POSITIVE THINKING | Meaning, Benefits, Tips and Tricks
You have probably had someone tell you to "look on the bright side" or to "see the cup as half full." Chances are good that the people who make these comments are positive thinkers. Researchers are finding more and more evidence pointing to the many benefits of optimism and positive thinking.
Such findings suggest that not only are positive thinkers healthier and less stressed, they also have greater overall well-being.
If you tend to have a negative outlook, don't expect to become an optimist overnight. But with practice, eventually your self-talk will contain less self-criticism and more self-acceptance. You may also become less critical of the world around you.
When your state of mind is generally optimistic, you're better able to handle everyday stress in a more constructive way. That ability may contribute to the widely observed health benefits of positive thinking.
What Negative Thoughts Do to Your Brain:
Your brain closes off from the outside world and focuses on the negative emotions of fear, anger, and stress. Negative emotions prevent your brain from seeing the other options and choices that surround you. It's your survival instinct.
What Positive Thoughts Do to Your Brain:
When you are experiencing positive emotions like joy, contentment, and love, you will see more possibilities in your life. These findings were among the first that proved that positive emotions broaden your sense of possibility and open your mind up to more options.
How to Become More Positive:
•What You’ll Do: You can boost your happiness by focusing on positive things and reducing your negative thinking. This week, follow every negative thought with a positive one. This practice will help to retrain your habitual thought patterns to bring more positive thoughts into your life.
•How It Works: The ratio of positive to negative thoughts is a major factor in overall happiness. Your brain is constantly monitoring the emotional tone of your thoughts—too many negative thoughts and your brain responds by creating stress and sadness in your body. When you add more positive thoughts, your brain will create relaxation and happiness.
By training yourself to follow or negate negative thoughts with positive ones, you’ll improve your positive/negative thought ratio and be happier.
•Get Motivated: After you’re aware of your negative thoughts and feelings and have worked to counteract them for a few days, they will gradually begin to lessen. You’ll be able to concentrate more on what you want to do without experiencing distracting emotions and stress. This will make you more productive and energetic. Best of all, it will make you happier.
The Steps of Becoming More Positive:
List happy thoughts. Take 30 minutes and list all the happy thoughts you can think of. Just use a piece of paper and make a long list. Give yourself a good 30 minutes. List the people and places that make you happy: good friends, favorite vacation spots, childhood memories and more. List things that make you happy: puppies, babies, the smell of a new car, a lobster dinner, a day of relaxing by a pool. List anything and everything you can think of that makes you happy.
Be aware of negative thoughts and feelings.For the entire week, pay attention to your thoughts. Whenever you catch yourself thinking about or feeling anything negative, sad or stressful, label that thought “unhappy.” Don’t worry if you have a lot of unhappy thoughts and feelings throughout the day. It’s perfectly normal. Just pay attention and label them.
Follow with a happy item. After you label an unhappy thought or feeling, follow it immediately with a happy item from your Happy List. You might pick one item to use all day long, or choose different ones each time you need them. Just bring that the happy thing to mind for a second or two.
This Week’s Commitment: This week I will label my negative or stressful thoughts and feelings and follow them with a happy thought.
After a few days, the number of negative thoughts and feelings often decreases. It’s almost as if the brain gets bored being negative because you replace the thoughts so quickly with positive ones.
Tips for Increasing Positivity and Happiness:
Don’t just wait for the negative thoughts to come along to think about something positive. Add to this skill by making a conscious and planned effort to think positive thoughts throughout the day. Decide that you will think only positive thoughts for your entire lunch hour or during one of your breaks. Decide that you will only think positive thoughts while driving in your car.
Create time throughout your day when you will be “positive only.”
Some more tips for accentuating the positive:
Don’t judge yourself. Everyone has lots of unhappy and negative thoughts throughout the day. As you become more aware of them you might feel embarrassed or ashamed about how many you have. Don’t worry: it is perfectly normal to have all sorts of strange thoughts. We usually don’t pay so much attention to them.
Combine this task with smiling. Force a smile on your face as you bring your happy thought to your mind. This will help erase the effects of the negative thoughts.
Be sure to remind yourself to do this task throughout the day. Don’t let a day go by without engaging with your negative thoughts and substituting positive ones.
This will give you even more practice at being positive and happy.
11 Benefits of being positive:
Being positive is not just a nice way to live. It’s the way to live. In this spirit here are 11 benefits of being positive.
1. Positive People Live Longer - In a study of nuns, those that regularly expressed positive emotions lived on average 10 years longer. (The Nun Study)
2. Positive people are able to maintain a broader perspective and see the big picture which helps them identify solutions where as negative people maintain a narrower perspective and tend to focus on problems. (Barbara Fredrickson)
3. Positive work environments outperform negative work environments. (Daniel Goleman)
4. Positive people who regularly express positive emotions are more resilient when facing stress, challenges and adversity. (Several Studies)
5. Positive and popular leaders are more likely to garner the support of others and receive pay raises and promotions and achieve greater success in the workplace. (Several Studies)
6. Positive, optimistic sales people sell more than pessimistic sales people. (Martin Seligman)
7. Positive emotions such as gratitude and appreciation help athletes perform at a higher level. (Heartmath.org)
8. Positive leaders are able to make better decisions under pressure. (Heartmath.org)
9. Marriages are much more likely to succeed when the couple experiences a 5 to 1 ratio of positive to negative interactions whereas when the ratio approaches 1 to 1, marriages are more likely to end in divorce. (John Gottman)
10. Positive thoughts and emotions counter the negative effects of stress. For example, you can't be thankful and stressed at the same time. (Several Studies)
11. Positive people have more friends which is a key factor of happiness and longevity. (Robert D. Putnam)
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