Positive Thinking

Positive thinking helps with stress management and can even improve your health. Is your glass half-empty or half-full? This can reflect your attitude toward yourself, and whether you're optimistic or pessimistic. In fact, some studies show that these personality traits — optimism and pessimism — can affect how well and how long you live. Learn how to put positive thinking into action. Positive thinking is a key part of an effective stress management.

Understanding positive self-talk

Self-talk is the endless stream of thoughts that run through your head every day. These automatic thoughts can be positive or negative. Some of your self-talk comes from logic and reason. Other self-talk may arise from misconceptions that you create because of lack of information. If the thoughts that run through your head are mostly negative, your outlook on life is likely pessimistic. If your thoughts are mostly positive, you're likely an optimist, or someone who practices positive thinking.

Health benefits that positive thinking may provide include:

Decreased negative stress
Greater resistance to getting sick
A sense of well-being and improved health
Reduced risk of coronary artery disease
Easier breathing
Better coping skills during hardships

Having a positive outlook enables you to cope better with stressful situations, which reduces the harmful health effects of stress on your body. Negative self-talk just means that your own misperceptions, lack of information and distorted ideas have overpowered your capacity for logic and reason. Instead of giving in to negative self-talk, challenge them with rational, positive thoughts. When you do this, your self-talk will gradually become realistic and self-affirming. You can learn to turn negative thinking into positive thinking. This takes time and practice but you are creating a new habit. Periodically during the day, stop and evaluate what you're thinking. Are they negative or positive thoughts? Practicing positive self-talk will improve your outlook. When your state of mind is generally optimistic, you're able to handle everyday stress in a constructive way.