In honor of recognizing a positive mental attitude this month, please take a moment to consider how it helps your body in many ways to be more of a positive thinker. Here are a few detailed by the Mayo Clinic:
- increased life span
- decreased depression
- better cardiovascular health and decreased risk of cardiac disease
- reduced risk of death from cancer, respiratory conditions and infections
- greater resistance to illness
- better psychological and physical well-being.
Also listed are identifiers of negative thinking. Do you see yourself here?
- filtering out the negative more often than the positive
- self-blame
- anticipating the worst/making a big deal of small issues
- polarizing that categorizes problems as either good or bad.
- blaming someone else when something doesn’t go well.
The Mayo Clinic offers ways to reframing any negative thinking that you might do. For example, if you say to yourself that there is no way something will work, say instead that you will try to make it work. Find many other helpful ideas here:
Positive thinking: Reduce stress by eliminating negative self-talk – Mayo Clinic
