How A Positive Affirmation Can Help You With Stress And Anxiety

A positive outlook can be the difference between a happy life and a life filled with anxiety and sadness. Breaking the cycle of negative thoughts can be hard but thankfully, the brain can be trained to work in new ways, no matter how long it has been operating in a fashion that is not ideal. This is why a positive affirmation can be so helpful.

Everyone knows someone that is confident, optimistic and seems to always land on their feet no matter how hard life gets.  You might be frustrated that you are not enjoying this kind of life and just assume that this type of attitude and the success that goes with it is out of reach for you. It is often thought that outlook is just part of your like your hair color or eye color. 

Luckily for you, you can rewire your brain through practices such as mediation, to learn to see life in a more positive light. If you are able to achieve a more positive outlook, you will find new confidence in yourself and your skills and will defeat the twin specters of anxiety and self-defeat. The key to changing your reactions to events in your life is to teach your mind to view these events from a different perspective. 

You may have been told that you simply need to look at life from a more positive perspective but that is not always possible without some tools to help you change your outlook. A positive affirmation is a powerful tool to use to achieve a more positive outlook and to free you from stress and anxiety.

What are Positive Affirmations?

Positive affirmations are statements that you can use to challenge and defeat negative or self-sabotaging thoughts. Our brains learn through repetition and you can use positive affirmations to teach your brain to see things like challenges as opportunities for growth rather than as defeating challenges that you will fail at.  This is particularly useful for those who struggle against stress or anxiety because it gets around the brain’s learned responses to situations and people and replaces them with positive reactions.

There is no right way to make a positive affirmation. You can create your own to help you to cope with particular trigger experiences and situations. The only requirement is that your statement is positive and self-affirming. Here are some examples of positive affirmations:

• I believe in myself and I am self-confident.
• I can do anything I set my mind to.
• I can learn from my mistakes and grow as a person.
• I can eat well and exercise to care for myself.
• I forgive myself for being human and sometimes making mistakes.

These types of statements are peculiarly powerful to teach your brain to react to things from a more positive starting point. Much of negative thinking is driven by stress and fear, so telling yourself that you are not fearful and that you are instead confident can be very powerful and can help you to re-wire your brain to see situations and your own reactions to them in a more positive light.

How Positive Affirmations Can Help with Stress and Anxiety

Anxiety can feel like a monster looming over all of your feelings and all of your actions. For those who are struggling against a daily feeling of overwhelming stress and anxiousness, trying to face the need to accept a challenge or to deal with a new experience can be one thing too much.  Stress and anxiety are often the result of habitual reactions and thinking that are ingrained habits.  This means that they can be changed into positive thoughts through the practice of meditation and positive affirmations.

If the thought of talking to someone at work who you have not had good experiences with makes you sweaty and shaky, a positive affirmation can help you to overcome your fear. Think instead, “I am not afraid of this person. Our past interactions do not mean that this interaction will be negative.”  Take some deep breaths and repeat the positive affirmation to yourself until your brain starts to feel calmer.  When you do go talk to this person, you will find that you do not fear talking to them as you once did.

Over time, using positive affirmations can re-wire your thinking about things that scare you or make you anxious. It can literally reverse your reactions to those things.  You may even find that you start to enjoy challenges that would have terrified you before. Re-framing your thinking will allow you to also see your successes accurately and the good experiences will grow your confidence and your feelings of control over events in your life.

Pairing positive affirmations with daily mediation has been proven to physically change your brain and re-wire pathways in your brain for good. Meditation has been shown to shrink your amygdala, which is responsible for stress and anxiety. Calming the amygdala is a great benefit for those suffering from anxiety and stress.

Once you have gotten control of your body’s instinctive reactions to events and people that have caused you worry in the past, you will be able to start to train your brain to see those things as opportunities for growth and learning. You will also find that your self-confidence will grow exponentially.  You will likely also sleep better and feel more at peace all day.

The next time that you are feeling scared about a meeting that you have to give a presentation in or the next time that you are scared to go to party or event, create a positive affirmation for that fear.  Repeat the positive affirmation to yourself and wait for your brain to calm down.  Each time that you successfully use a positive affirmation to change your reaction to an event, you will be training your brain to react to your life from a positive set point rather than an anxious set point. 

The benefits of being your own cheerleader in life as myriad and can improve your health every day.