Thinking Happy Thoughts Helps Reduce Anxiety

Stress is a natural and positive adaptation. Stress is what pushes us to get stuff done; however in our modern lives, the stress has built up too much and we don’t have enough releases. If we don’t get rid of this stress and anxiety, it can lead to serious health problems. There are many techniques out there to get rid of stress, but why not try one of the simplest options: positive thinking.

How we think controls what we do and how we handle our lives. If a negative thinker is in a stressful situation, they’ll spend their time worrying about the situation, anticipating the worst, and ignoring the positives. When a positive thinker is faced with a stressful situation, they instead focus on how they can overcome the situation an what they can learn from it. A negative thinker gets bogged down by anxiety while positive thinkers are busy solving and learning from hardship. Coincidentally, people who think positively are not only less stressed and better at coping, they’re also less likely to get communicable and non-communicable disease, have a greater sense of well-being, and they even live longer. So cut off those destructive negative thoughts and think positively.

You’re probably thinking “That’s nice, but how do I actually change my thought from negative to positive?” The truth is that most of our thinking is automatic. This means it takes time and effort to change our thoughts, but it doesn’t mean it’s impossible. Take time to stop regularly throughout the day and reflect on your thoughts. Take specific negative thoughts you have and write them down. Next to them, write a positive version of each negative thought, then get rid of the negatives and keep the positives. Keep telling yourself the positive thoughts throughout the day. If you keep telling yourself the same things over and over, you’ll eventually start to believe them and start to think about them automatically.

If you have an anxiety disorder, you may find there are so many negative thoughts swirling around in your head they’re just impossible to get rid of. While you make one thought positive, 10 more negative thoughts pop into your head. Such an overwhelming amount of negative thought can be difficult to overcome. If you recognize this problem, then you’ll probably benefit from meditation. This is a breathing and focusing method used to relax your body and clear your mind. Once you remove obsessive negative thoughts from your head, then you can then start to replace them with positive thoughts.

The road to less anxiety is long, and it’s not easy. If you keep at it, you’ll eventually learn to live a happier, healthier, longer life.