I’m the master of my mind and I choose to focus it on the positive things around me, the great people, powerful lessons and countless opportunities. You may choose to use positive affirmations to motivate yourself, encourage positive changes in your life, or boost your self-esteem. If you frequently find yourself getting caught up in negative self-talk, positive affirmations can be used to combat these often subconscious patterns and replace them with more adaptive narratives. Even on days when I don’t make much progress, I am constantly learning. On other days, I make amazing progress toward my goals. According to psychotherapist Ronald Alexander of the Open Mind Training Institute, affirmations can be repeated up to three to five times daily to reinforce the positive belief. He suggests that writing your affirmations down in a journal and practicing them in the mirror is a good method for making them more powerful and effective (Alexander, 2011). Can They Help with Anxiety and Depression? When you regularly use positive affirmations, even if you don’t feel they are true right now. Helps to convince your brain into taking them as fact. And when your brain believes something, science has shown that your actions tend to follow.

You Can Do All Things: Drawings, Affirmations and Mindfulness to Help with Anxiety and Depression – Kate Allan One of the key psychological theories behind positive affirmations is self-affirmation theory (Steele, 1988). So, yes, there are empirical studies based on the idea that we can maintain our sense of self-integrity by telling ourselves (or affirming) what we believe in positive ways. Hay argued that self-perspectives and other negative beliefs are often the causes of our health problems. Through affirmations and other alternative approaches like positive thinking, she argued, we have the power to transform our lives and health. Cowan, DG, Vanman, & Mark Nielsen, M (2014). Motivated empathy: The mechanics of the empathic gaze, Cognition and Emotion, 28:8, 1522-1530. DOI: 10.1080/02699931.2014.890563 If you habitually use mirror time to gaze at your flaws and criticize yourself, try to break that habit. Don’t allow your gaze to shift to parts of your body that inspire negativity and criticism, and quiet any critical thoughts. Accept yourself as you are in that moment. Affirm YourselfAccording to Louise Hay, affirmations and positive thinking expert, the morning is a great opportunity to practice mirror work, in which you recite affirmations while looking at yourself in the mirror. Self-affirmation has been demonstrated to lower stress and rumination (Koole et al., 1999; Wiesenfeld et al., 2001). By learning to practice positive affirmations at a young age, kids can become much more prepared to use them when facing difficulties later in life (Bloch, 2015). These are very simple affirmations because the easier they are for young kids to remember, the more likely children will be able to practice them without an adult’s help.

ThinkUp is an app featuring affirmations that are personally used by dozens of notable people, including coaches, athletes, authors, and more. If it seems difficult at first to think of a meaningful set of affirmations, this is a great source of inspiration. 2. Shine If you have good thoughts they will shine out your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.” -Roald Dahl Affirmations counteract the negative self-talk that runs through our heads– they also help to reprogram our minds. Positive affirmations are self-affirming phrases that people repeat out loud. Dr Moses says they’re “designed to promote positive thoughts, feelings and attitudes”. The sentences chosen are specific and individual to each person . Often your brain can mix up what is reality and what is imagination. Think of how if you wake during an intense dream and your heart is still racing and you’re covered in sweat. All because your brain didn’t know the difference between reality and a dream so it activated those fight or flight responses.

Moodboosters are a suite of short, interactive videos that can be used by teachers and parents/carers at home to get active, whilst supporting mental health and wellbeing. Each Moodboosters video ends with a positive affirmation, why not try repeating some of the affirmations from our Family Moodboosters at home with your family daily: You may also want to consider combining a self-affirmation practice with other self-help techniques or strategies, such as goal-setting, visualization, or positive thinking. When to practice

Very briefly, self-integrity relates to our global self-efficacy—our perceived ability to control moral outcomes and respond flexibly when our self-concept is threatened (Cohen & Sherman, 2014). So, we as humans are motivated to protect ourselves from these threats by maintaining our self-integrity. Self-Identity and Self-Affirmation To get the most benefit from mirror affirmations, it’s important to find a quiet, private space where you can focus without distraction. This might be your bathroom, bedroom, or another space where you feel comfortable and at ease. Rather than encouraging someone to convince themselves that their negative belief is not true, the idea behind using affirmations is to teach people to redirect their focus to a positive belief that is no less significant than the negative belief. If they can get into the habit of using positive affirmations regularly, they will be able to build a greater sense of self-belief, self-worth, and competence.

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Find affirmations that are meaningful for you! The sample code for this project comes with 17 mood-boosting quotes from famous creatives: Mirror work can make us feel initially uneasy because it exposes our inner critic in plain daylight. This kind of affirmation is a positive statement about your physical well-being. Popularized by author and speaker Louise Hay, these affirmations are based on the idea that your thoughts can influence your health for the better. You don’t have to be unwell to practice healing affirmations; this idea can be just as helpful for healing emotional pain if you find the idea rings with you.

These affirmations were adapted from quotes written by coach and trainer Caroline Rushforth. Words of Affirmation to Use During Pregnancy Cohen, G. L., & Sherman, D. K. (2014). The psychology of change: Self-affirmation and social psychological intervention. Annual Review of Psychology, 65, 333-371. Gilbert, P. (2014). The origins and nature of compassion focused therapy. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 53, 6–41. DOI:10.1111/bjc.12043 A: No, you can repeat your affirmations silently if that feels more comfortable for you. The important thing is to focus on each word and the feeling it evokes. There are no hard and fast rules about timing or frequency when it comes to practicing self-affirmations.

Positive Affirmation Cards

It’s as simple as one unique positive affirmation each day with this app, which you can either visit daily to see the affirmation, or you can set it up to send you push notifications. In addition, Unique Daily Affirmations has a nice feature in which you can record your own affirmations and upload your own photos to make it more “you.” Using affirmations may help you feel more confident in your abilities overall, helping you in preventing thoughts or behaviors that may impede your potential for success and achievement.