Simply thinking more positively is the simplest and fastest method to enhance your life.
This is certainly something you’ve heard before. And you’re probably thinking, “That’s a nice notion, but it’s much easier said than done in the actual world.”
It’s true; being a “positive” person, like many other things in life, is a simple but not always easy concept. This short essay aims to provide you with a few basic and practical ways to make positive thinking an instinctive and permanent part of your life.
It is critical to think positively.
Your thinking patterns have a significant impact on every part of your life. Your ideas shape your personality, relationship quality, financial success, physical health, and many other aspects of your life.
You’re undoubtedly aware of the power of your ideas. You’re reading this because you understand how vital it is. But, if you’re like most people, you still vastly underestimate the physiological repercussions of your ideas.
For example, just picture yourself biting into a luscious, vibrant lemon might make your mouth wet. This is just one example of how a thought may cause chemical changes in the body.
The truth is that your thoughts have a considerably greater effect on things other than saliva production. Positive thinking has been found in studies to improve your white blood cell count, which aids in the fight against infection and sickness. In a study published recently in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers from the University of Wisconsin demonstrated that individuals who practice positive thinking are better suited to battle sickness.
In the research, a team of neuroscientists utilized electroencephalography to evaluate brain activity before administering flu vaccines to all individuals. They discovered that those who thought positively had a considerably higher immunological response than those who thought negatively. The final result is that positive thinking may make you not just happy but also healthier.
How Do You Develop a Positive Attitude?
If you have chronic negative thinking patterns, which almost everyone has, you may learn to replace them with good thought habits. But that will not happen by itself. To create a change, you must make a deliberate choice. Once you’ve done that, and with a few basic tactics, it’s rather simple to become completely optimistic.
Here are a few easy approaches you may use right away:
Allow the dog’s tail to wag.
Being content might make you grin. But does it also function in the other direction? Can you make yourself joyful by smiling?
Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, revealed that replicating the facial expressions associated with emotions such as pleasure, sorrow, and rage might cause some of the same bodily changes as experiencing these feelings. They established that merely smiling makes the body “happy” by monitoring a variety of biometrics such as heart rate, body temperature, and skin electrical resistance. Moving face muscles seems to signal the autonomic nervous system, which regulates specific muscle and gland activities. This, in turn, triggers bodily responses. So, smile, and you will be content!
Make Your Own Triggering Mechanism
Try your own smiling experiment now. Right now, put a broad grin on your face. You may have to push it first, but try and see what happens. It’s alright to laugh at yourself. Allow the hilarity to make you grin even more.
As you grin, recall a period when you were incredibly happy, joyous, and optimistic. We’ve all experienced times in our life when we felt really optimistic. Allow yourself to relive some of those happy memories right now. Allow yourself to recall sensations of positivity and confidence. Maintain your grin. Release all worries and anxieties, and feel yourself becoming more optimistic and carefree with a wide grin on your face.
As your good sentiments become stronger, softly but firmly squeeze each hand’s thumb and middle finger together and tell yourself, “I am optimistic!” Again, while feeling upbeat, push your thumb and middle finger together and repeat aloud, “I am positive!”
You’ve just created a system that allows you to elicit the same pleasant thoughts and feelings whenever you choose. Practice this often, and you’ll quickly realize that you can maintain a happy attitude in any scenario just by squeezing your thumb and middle finger together and stating, “I am positive!”
Choose Your Words Wisely
What you say and your words are critical to keeping a pleasant attitude and generating favorable results.
Take the word “don’t” as an example. What is the next sound we generally hear when we say to a youngster, “Don’t slam the door!” Bam!! That’s correct; the door slammed. It’s as though the toddler failed to see the “don’t.” “Slam the door!” was the only portion of the sentence. If you say, “Close the door gently,” the youngster is far more likely to obey.
“Can’t” is another harmful term. People often tell me that I can’t lose weight, stop smoking, or recall people’s names. The more they repeat it, the more true it becomes. Let the usage of that term be a red light blinking as a warning that this is bad programming that might establish erroneous restrictions from now on. Don’t allow this term to keep you from reaching your full potential.
Get Rid of Negative Self-Talk
The words you speak to yourself are more essential than the ones you say to others. Every one of us has an inner voice that represents our subconscious thoughts. Unfortunately, most of our inner dialogue is negative. “I’ll never be able to accomplish it,” “I’ll never comprehend it,” “I’m not clever enough,” or “If anything can go wrong, it will.”
You must first become conscious of negative self-talk to eradicate it. What are some of the things you tell yourself that restrict your potential? Eject negativity as soon as you become aware of it! It can be ejected just as simple as a cassette from a tape player.
To emphasize the expulsion, push your index finger against your thumb or against a table or dashboard, as if pressing a button, while saying firmly, “EJECT!” Then, immediately replace the negative with a positive, such as “I can!” Repeating this basic physical motion can help you become completely optimistic over time.
