A positive attitude can improve the quality of your life and improve your health. You won’t believe what studies indicate a positive attitude will do for you:
- increase your life span
- reduce your risk of depression
- reduce feelings of distress
- provide greater resistance to the common cold
- improved mental and physical well-being
- provide better coping skills for times of stress and hardship
Wow! So, what is it about a positive attitude that reaps all of these health rewards? It’s thought that a positive attitude lessens the harmful effects of stress through better coping skills. It doesn’t mean that less-than-pleasant situations are ignored, but rather approached in a more positive and productive way. Positive people are also generally thought to be more physically active, eat a better diet, and avoid smoking and drinking alcohol in excess.
Positive thinking starts with positive self-talk–you know, the endless stream of automatic thoughts that run through your head. You can learn to turn negative thinking into positive thinking; here are some examples to get you going.
| Instead of… | Think… |
| I’ve never done it before. | It’s an opportunity to learn something new. |
| It’s too complicated. | I’ll tackle it from a different angle. |
| I don’t have the resources. | Necessity is the mother of invention. |
| I’m too lazy to get this done. | I wasn’t able to fit it into my schedule, but I can re-examine some priorities. |
| There’s no way it will work. | I can try to make it work. |
| It’s too radical a change. | Let’s take a chance. |
| No one bothers to communicate with me. | I’ll see if I can open the channels of communication. |
| I’m not going to get any better at this. | I’ll give it another try. |
| I’ll never be able to lose weight like that person. | I wonder what I can learn from her experience. If she can do it, then I can, too. |
| Eating healthy is too difficult. | I’m worth making the effort to select healthy foods. |
| I’m such a failure. | I’ve learned from my mistakes and I’m ready to be successful. |
| I can’t. | I can and I will. |
