Healthier Living With Positive Thinking In 2016

Oh holidays, how joyous you are. Driving to and fro. Coordinating schedules with friends, family, and somehow squeezing in your own personal life somewhere in there. It can get a little overwhelming to keep your sanity or as I call it sometimes, your positive thinking in flow. 

Make your happiness your New Year’s resolution this 2016. I’m dead serious. Make the conscious effort to make your joy an everyday reality. It’s an exercise, mediation, whatever you want to call it. Make it your 2016 practice. With so much focus on what we put inside our bodies, let’s talk about our mind, and how it plays such an important part in our health.

Have you ever caught yourself in the car replaying a conversation? How someone treated you? Talked to you? Did you keep yourself focused on those negative feelings instead of realizing how lucky you are to be driving, while looking at a beautiful purple sky.

“Change your thinking,” I heard myself say. I let myself realize I was playing negative stories on loop. It’s the worst. It keeps you in a bad mood. You get nothing productive done, and then you end up snapping at everyone else around you. When all you have to do is practice letting go of those negative thoughts only you can hear.

Ending the negative loop also gives your body other benefits. When the Mayo Clinic extolls the virtues of positive thinking you gotta take notice.

• Increase your life span
• Lower your rates of depression
• Lower your levels of distress
• Have greater resistance to the common cold
• Have better psychological and physical well-being
• Reduce your risk of death from cardiovascular disease
• Have better coping skills during hardships and times of stress

The way you’re mindful at the grocery store for your health, is the same way you gotta increase your positive thinking. You put veggies in your cart, do the same with your mind. Think of it as positive mental veggies. Your body will love you.

So how do you start? How do you practice positive thinking when you’re fighting traffic on the 405? Barbara Markway Ph.D,. of Psychology Today, has some great ideas for better headspace thoughts in 2016.

Ask yourself necessary questions about your thoughts such as:

• Is this thought true?
• Is this thought important?
• Is this thought helpful?

Instead of saying “I'm a loser,” say, “I'm having the thought that I'm a loser.” Instead of saying, “I'm going to blow this test,” say “I'm having the thought that I'm going to blow this test.” The difference may seem subtle, but it can help you gain the perspective that you are not your thoughts.

Thank your mind. 

If you're having anxious thoughts such as, “I hope this plane doesn't crash…I hope the pilot knows what he’s doing…” say, “Thank you, mind. Thank you for trying to keep me safe. But there's nothing that you really need to do right now. I’ve got it covered.” I’m big on notes to myself, so sometimes I write my mind a letter of appreciation for its efforts, but also let it know it can take a break.

Let them float away.

This one involves imagery. You put each negative thought on a leaf and imagine it floating down a stream. When you have another thought, as you will, you put it on another leaf and watch it float by.

Sing your thoughts. 

Try singing your thoughts to the alphabet song or to Row, Row, Row Your Boat. Your thoughts will certainty sound absurd this way, which is the whole point. Say them in a funny voice. Try saying your thoughts in a funny voice. Maybe do an imitation of a cartoon character. 

Name your stories. 

Many times our thoughts are repetitive and involve the same stories. My story frequently is, “I don't really know what I'm doing.” When thoughts come up along that storyline, I can say, “Oh, here’s my I’m Incompetent story, and just let it go.

Do it anyway.

Perhaps the most important tip is to remember that you can have a thought and perform any kind of behavior at the same time. If it’s something you care about, it’s worth it to let the thoughts simply be. You don’t have to do anything about them.

I know this post broke a little bit of the norm. We take such good care of our physical bodies with exercise and diet, but those aren’t the only things that matter. Positive thinking for 2016 will make our lives better, and the lives of everyone else around you. Let good things happen to you.