Meditation Can Help You Train Your Brain
Studies have demonstrated meditation boosts activity in the left prefrontal cortex, which is the same part of the brain associated with optimistic thinking. People who meditate daily are more cheerful and healthier than the average population. So learn to meditate and practice it often. You will rapidly teach your brain to activate its positive thinking regions and become more optimistic.
Remind Yourself of What Is Crucial
A salesman friend of ours, who is away from his house and family more than he would like, told us about a video he made that never fails to brighten his spirits. The tape contains messages from the most important people in his life: his wife, father, children, and best friend. In his video, each of these folks expresses how significant this guy is to them in their own words. They express their admiration, admiration, and respect for him. They express how much they admire, love, and miss him when he’s gone. He claims that when he plays the tape after a difficult sales call or whenever he needs a pick-me-up, he feels extremely lucky, joyful, and has a better feeling of self-worth. It puts things back into perspective and provides him fresh energy and a really optimistic outlook. Perhaps you might benefit from making your own comparable tape.
Negativity may be washed away with a powerful visualization.
The funnel of energy is another approach for feeling completely optimistic. It’s a simple visualization exercise that takes less than a minute yet leaves you feeling fantastic.
This is how you do it. Consider a positive energy funnel pouring through the top of your head. This positive energy originates from the universe’s purest, highest, and most heavenly energy source. It gives you a sense of being more alive, stronger, aware, and attentive. Its uplifting, loving, healing influence is felt the instant it enters your body. You can feel it purifying you of negativity. Get rid of whatever bad programming you’ve had in the past.
It eliminates all previous anxieties, inhibitions, and constraints. Feel this loving, wonderful energy wash away any bad ideas, pictures, and sensations. Feel your inner power being released. The energy continues to pour in via your shoulders, arms, hands, chest, back, belly, hips, legs, and feet, eliminating negativity. It transforms your whole body into healthy, pleasant energy. Imagine all the negativity exiting your body via your hands and feet, leaving only pure good energy. It feels so amazing to be completely happy after being free of negativity.
You may use this visualization whenever you like. Allow the vision to linger as long as you need to feel revitalized and cleansed of any negativity. It’s wonderful for when you need a boost.
Accept Life’s Difficulties – Adversity is an Opportunity
Life throws a lot of curve balls to every one of us. Nobody gets through life without encountering issues or hurdles. And some of these issues or impediments might be enormous. What matters most is how we deal with these challenges. Negative thinking might cause us to get overwhelmed, quit, or become inefficient in coping with problems. However, there is a far better technique to deal with them. We have the option of looking for anything good in the circumstance. We may see it as a gift in disguise, even if we don’t know what that blessing is.
In each scenario, we might seek an advantage or an opportunity. “There is no such thing as a problem without a gift in its hands,” writes Richard Bach in his book Illusions. And the Chinese term for crisis has two letters. One of them represents an opportunity.
Many of our kids have grown so upbeat that when an unforeseen difficulty comes, they immediately exclaim, “Oh good!” They then begin seeking the opportunity given by the scenario. And they’ll eventually locate it. This can also work for you.
Learning to cope with problems effectively may help you live a more satisfying life. “Success is to be judged not so much by the positions that we have attained in life, as by the barriers that we have conquered while attempting to achieve,” observed Booker T. Washington.
Don’t Panic – Be Joyful.
To be really optimistic, we must understand how to cope with anxiety. Every idea affects us physically and psychologically, and worry may be quite detrimental. According to Dr. Charles Mayo, “worry affects circulation, the heart, the glands, the whole neurological system, and has a tremendous effect on health.”
Consider the steps you take when you are worried. You envision a bad outcome in your imagination. It requires no effort or willpower; you just linger on it. And in a short period, this unpleasant outcome looks extremely real to you, and you feel the same emotions that you would if it truly occurred. You have the same feelings of dread, worry, or discouragement. As a result, you are feeling guilty right now for something that is just an idea in your head.
At the same time, you are programming your mind for future unfavorable events. Worrying trains your mind to anticipate negative outcomes. Even if your “issue” never develops, the concern takes its toll in the form of acute pain and the negative impacts of chronic stress.
Worry is considered interest paid in advance on a debt you may never owe. “I’ve had a lot of issues in my day – most of which never occurred,” Mark Twain said. As a result, the majority of concern is futile. You should expel it instead.
But you may use the exact method to worry and modify only one item to benefit you tremendously. Instead of picturing a bad outcome, envision a happy one! This also requires very little effort or willpower. Simply focusing on the good outcome will have you feeling the emotions connected with that event in no time. You’ll feel terrific immediately after anything as simple as a concept in your head. You will experience excitement, contentment, and self-assurance. You’ll also be creating mental patterns for future great encounters.
So, rather than working against you, let the concern process work for you. Make it a habit to anticipate pleasant things.