How To Reduce Stress Using Positive Thinking?

Stress is increasing day by day. Family responsibilities, fierce competition at workplace, hectic commutation, less jobs, financial crisis etc. can all lead to stress. Is there any way to make life stress-free? Little amount of stress is inevitable and is needed to pursue your goals and objectives. If the stress levels go beyond the safe limit, then it becomes a matter of serious concern.

One of the ways to deal with it is by Positive Thinking. An optimist person can easily overcome the challenges and adversities of life with his positive outlook. When you feel better about yourself, people, circumstances, etc. then it reduces your stress and improves your health and your overall well-being. In this article we will talk more on positive thinking, and how you can use it to lower your stress.

What Is Stress?

Stress is not always bad. It is required in some amounts in life to keep us motivated and alert. It encourages us to accomplish our goals in life. It is thought of as a series of hormones that are released from within you to keep you focused and increase your performance. This is called productive stress. When there is constant stress without any relief, or relaxation, that is the time when it starts to impact your body in a negative way. This stress is undesirable.

Negative stress is defined as a state when you have a lot to accomplish in life but do not have adequate resources such as time, energy, money etc. to complete it. This can lead to negative physiological process that builds up stress in the body. Such condition has to be dealt quickly.

Such stress is presented in the form of an emotional distress, or physical stressors that includes jaw pain, headache, bowel issues, sweaty palms, intestinal disorders, high blood pressure, chest pain, and migraines.

The Difference Between Optimistic And Pessimistic Attitude

Before we learn about how positive thinking helps in lowering stress in the body, it is important to understand about the concepts: positive thinking (optimism) and negative thinking (pessimism).

Optimists are the ones who are productive, and enjoy stronger relations, and better health. This is because of the reason that they are risk takers, and have a “try again” mindset. They have the trait to bounce back in life. They feel less upset by failures in life.

People who are pessimist, have a tendency to blame themselves when things fail. They become reluctant to make attempts. They expect the worst outcome in every event. They think that their present situation will also end up in the same way like the previous event in life.

After understanding about both the behaviors in life and their influence on stress, it is quite clear that where optimism can combat stress levels, pessimism can aggravate it. Because of this difference in the outlook, people who practice positive thinking experiences more joy, and success in life. Their life becomes less stressful.

Meanwhile here are useful tips to train your subconscious mind to get success in life!

What Is Positive Thinking?

To become an optimist, or a positive thinker, you will need to first learn how to be optimistic in life. Positive thinking does not mean to be happy all the time, and avoiding negative emotions in your life. It is not to ensure that nothing bad will ever happen in your life. It is not pretending that your life is absolutely perfect but admitting when mistakes happen in life.

Positive thinking is about adopting an evolution mindset. It is to have confidence in your capabilities that you will remain strong, and calm amidst chaos. This type of thinking provides you an ability to survive and thrive in adverse situations in life.

This positive mindset helps in giving relief from stress not just in the present moment but also in the longer term. A positive outlook towards life guards you against mental health disorders to develop in life.

How Does Positive Thinking Benefit Your Body?

Based on the study performed on the impact of positive thinking and optimistic attitude on health, it was found that positive thinking can:

• help you cope up with stress
• reduce the rate of depression
• reduce distress
• increased your life span
• increase your resistance towards the common cold and cough
• improves cardiovascular health
• provides better physical and emotional well-being of a person
• lowers chances of death from heart ailments

Positive outlook helps you cope better under stressful situations, that lowers the destructive health impacts of stress on the body. Optimistic people are seen to live a healthy lifestyle. They get into physical activity, adopt a healthy diet, do not drink, or smoke in excess.

How To Reduce Stress Using Positive Thinking?

Having learnt about positive thinking, and its benefits, let us now learn about how you can use this strategy to benefit your overall well-being and lower stress in life. The below ways will help in modifying your self-talk as well as your explanatory style to process your experiences in life. If you have been a pessimist, do not expect yourself to become an optimist instantaneously. But with gradual practice, positive self-talk, more self-acceptance and less self-criticism, you can become less critical of the world that surrounds you.

1. Identify and stop negative thinking

The first way to get started with positive thinking, is to analyze your thoughts. Find out what type of thoughts do you generally get in your mind. This practice requires you to become self-aware of your mental state.

Filter your thoughts and focus on only positive thoughts. Focus on your daily achievements. Don’t pay much attention to the compliments, or critical remarks that you observe during the day.  Do not take anything too personally or seriously. Do not blame yourself for anything that happens it to you. Think about all those things that you have been bestowed with. Be grateful to the Divine.

Watch your tendency to repeatedly anticipate the worst. Every new day is a new start. Do not be reluctant to start in a new relation by thinking that it will only end up in a disaster. Do not feel yourself as a failure if things did not turn out as you wanted them to be.

