Johnson ThomasAasra

www.aasra.info

The Gift of Positive Energy through Self-affirmations for

Optimal Health

How Self Affirmations/Positive Pep-Talks help us root out negativity from our lives.

How Self Affirmations/Positive Pep-Talks help us root out negativity from our lives.

When you’re stressed out, your problem-solving skills diminish, but studies show that self-affirmation practices can combat this effect. self affirmations are not a joke —positive mantras can decrease stress and improve performance on challenging tasks. 

Adaptations & Self-AffirmationsPeople in contemporary society face innumerable

failures and self‐threats. These include substandard performance on the job or in class, frustrated goals or aspirations, information challenging the validity of long‐held beliefs, illness, the defeat of one’s political party in an election or of one’s favorite sports team, scientific evidence suggesting that one is engaging in risky health behavior, negative feedback at work or in school, rejection in a romantic relationship, real and perceived social slights, interpersonal and intergroup conflict, the misbehavior of one’s child, the loss of a loved one, and so on.

Adaptations & Self-AffirmationsIn the course of a given day, the potential

number of events that could threaten people’s ‘‘moral and adaptive adequacy’’—their sense of themselves as good, virtuous, successful, and able to control important life outcomes (Steele, 1988)—seems limitless and likely to exceed the small number of events that arm it. A major undertaking for most people is to sustain self‐integrity when faced with the inevitable setbacks and disappointments of daily life—the 70% of the time

Adaptations & Self-AffirmationsHow do individuals adapt to such threats and

defend self‐integrity? Much research suggests that people have a

‘‘psychological immune system’’ that initiates protective adaptations when an actual or impending threat is perceived (Gilbert, Pinel, Wilson, Blumberg, & Wheatley, 1998). Psychological adaptations to threats include the various cognitive strategies and even distortions whereby people come to construe a situation in a manner that renders it less threatening to personal worth and well‐being.

Adaptations & Self-AffirmationsMany of these psychological adaptations

can be thought of as defensive in nature, insofar as they alter the meaning of the event in a way that shields people from the conclusion that their beliefs or actions were misguided. Psychologists have documented a wide array of such psychological adaptations that help people to protect their self‐integrity in response to threat. We see defensive responses as adaptations aimed at ameliorating threats to self‐integrity

Adaptations & Self-AffirmationsThe vast research on defensive biases testifies to

their robustness and to the frequency with which people use them. Although these defensive responses are adaptive in the sense of protecting or enhancing an individual’s sense of self‐integrity, they can be maladaptive to the extent they forestall learning from important, though threatening, experiences and information. Moreover, peoples’ efforts to protect self‐integrity may threaten the integrity of their relationships with others (Cohen et al., 2005; Murray, Holmes, MacDonald, & Ellsworth, 1998).

Adaptations & Self-AffirmationsYet, these normal adaptations can be ‘‘turned

off’’ through an altogether different psychological adaptation to threat, an alternative adaptation that does not hinge on distorting the threatening event to render it less significant. One way that these defensive adaptations can be reduced, or even eliminated, is through the process of self‐affirmation (Aronson, Cohen, & Nail, 1999; Sherman & Cohen, 2002; Steele, 1988). Steele (1988) first proposed the theory of self‐affirmation.

OVERVIEW OF SELF‐AFFIRMATION THEORYSelf‐affirmation theory (Aronson et al., 1999;

Sherman & Cohen, 2002; Steele, 1988) begins with the premise that people are motivated to maintain the integrity of the self.

Self‐affirmation theory proposes a different kind of psychological adaptation—one that, under many circumstances, enables both the restoration of self‐integrity and adaptive behavior change. People can respond to threats using the indirect psychological adaptation of affirming alternative self‐resources unrelated to the provoking threat.

 

OVERVIEW OF SELF‐AFFIRMATION THEORYSuch ‘‘self‐affirmations’’ include reflecting on

important aspects of one’s life irrelevant to the threat, or engaging in an activity that makes salient important values unconnected to the threatening event. Whereas defensive psychological adaptations directly address the threatening information, indirect psychological adaptations, such as self‐affirmation, allow people to focus on domains of self‐integrity unrelated to the threat.

