Positive Thinking and Stress Management

The key to managing stress is to understand it. If you accept that stress is a normal reaction and realize that without it you would not be able to react to situations quickly and would not have the stimulation needed to think and act accordingly. If you approach life with a positive attitude and use positive thinking to manage your stress level you can control the stress response and help to prevent the negative symptoms and outcomes associated with stress. There are several things that you can do to achieve this. Thoughts contribute a great deal towards feelings and coping abilities. Negative thoughts can make you feel trapped, anxious and can lead to stress and more damage caused by stress. The way you think, day in day out, affects all aspects of your life.

By tuning in to your thoughts and listening to your internal dialogue you can learn to recognize your thought patterns and how they may affect the way you handle stressful situations or react to the stressors that you encounter everyday. You may be surprised to find out how many negative thoughts you really have, it may even be helpful to write these thoughts or feelings down so that you can see them and turn them into more positive thoughts. The old saying that laughter is the best medicine has a lot of truth to it. Humor is a great mood lifter; it has actually been shown that those under stress tend to laugh the hardest. This laughter helps to relieve a lot of the tension that we harbor. Humor, like stress is an individual response, just as something may be funny to one individual it may not bring out any response or may even be hurtful to another, one event may be stressful or distressing to one and comfortable or neutral to another. It is important to communicate effectively. Not expressing your feelings can lead to frustration, hurt, anger or anxiety. Try to focus on the good things people have to offer rather than on their negative traits or bad habits. Helping others can be extremely therapeutic. Even simple acts of kindness can help bring about positive thoughts by making you feel good and giving you a sense of accomplishment and boost your self-esteem. Along these same lines is using positive affirmations, try to prepare yourself for what may come and congratulate yourself often. Don’t sweat the small stuff. Get back to basics. Take a walk in the park, a long relaxing bubble bath. Have dinner with friends and loved ones. Stay connected to those that are more positive as well. Spend time laughing and playing with children, acting silly sometimes can help you to forget those everyday pressures and change your way of thinking to be more positive.

You don’t need any special skills or talents to think positively just willingness. Studies have shown that those who have a positive outlook on life are less stressed, report fewer illnesses and are generally more successful in life.