress management skills and do not make their mental health a priority
Practice Positive Self-Talk Vs. Negative Self-Talk
Stop negative self-talk with the positive things you say to yourself, words of encouragement, recognition of your successes, and sincere compliments that build your self-esteem.Self-talk is the thoughts that run through your head. Sometimes we are not even aware of the stream of thoughts that are playing in our subconscious mind.But if we tap into our thought processes, we can have more control over whether we are practicing more positive self-talk or the opposite.If your internal dialogue is mostly positive, you are a positive thinker. If it’s often negative, it reflects in a bad attitude and pessimistic outlook.Positive thinking creates positive emotions, positive attitudes, and positive results, whereas negative thinking will keep you stagnant.
Let me show you some ways you can replace pessimistic thoughts with positive thoughts:
- Instead of saying, “I don’t want to do that, I’ve never done it before,” say, “I’ll try it because I may learn something new.”
- Instead of thinking, “I’m never going to get better at this,” say, “I’ll try again until I figure it out.”
We tend to be hard on ourselves, but we need to be our biggest cheerleaders.So when you feel you’ve made a mistake or even failed at something, think instead, “What can I learn from this so that I’ll be more successful?”Don’t think about what if you fail, think about what if you succeed.
How To Practice Positive Thinking
You can train your mind to think positively by leveraging a simple scientific concept: Your working memory can only focus on a few concepts at a time.For example, have you ever found it difficult to talk on the phone and listen to someone else at the same time?So, to help you train your mind, all you have to do is keep it focused on uplifting thoughts until you form the same types of neural pathways that are created when you establish a new habit. With focused practice, you make a habit of more positive thinking.Practice the virtues of positive psychology, which focuses on building your physical and mental health along with character traits like courage, gratitude, hope, humor, knowledge, and encouragement.When an adverse event occurs, remember that it’s your response that truly determines the outcome. Always look for a positive response or optimistic lesson when such events take place.Use the following eight strategies to develop a positive mental attitude and have a more positive outlook on your life and the world around you. If you or someone you know can benefit from these methods and other good mental health benefits, please contact Can-Am Interventions so we can hear your concerns and goals, and to have a discussion what can be most beneficial for you and your growth process moving forward. We look forward to hearing from you.
E: patti.pike@canaminterventions.com
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