2. Adopt Positive Outlook

Positive thinking does not imply that you need to ignore the unpleasant situations of life. All it needs is to change your existing situation with a productive, and positive approach. Every situation has good sides, good and bad. Learn to look at the positive side of each event in life.

Identify the areas that you are negative about. It can be relationship, work, social norms, a specific celebrity or commutation. If you continue to think negatively, you will never have freedom from it. You can begin to focus on a specific area (that arouses negativity in you) in a positive manner.

Ideally it takes about forty days to get habitual of any new habit. So, developing a positive outlook is also going to take a little time and practice. You need to be consistent and honest with yourself.

Put positive thinking into practice –

In the above ways, you can spin your negative thoughts and live a positive life every single day.

3. Use Positive Affirmations

Start with positive self-talk or inner dialogue. During the day, you might have observed an endless stream of thoughts running through your mind. These unspoken and automated thoughts can be either negative, or positive. Some of the self-talk can even come from reason, and logic.

Other can arise due to misconception, and the lack of information. If you mostly engage in a negative dialogue during the day, then you will have a pessimistic outlook towards life else you are likely to be an optimistic person.

Reprogram yourself and the way of your thinking with the help of positive affirmations. Do it regularly and you will find that positive thinking will become a habit. It will automatically come to you. While you engage in self-talk, be gentle and motivating with yourself like if you are encouraging your friend.

If you get any negative thought about yourself, analyze them rationally. If you think you need to change your attitude, then do it. If you think you were right and others are blaming you without any mistake, then remember your good qualities and replace the negative thoughts with your positive virtues.

4. Be open to humor

Allow yourself to laugh, and smile especially when you face challenging situations in life. Humor is a therapy to overcome stress. Seek humor in day to day happenings. It has been seen that people who can laugh at life, lives a less stressful life.

5. Adopt a healthy diet and lifestyle

People who are optimist, exercise for around thirty minutes on five to six days a week. They are well aware of the fact that exercise will make a positive impact on their mood and will lessen stress. A healthy diet will help in fueling mind as well as body. It will help in learning ways to manage stress in the body.

Learn important tips on how to control anxiety disorder?

6. Be in the company of positive people

Negative people increase stress level in your body. So, it is very important that you identify these negative and toxic people in your life. Surround yourself by positive, and supportive people who you can rely for reliable and unbiased advice.

7. Mindfulness

Mindfulness is another way by which you can boost your positive thinking. Meditation makes you aware of your self-consciousness. People who meditate have better concentration. They have the ability to start all over again.

By focusing your attention to your incoming, and outgoing breath, or a mantra, you can kick off distractions of feelings, sensations, and thoughts. A mind that meditates is full of for positivity. This approach is one of the best ways to reduce stress in life. Your consistent efforts will definitely increase positivity, improve your mood, and reduce your stress.

8. Self-Compassion

Another immensely powerful tool by which you can beat stress is compassion. Not many people know this, but compassion has the ability to reduce stress. It is an effective way to sow the seeds of positivity within yourself. By practicing self-care, you can easily reduce the stress levels in the body.

You need to be gentle with yourself and take each event of life as a learning. Love yourself and forgive yourself. When you blame yourself, you step into guilt-consciousness. This is not conducive for your growth. It causes stress in you. Know that life is a continuous process of learning and every new day teaches us something. Embrace it.

Do not associate any good or bad circumstance in the life with any person or situation. Also, do not compare your level of positivity with anyone else’s. Learn from the events and make sure you don’t repeat it again. By having a compassionate and forgiving nature, you can lessen your stress to a good extent.

9. Start each day with positivity

The first thought you get in the morning determines your entire day. So, keeping filling your consciousness with good thoughts of happiness, success, prosperity etc. Start off your day with positive quotes. It will tune you into positive thinking. End the day with gratitude. This is one the effective ways to become positive in life and alleviate stress in the body.

10. Do a self study

As everybody is wired differently, it can be possible that what worked for others, may not work for you. Deepen your self-study. Discover those times when you have felt deeply loved, positive, and light. Keep participating in those activities to create more of such feelings within you. It will definitely help in managing stress and restore overall health and wellbeing in the body.

Conclusion

Looking at the negative health effect of pessimism in life, it is not hard to inculcate a positive mindset. All you need is to turn your negative thoughts into positive ones. Reflect on your life, your attitude, friends circle, self-talk, as it can all contribute towards reducing stress, and living a better life. By becoming an optimist, you can you can deal with the stress in a more constructive manner and enhance your health in multitude ways.

If you liked this post, then do share it with your friends on social media. Also, you can write to us any of your queries, suggestions, and comments. We will be happy to address them soon.