The Science of Positive Thinking

Some ways to inculcate positivity into your lives would be to identify the areas of change, checking yourself to evaluate daily situations and trying to draw out the positives from them. Being open to humour i.e. laughing and smiling during difficult times, following a healthy lifestyle, exercising at least thrice a week and practicing positive self-talk are immensely helpful ways to inculcate positive thinking and motivation.

All of the above are some of the possible symptoms of negative thinking. Personalizing is automatically blaming yourself for any negative event. Catastrophizing is anticipating of the worst every time. Filtering is only considering the worst of the day, and forgetting the positives. Polarizing is considering things to be either good or bad; without any middle ground.

A study conducted among a group of patients suffering from various chronic disorders showed that those who had negative thoughts and engaged in a lot of negative self-talk have experienced greater pain and higher amount of psychological distress.

After research had been conducted on a number of subjects, it was concluded that being negative adversely affects the cognitive functioning of the brain and hampers your decision-making abilities.