OVERVIEW OF SELF‐AFFIRMATION THEORYWhen self‐affirmed in this manner, people

realize that their self‐worth does not hinge on the evaluative implications of the immediate situation. As a result, they have less need to distort or reconstrue the provoking threat and can respond to the threatening information in a more open and evenhanded manner.

POSITIVE ENERGYDoes positive energy and positive

psychology really impact our health? Is positiveness a gift that only some people are blessed with, or can it be developed? Current research gives us the answers to these questions!

Positive energy and positive psychology is a gift for all.

POSITIVE ENERGY

POSITIVE ENERGYHigh-energy positive emotions like

joy make people playful, and play is deeply implicated in the building of physical resources. There is direct evidence that positive emotion predicts health and longevity.

Positive emotion also protects people against the ravages of aging. You will recall that beginning nuns who wrote happy autobiographies when in their twenties lived longer and healthier lives than novices whose autobiographies were devoid of positive emotion, and also that optimists in the Mayo Clinic study lived significantly longer than pessimists. Happy people, furthermore, have better health habits, lower blood pressure, and feistier immune systems than less happy people.

POSITIVE ENERGYNot only do happy people endure

pain better and take more health and safety precautions when threatened, but positive emotions undo negative emotions.

Happy people were more likely to demonstrate that trait. They display more empathy and are willing to donate more money to others in need. When we are happy, we are less self-focused, we like others more, and we want to share our good fortune even with strangers. When we are down, though, we become distrustful, turn inward, and focus defensively on our own needs. Looking our for number one is more characteristic of sadness than of well-being.

POSITIVE ENERGY You can choose a life built around increasing

power through technology, engineering, construction, health services, or manufacturing. Or you can choose a life built around increasing goodness through the law, policing, firefighting, religion, ethics, politics, national service, or charity.

The good life consists in deriving happiness by using your signature strengths every day in the main realms of living. Using these same strengths to forward knowledge, power, or goodness. A life that does this is pregnant with meaning, and if God comes at the end, such a life is sacred.

POSITIVE ENERGYThere are many studies that correlate

positivity with later health, longevity, sociability, and success, the balance of the evidence suggests that in some situations negative thinking leads to more accuracy. Where accuracy is tied to potentially catastrophic outcomes (for example, when an airplane pilot is deciding whether to de-ice the wings of her airplane), we should all be pessimists.

POSITIVE ENERGYHealth is an attitude or orientation

comprising our basic values and beliefs about ourselves and the world around us. It is an inner quality that gives rise to particular health practices but cannot in itself be reduced to those practices.

POSITIVE ENERGY

As cardiologist, Dr. Paul Dudley White explained, “Body, mind, and soul are inextricably woven together, and whatever helps or hurts any one of these three sides of the whole man helps or hurts the other two.”

SEVEN STEPS TO WELLNESSRediscovering love

Reaching forgiveness

Building self-esteemDe-addiction

Meditation

Enjoyable exercise Einstein energy diet

Supportive of Health and Well-

BeingNon-Supportive of Health and Well-

Being

POSITIVE ENERGY Our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors influence a

virtual orchestra of biological responses that can promote health and prevent disease. This is a symphony played by mind, emotion, brain, behavior, and body. (ME-B3)

Mind

Emotion

Behavior

Brain/Body/Health

QUIZ: DO YOU HAVE POSITIVE ENERGY?

Do you exude a sense of support and compassion with others?Yes No

Do you think others feel safe and relaxed with you?Yes No

Are you a generally positive person?Yes No

Are you non-judgmental with yourself and others?Yes No

Are you compassionate with your own shortcomings and try to heal them?Yes No

Do you feel peaceful much of the time?Yes No

Are you able to let resentments go rather than harbor them?Yes No

Do you laugh frequently?Yes No

Are you kind to family, friends and people you don’t know well?Yes No

9 of your answers out of 9 suggest you have positive energy.

BENEFITS BE AN OPTIMISTHealthy, optimistic thinking can help you:

Improve your mood, self-esteem, and overall happiness

Decrease depression, anxiety and hostilityLessen pain and other bodily symptomsSpeed recovery from surgeryEnhance your immune functionPossibly extend your life

CHECK YOURSELF ARE YOU AN OPTIMIST?

Do you agree or disagree with the following statements? Don’t respond with what you think you should say, but how you typically view your life.In uncertain times, I expect the bestI’m optimistic about my futureEvery cloud has a silver liningIf something can go wrong, it willThings never work out the way I want them toI rarely count on good things happening to me

If you agree with the first three statements and disagree with the last three, you are an optimist.

