THINK

THINK

Getting the Edge on Life 

I can remember the word written on the chalkboard in capital letters in one of my college courses for the entire course. I must admit I stole the idea many times myself. I would walk around and point to the word while failing to give any response or feedback.  Thinking is likely the most powerful tool for good or bad. Furthermore, thinking comes with countless benefits but only if used, for example,  knowing ourselves better. These are some major Edges that thinking can add to your Life. 

•              having more options in life space
•               being able to tell facts from fiction 
•                knowing hype from phony hope space

  Additional consequences of negative thinking:

·       Increased life span
·       Lower rates of depression
·       Lower levels of distress
·       Greater resistance to the common cold
·       Better psychological and physical well-being
·       Better cardiovascular health and reduced risk of death from cardiovascular                   disease
·        Better coping skills during hardships and times of stress
  © 1998-2020 Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research (MFMER). All rights reserved

Thinking is so vital to your intellectual life, career, ability to solve life’s problems, creativity, and mental health. I will share its benefits throughout the content. Seeing as having a more a positive attitude has such powerful consequences for the individual who is stuck in negativity and their loved ones and the power of correctly practiced thinking has so many positive results for happiness, success, health, self-esteem, and the continual growth and change of the brain I decided to start with this point. Not too nag, but too hopefully help you to find what you are looking for.

 

Positive thinking: Stop negative self-talk to reduce stress

Positive thinking helps with stress management and can even improve your health. Practice overcoming negative self-talk with examples provided.

By Mayo Clinic Staff

Is your glass half-empty or half-full?

The answer is either. Both are correct. However, those who answer that the cup is half full may be perceiving and seeing the world differently than many can comprehend despite other trite achievements  like winning the Pulitzer prize, the Noble peace price, or is generally just happier. Probably happier than you.  Seeing the good in life boosts our view on life, on ourselves

Being optimistic or pessimistic may even affect your health.

Indeed, some studies show that personality traits such as optimism and pessimism can affect many areas of your health and well-being.

The positive thinking that usually comes with optimism is a key part of effective stress management.

And effective stress management is associated with many health benefits.

If you tend to be pessimistic, do not despair — you can learn positive thinking skills.

Understanding positive thinking and self-talk

Positive thinking does not mean that you avoid your negativity and reality. What it means is that you approach the disagreeable ways of the world with a more productive manner.  We all get dealt bad hands. Its how you play them not statistical bad luck that leads to dealing with the problems you can. Also, you picture the possible outcomes less savagely. If you miss work, you just do your best and move on. I rather become convinced that there is a conspiracy to fire me and that I will live under the bridge if I cannot penetrate their evil network.

To become more optimistic try working on your self-talk. Self-talk is the constant recycling of thoughts that run through your head. These are called automatic thoughts. They are not all positive or all negative.  Some of your self-talk comes from rationality and explanation.  Other self-talk comes from misconstructions that you have.

If your thoughts mostly negative your view of life is more pessimistic. If your thoughts are you have an optimistic view on life who practices positive thinking.

The health benefits of positive thinking

Researchers continue to explore the effects of positive thinking and optimism on health. Health benefits that positive thinking may provide include:

Increased life span

Lower rates of depression

Lower levels of distress

Greater resistance to the common cold

Better psychological and physical well-being

Better cardiovascular health and reduced risk of death from cardiovascular disease

Better coping skills during hardships and times of stress

It's unclear why people who engage in positive thinking experience these health benefits. One theory is that having a positive outlook enables you to cope better with stressful situations, which reduces the harmful health effects of stress on your body.

It's also thought that positive and optimistic people tend to live healthier lifestyles — they get more physical activity, follow a healthier diet, and don't smoke or drink alcohol in excess.

Identifying negative thinking

Not sure if your self-talk is positive or negative? Some common forms of negative self-talk include:

Filtering. You magnify the negative aspects of a situation and filter out all of the positive ones. For example, you had a great day at work. You completed your tasks ahead of time and were complimented for doing a speedy and thorough job. That evening, you focus only on your plan to do even more tasks and forget about the compliments you received.

Personalizing. When something bad occurs, you automatically blame yourself. For example, you hear that an evening out with friends is canceled, and you assume that the change in plans is because no one wanted to be around you.

Catastrophizing. You automatically anticipate the worst. The drive-through coffee shop gets your order wrong and you automatically think that the rest of your day will be a disaster.

Polarizing. You see things only as either good or bad. There is no middle ground. You feel that you have to be perfect or you're a total failure.

