Why be positive in the first place?

Consider these 3 key benefits

What are the real benefits of being more positive?

See the positive side, the potential, and make an effort. ~Dalai Lama

its easy to fall prey to negative thinking. Having negative thoughts play out like a movie can only bring
you pain. Negative thoughts drain you of energy and keep you from being in the present moment. The
more you give in to your negative thoughts, the stronger they become.

Thats what one small negative thought can turn into: a huge, speeding ball of ugliness. On the
contrary, a small positive thought can have the same effect blossoming into a beautiful outcome.

When we start to have negative thoughts, its hard to stop them. And its much easier said than done to
shift your focus to positive thoughts. But its the only way, especially if you want to avoid going down a
path that is painful and unnecessary.

The first thing I realized is how negative emotions affect us: they have proven many times to narrow our
focus and scope of work. Its one of the most powerful ways shut our minds off to opportunities or new
ideas.

We know that the effects of negative emotions are biological instincts programmed into our brains to
help us survive. For example, if we were to come across a dangerous animal in the wild, the negative
emotions of fear and anxiety would narrow our focus so that all we could think about was not becoming
that animals dinner. This helped us to more efficiently direct our energy and mental functions towards
that objective, without wasting our resources on unnecessary actions like working out which direction
were going or thinking about what to have for dinner when we get home.

Of course, modern life doesnt often put us in life-and-death situations like this, so allowing negative
emotions to narrow our thinking can be harmful. It can make us less open, more hard-headed and more
difficult to communicate with.

1. Negativity doesnt work Literally Our subconcious brain cant

handle it
The other thing about negativity is that our brains cant process negative words according to the latest
studies. So when we hear phrase like dont smoke or dont touch that, our subconscious skips over
these negative words and simply hears smoke or touch that. Our conscious mind can obviously
process these words, but its the subconscious that makes a lot of our decisions without us realizing.

For young children, this can often be an issue because they havent learned to use their conscious minds
to process those negative words and take control of the subconscious to make sure they follow
instructions correctly. Its no surprise why children decide that way if you look at the split between
conscious and subconscious mind according to psychology:
What this means for us is that we struggle to change our habits or thought patterns when we tell
ourselves negative phrases, since only our conscious minds can take those in. We can make this much
easier and let the subconscious do its job by using positively-framed phrases like refrain from smoking
or walk away from that.

2. Youll improve your outlook of the future

Positive thinking can actually improve our overall happiness. Ive written about this before in terms of
noting down things were grateful for on a regular basis and how that can improve our happiness.

Positive emotions are more likely to encourage people to plan ahead and think of actions they would
like to take or activities theyd like to participate in the future. Negative emotions, on the other hand,
led to participants being less inclined to think positively about their future.

3. Youll be more healthy

Yep, positivity has shown to directly affect your physical health. Another study from the University of
North Carolina used the ancient practice of loving-kindness meditation to test how cultivating positive
feelings like love, compassion and goodwill towards others could affect the emotional and physical
health of the participants.

Compared to the control group who did not participate in the meditation, the meditators showed
increases in positive emotions like amusement, awe and gratitude during the research period. They also
reported feeling more socially connected and closer to the people around them.

Physically, these participants showed improvements in vagal tone which is linked to cardiovascular
health and a general indicator of physical well-being.

1. Meditate or do yoga.
One of the first things I did was head to a yoga class. It took my focus away from my thoughts and
brought my attention to my breath. Yoga is also very relaxing, which helped ease my mind. Yoga helped
me stay present to my experience so instead of jumping to what could happen, it brought me back to
the nowthe only moment, the most important moment.

2. Smile.
I didnt do much of this during the weekend, so I literally had to bring myself in front of a mirror and
force myself to smile. It really does help change your mood and relieve stress. I also felt lighter because
it takes fewer muscles to smile than to frown.

3. Surround yourself with positive people.

I called a friend who I knew could give me constructive yet loving feedback. When youre stuck in a
negative spiral, talk to people who can put things into perspective and wont feed your negative thinking.
4. Change the tone of your thoughts from negative to positive.
For example, instead of thinking, We are going to have a hard time adjusting to our living situation,
think, We will face some challenges in our living situation, but we will come up with solutions that we
will both be happy with.

5. Dont play the victim. You create your lifetake responsibility.

The way I was thinking and acting, you would think I was stuck. Even if our living situation becomes
unbearable, there is always a way out. I will always have the choice to make change happen, if need be.

6. Help someone.
Take the focus away from you and do something nice for another person. I decided to make a tray of
food and donate it to the Salvation Army. It took my mind off of things and I felt better for helping
someone else.

7. Remember that no one is perfect and let yourself move forward.

Its easy to dwell on your mistakes. I felt terrible that I acted this way and that I wasted our weekend.
The only thing I can do now is learn from my mistakes and move forward. I definitely dont want to have
a weekend like that again.

8. Sing.
I dont remember lyrics very well and its probably the reason that I dont enjoy singing, but every time I
do sing I always feel better. When we sing, we show our feelings and this provides an amazing stress
relief.

9. List five things that you are grateful for right now.
Being grateful helps appreciate what you already have. Heres my list: my cats, health, a six-week trip to
Asia, a new yoga class that Ill be teaching, and for my moms biopsy coming out clean.

10. Read positive quotes.

I like to place Post-It notes with positive quotes on my computer, fridge door, and mirror as reminders
to stay positive.

1. Prepare your environment

Environment includes the people we spend time with and the messages we hear or tell ourselves, as
well as our physical environment.

The trick here is to ensure your environment is as conducive to you continuing your new habit as
possible. Here are some of Leos suggestions for how to achieve this:
Hang out with people who are doing the habit you want to do.

If there are people around you who dont do the habit you want to do, talk to them about what youre trying
to do, and ask for their help. Ask them to support you, and not rag on you all the time for changing.

Join a supportive community online who are doing the things you want to do.

Read blogs and books that inspire you to do the habit.

Have reminders all around you.

Create a public challenge for yourself, to create accountability.

Have a habit partner you report to each day, and make a vow never to miss.

In terms of being positive, you could find a friend or family member to do this with to keep you
accountable, or set a daily reminder so you dont forget. Filling your work space with positive sayings or
images could help, and reading books that encourage positive thinking will reinforce this.

2. Take note of 1 positive moment every day

Noticing the positive things that happen in your everyday life has been proven to be a successful
method of increasing your positive thinking. This doesnt just happen when youre doing the exercise:
the effects can actually last much longer.

A study of 90 undergraduate students had one half of them write about positive experiences for three
consecutive days. The second half wrote about control topics that didnt affect their emotions. After
three months, the study found that the students who had written about positive experiences still had
better mood levels and fewer illnesses. One activity thats often said to improve positivity is to write
down (or share with someone) three things youre grateful for at the end of each day.

3. Try to Meditate 2 minutes is enough

Meditating is beneficial for the body and mind. It not only improves mindfulness and positive thinking
while youre doing it, but it has been shown to decrease illness and improve mindfulness and feelings of
purpose in life up to three months after being practiced daily for a short period.

Starting small works for meditating, as well. Leo Babauta recommends just 2 minutes to start with,
which is easy to do and helpful in developing a strong habit. After establishing the habit for several
weeks, you can slowly increase the length of your meditation sessions to an amount that gives you the
most benefit.