If you disagree with the first three statement and agree with the lass three, you are more pessimistic.

A NEW SCIENCE—POSITIVE HEALTH

Principle investigator: Dr. Martin Seligman, U. of Pennsylvania

Positive health predicts increased longevity, decreased health costs, better mental health in aging, and better prognosis when illness strikes.

A focus on health rather than illness will be cost saving and life saving.

Bringing about well-being—positive emotion, engagement, purpose, positive relationships, positive accomplishment—may be one of our best weapons against mental disorder.

RESEARCH FINDINGSWomen who flashed Duchenne (genuine) smile in

their yearbook positive photos as freshman have more marital satisfaction twenty-five years later (Harker & Keltner, 2001)

Brief raising of positive mood enhances creative thinking and makes positive physicians more accurate and faster to come up with the proper liver diagnosis (Fredrickson, 2001: Isen, 2005)

The relation of national wealth to life satisfaction is dramatically curvilinear; after the safety net is met, increases in wealth produce less and less life satisfaction (Diener, Sandvik, Seidlitz, & Diener, 1993).

In business meetings a ratio of greater than 2.9:1 for positive and negative statements predicts economic flourishing (Fredrickson & Losada, 2005).

Peripheral attention is superior under positive emotion (Fredrickson & Branigan, 2005).

OTHER RESEARCH FINDINGSA state of positive health will

increase longevity and improve prognosis.

High optimism produced a remarkably low hazard ratio of 0.23 for CVD death.

A high correlation was found between high levels of optimism and increased protection against cardiovascular events.

OPTIMISMDepression significantly increases the risk

for cardiac events.Optimism and positive emotions are linked

to recovery after a major cardiac event.Optimism and positive affect may be

protective against other physical deterioration.

Positive emotional style may also act as preventive against the onset of the common cold.

There seems to be a strong link between positive psychology and positive health

So, you can learn to take control of your health just by changing the way you feel about yourself and the way you look at certain situations.

CHANGE All of us can benefit from applying a

little common sense to our everyday life, reaping the rewards in better relationships, healthier bodies and active minds.

“Your future should be better than your past because you can shape your future but the past is gone.”

To make changes to your life you first need to recognize that changes have to be made. It may be that your doctor has told you your cholesterol is too high or you have bad blood pressure.

One of the greatest tools that you can use to make changes in your life is a diary, where you write down your goals, thoughts and feelings then record what positive steps you undertake each day to meet your goals.

REDUCE STRESSReduce stress by surrounding yourself with

Positive Energy.Negative self-talk and negative energy can

create many health problems.Developing positive self-talk reduces stress

and increases health.Maintain a positive frame of mind (which will

help with positive self-talk), by surrounding yourself with positive energy in your life.

POSITIVE ENERGYYou can get that by adding the

following elements to your life:1. Uplifting music: soothing,

melodious and uplifting messages (e.g. Wilson Phillips’ “Hold On”).

2. Inspirational Books: Books on strength, personal power, enlightenment, or self help can be good resources to help you change your outlook and the things you say to yourself. Rather than triggering habitual self-defeating thoughts, you can find yourself thinking of new can-do concepts when times get tough. (For shifting your paradigm, I love Gary Zukav’s “The Heart of the Soul”, or Sarah Ban Breathnach’s classic “Simple Abundance”.)

POSITIVE ENERGY3. Positive People: One of the most important ways you can get (and

keep) positive energy in your life is with the company you keep. Do your friends uplift you, or bring you down? Are they critical, or complementary? Ideal friendships provide support when you’re down, fun when you’re up, wisdom when you’re lost, and positive regard. Good friends can inspire you to reach greater heights, and see your strengths even when you don’t always. Pay attention to how your friends make you feel, and if they’re less than supportive, start putting your energy and time toward people who are better suited to be your friend.

4. Practice Affirmations: Positive affirmations can subtly but pervasively change your self talk from negative to positive. See this article for some creative ways to begin working positive affirmations into your life.

GENERATE POSITIVE ENERGY!Positive people shine with energy, goodwill and vivacity.

They have an aura of confidence and success; they smile and appear confident; they enjoy life.

