The Science of Positive Affirmations: Why You Need to Use them and How to Craft Your Own
If you’re ever in a bad mood and need a quick pick me up, just a simple affirmation can help you turn your mind and mood around. Positive affirmations help you challenge negative thoughts.
Positive affirmations can help you motivate yourself and support positive changes in your life. They can also help you boost your self-esteem and change negative, subconscious thought patterns and replace them with positive ones.
Positive Affirmations are Backed By Science
Positive affirmations have been scientifically proven to:
- Decrease health-deteriorating stress and rumination
- Help us to perceive “threatening” messages with less resistance
- Make us less likely to dismiss harmful health messages, responding instead with the intention to change for the better
- Positively impact academic achievement by mitigating GPA decline in students who feel left out at college1
Why Would You Use Them?
You can use positive affirmations to overcome fears, shift your mindset, uplift your mood and increase your confidence. Consistent repetition of positive affirmations encourages your brain to see the affirmations as reality. When you believe something, the action and results will follow accordingly. And when you couple positive affirmations with visualization, you can conquer your fears – your brain activates in the same way with visualization as with a real experience.
Neuroplasticity, or your brain’s ability to change and adapt to different circumstances throughout your life, offers a clue to help understand not only what makes affirmations work, but how to make them more effective. Your brain sometimes gets a little mixed up on the difference between reality and imagination, which can be surprisingly useful.
– Healthline
Examples of Positive Affirmations
Here are a few examples of positive affirmations.
- I am a successful man/woman. I love a good challenge.
- I fully accept and love myself. And I love who I am becoming.
- I am healthy. My mind is calm. My spirit is at peace.
- I am surrounded by supportive friends and family. I attract healthy relationships.
- I am gifted and I have unique gifts to share with the world.
- My life is beautiful and I have so much to be thankful for.
- I am resilient. I turn obstacles into opportunity for growth.
How to Craft Your Own Positive Affirmations
Best place to start with positive affirmations is to first notice your negative thought patterns. For example, if you’re sitting frustrated in a traffic jam and start getting annoyed, take a few deep breaths to calm your emotions. Then say a few positive affirmations such as:
- I am grateful for my car that helps me get from point A to point B.
- I am safe. My mind is at peace. I will get to my destination in time.
- This opportunity to stand still in traffic gives me time to relax and come home to the stillness within.
Tips for Crafting Your Own Affirmations
Do:
- Make them in the present tense (not past or future)
- Make them personalized and meaningful for you
- Use them consistently to create a habit such as first thing every morning
Don’t:
- Don’t use them to hide or suppress your feelings; the mind can’t lie to what the body feels
- Don’t force positive affirmations onto others; everyone is on their own spiritual journey
- Don’t think that positive affirmations alone will solve all your problems
Affirmations are great opportunities to shift your mindset and turn setbacks into opportunities. One of the most powerful words are “I am” and what follows after those two words. So be aware how you speak to yourself and about yourself, because the Universe listens and delivers according to your beliefs and attitudes.
For FREE positive affirmations, visit Affirmations page.
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