Each time you think negatively, a neurological pathway in your brain fires – and that negative thought, plus the mood associated with it, is activated. The more negatives you think, the more frequently negative pathways are activated and the worse you feel about yourself.

Thought Stopping is a technique for replacing negative thoughts with positive ones. Habitual thoughts have well-established neurological pathways and, just like using a pathway in a forest, the more traffic the pathway gets, the bigger it becomes. Establishing a new pathway takes work. If every time you trigger a negative, you use this to consciously replace it with a positive and make that positive more powerful, you can create new neurological pathways that change your thinking habits.

THE THOUGHT STOPPING TECHNIQUE

Every time a negative thought strikes, you replace it with a reasonable, alternative, positive thought. You repeat this positive thought aloud, and if possible, write it down. Saying positive thoughts employs multiple brain processes: the frontal lobes for decision-making; language centers for expressing and comprehending speech; auditory centers for hearing; lower brain centers for breathing and coordination; motor strip for muscle movement; temporal lobes, hypothalamus and limbic system for mood and memory. When we write, we activate visual processing, eye-hand coordination, spatial skills and the kinesthetic feel of reading and writing.

Next time any nasty, negative thoughts strike you: create realistic alternatives. "I'm ugly," can change to "I look okay," or "I have a nice smile."

After two or three weeks of practice it becomes second nature to self-correct. If you have thoughts like: No-one likes me; I'm never good enough; I'm stupid; I'm a rotten person; who'd want to be my friend, try these kinds of substitutes: * I have friends: I am likeable * It's normal to make mistakes: I'm not stupid. * I'm not perfect: I have good qualities.

Make creating positives your new feel-good habit! Positive self-talk nourishes not only your emotional and psychological health but also your physical health and well-being via the body-mind connection.

POSITIVE ENERGY – Dr. Judith Orlaf

1. Awaken your intuition and rejuvenate yourself – and learn the cure for techno despair and overload from emails, computers, and phones.

2. Find a nurturing spiritual path that fits your own beliefs and inner stirrings.

3. Design an energy-aware approach to diet, exercise, and health – and learn how to avoid the “energetic overeating” that sabotages attempts to lose weight.

4. Generate positive emotional energy to counter negativity.

5. Develop a heart-centered sexuality.6. Open yourself to the flow of creativity and

inspiration to achieve greater job.7. Celebrate the sacredness of laughter, pampering,

and the replenishment of retreat – it’s not selfish to take care of yourself.

8. Discover how to attract positive people and situations.

9. Protect your energy vampires with specific shielding techniques.

10. Create abundance and a continuing flow of energy.

POSITIVE ENERGYThe signs of positive

energy in people:1. They exude an inviting

sense of heart, compassion, and support.

2. You intuitively feel safe, relaxed, wanting to get closer to them.

3. They emanate a peaceful glow.

4. You feel better around them.

5. Your energy and optimism increases.

CHALLENGE YOUR WOULDA, SHOULDA, COULDA’S!Rehearse success:

When you aren’t happy with the way you handled a particular situation, try this exercise:Write down three ways that it could have gone betterWrite down three ways it could have gone worseIf you can’t think of alternatives to the way you handled it,

imagine what someone whom you greatly respect would have done

Or think what advice you would give to someone else facing a similar situation

Remember that mistakes aren’t failures. They’re good to learn. Mistakes give you the chance to rehearse other ways of handling things. This is great practice for future crises.

FOCUS ON WHAT YOU’VE GOTUse your thoughts to increase your happiness. Make it

a goal to think about positive events and experiences in your daily life as much as possible. Focus on what you have, not what you lack. Rather than mulling over your shortcomings or difficulties, think about the good things in your life. It might be your family, your friends, your work, or something you are looking forward to. Every one of us can find something to be grateful for.

AN IMPROVED SELF-IMAGEBy taking positive

steps to improve your health and looks, you gain a feeling of control over your life and body.

That sense of accomplishment and confidence will carry over to other areas of your life, raising your overall self-esteem.

FOLLOW YOUR BLISSPassions lead to good healthA positive attitude to life contributes to joy

and healthFor positive psychological health:

Be authentic with your feelingsLet go of blame, guilt, and faultKeep your attention on what feels good

Happiness = the life force and energy that keeps us vital and healthy

REMEMBERRemember, spend time with your loved ones, because they

are not going to be around forever. Remember, say a kind word to someone who looks up to you in awe, because that little person soon will grow up and leave your side.

Remember to give a warm hug to the one next to you, because that is the only treasure you can give with your heart and it doesn’t cost a cent.

Remember to say, “I love you” to your partner and your loved ones, but most of all mean it. A kiss and an embrace will mend hurt when it comes from deep inside of you.

Remember to hold hands and cherish the moment for someday that person will not be there again. Give time to love, give time to speak, and give time to share the precious thoughts in your mind.

28 SECRETS TO HAPPINESS Live beneath your means and

within your seams. Return everything you borrow. Donate blood. Stop blaming other people. Admit it when you make a mistake. Give all the clothes you haven’t

worn in the last three years to charity.

Every day do something nice and try not to get caught.

Listen more; talk less. Every day take a 30-minute walk in

your neighborhood. Skip two meals a week and five the

money to the homeless. Strive for excellence, not

perfection. Be on time. Don’t make excuses.

Don’t argue. Get organized. Be kind to kind people. Be even kinder to unkind people. Let someone cut ahead of you in

line. Take time to be alone. Reread a favorite book. Cultivate good manners. Be humble. Understand and accept that life

isn’t always fair. Know when to say something. Know when to keep your mouth

shut. Don’t criticize anyone for 24 hours. Learn from the past, plan for the

future, and live in the present. Don’t sweat the small stuff.

ATTITUDEThe longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude

on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than

money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness, or skill.

It will make or break a company...a church...a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day

regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past...we cannot change the fact

that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the

one string we have, and that is our attitude...I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and

90% how I react to it. And so it is with you...we are in charge of our attitudes.

IN MEMORY OF DONALD BOGGS

What Cancer Can’t Do – there is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. One of the most dreaded sentences a patient might hear is, “You have cancer.” these words bring a chill to the heart. Although great progress has been made in treating cancer, recovery can be long and painful, and some people do not survive. An enthusiastic believer in Christ, Don Boggs, lost his battle with cancer. But his life demonstrated that even though the physical body may be destroyed

by disease, the spirit can remain triumphant. This poem was distributed at his memorial service:

Cancer is so limited...It cannot cripple love,It cannot shatter hope,It cannot corrode faith,

It cannot eat away peace,It cannot destroy confidence,

It cannot kill a friendship,It cannot shut out memories,

It cannot silence courage,It cannot invade the soul,

It cannot reduce eternal life,It cannot quench the Spirit,

It cannot lessen the power of the resurrection.

Mother TheresaPeople are often unreasonable,

illogical, and self-centered; Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior

motives; Be kind anyway.

If you are successful you will win some false friends and

true enemies; Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you; Be honest and frank anyway.

What you spend years building, someone could destroy

overnight; Build anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, they may be

jealous; Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, people will often forget

tomorrow; Do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have, and it may never be

enough; Give the world the best you've got

anyway

You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God; It was never between you

and them anyway.

Nelson Mandela’s Inaugural Speech (1994)

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.

Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.

We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant,gorgeous, talented, fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be?You are a child of God.

Your playing small does not serve the world.There is nothing enlightened about shrinking

so that other people won't feel insecure around you.

We are all meant to shine, as children do.We were born to make manifest the glory of

God that is within us.It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone.

And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously

give other people permission to do the same.As we are liberated from our own fear,

our presence automatically liberates others.

AGING WELL (Harvard Study) Dr. George Vaillant

Iris Joy, the healthiest agerShe chose loving parents.Did not smoke or abuse alcohol.Knew how to savor joy.Knew how to turn lemons into lemonade.Learned from her children, but “Biology flows

downhill.”Remembered that all life is a journey.Knew the seeds of love must be eternally

resown.Knew how to give, to serve.

ALWAYS REMEMBER:

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take but the number of

moments that take our breath away.

The Wind, One Brilliant DayThe wind, one brilliant day, called to my soul with an odor of jasmine.

"In return for the odor of my jasmine, I'd like all the odor of your roses.""I have no roses; all the flowers

in my garden are dead." "Well then, I'll take the withered petals and the yellow leaves and the waters

of the fountain."The wind left. And I wept. And I said to

myself,"What have you done with the garden

that was entrusted to you ?"~Antonio Machado