Focusing on positive thinking

You can learn to turn negative thinking into positive thinking. The process is simple, but it does take time and practice — you're creating a new habit, after all. Here are some ways to think and behave in a more positive and optimistic way:

Identify areas to change. If you want to become more optimistic and engage in more positive thinking, first identify areas of your life that you usually think negatively about, whether it's work, your daily commute or a relationship. You can start small by focusing on one area to approach in a more positive way.

Check yourself. Periodically during the day, stop and evaluate what you're thinking. If you find that your thoughts are mainly negative, try to find a way to put a positive spin on them.

Be open to humor. Give yourself permission to smile or laugh, especially during difficult times. Seek humor in everyday happenings. When you can laugh at life, you feel less stressed.

Follow a healthy lifestyle. Aim to exercise for about 30 minutes on most days of the week. You can also break it up into 10-minute chunks of time during the day. Exercise can positively affect mood and reduce stress. Follow a healthy diet to fuel your mind and body. And learn techniques to manage stress.

Surround yourself with positive people. Make sure those in your life are positive, supportive people you can depend on to give helpful advice and feedback. Negative people may increase your stress level and make you doubt your ability to manage stress in healthy ways.

Practice positive self-talk. Start by following one simple rule: Don't say anything to yourself that you wouldn't say to anyone else. Be gentle and encouraging with yourself. If a negative thought enters your mind, evaluate it rationally and respond with affirmations of what is good about you. Think about things you're thankful for in your life.

Here are some examples of negative self-talk and how you can apply a positive thinking twist to them:

Putting positive thinking into practice
Negative self-talk	Positive thinking
I've never done it before.	It's an opportunity to learn something new.
It's too complicated.	I'll tackle it from a different angle.
I don't have the resources.	Necessity is the mother of invention.
I'm too lazy to get this done.	I wasn't able to fit it into my schedule, but I can re-examine some priorities.
There's no way it will work.	I can try to make it work.
It's too radical a change.	Let's take a chance.
No one bothers to communicate with me.	I'll see if I can open the channels of communication.
I'm not going to get any better at this.	I'll give it another try.

Practicing positive thinking every day

If you tend to have a negative outlook, don't expect to become an optimist overnight. But with practice, eventually your self-talk will contain less self-criticism and more self-acceptance. You may also become less critical of the world around you.

When your state of mind is generally optimistic, you are better able to handle everyday stress in a more constructive way. That ability may contribute to the widely observed health benefits of positive thinking.

 

© 1998-2020 Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research (MFMER). All rights reserved

Another advantage to being coming over a better thinker is. As we begin to use our decision-making qualities, we become more decisive in our thinking and in the choices that we make. In the process we are going to become one who is more listened, too, influential, and persuasive.

Blast off bottom-line: “We are what we think.”

The world, ourselves, our deepest emotional and spiritual feelings are ultimately constructing.  “We are what we think.”

Let us explore the power of the mind.  Say, for example you set up a joke where a new friend meets and pretends to hate one of your group. While acting on those feelings, whether they are true or not emotions of hate, fear, anger, betrayal, and more would be invoked. Attending a movie evokes, tears, laughter, regrets, fears, and so on despite that it’s a movie it's not happening it's for real. It is still sending or sending signals down the nervous system.

The brain is us.

 To become a better more versatile, efficient, and happy person building the mind is the key. This can be done by challenging your mind. Leonardo da Vinci uses an analogy, supported by research today, and when he said “just like rust unless it is you saw our intellectual ability or is not going to maintain itself. If we do not continue to use it. Research at UCLA has demonstrated that in fact, we have learned that if you decrease input into the mind. You will lose structure. The brain is like a muscle, use it. He gets bigger and stronger; do not you begin to well lose the brain. It turns out more and more as we learn has an ability to reorganize itself, it can grow within limits. We have also found that the brain is a powerful tool for helping us to explore our universe, whether it be space are different maths and sciences and other subjects. And now we have this subject of the brain itself, the neuroscience and how the brain works. Furthermore, in looking at the brain, one of the things that we do not have is the code for its DNA, it has not yet been deciphered brain research may still be at a stage before even Newton's discovery of gravity. It's rather crude in the sense. What makes us also much more difficult is that the brain is massive and very mysterious and XM is trying to find that word cryptic thing. These trillion cells in the brain. 100 billion of them are nuance neurons that are devoted to the thinking process. Period. Each of those on average reaches out to make 1000. Thanks, thousands and thousands of other contexts. For you to look along the entire labyrinth of the journey. We could take, and probably exceed the number of atoms in the universe. Neurons cannot communicate quite to the extent but the number of real potential pathways in the brain is still completely up to the imagination. With such complexity can our brain even begin to start to think and understand learn about itself. Perhaps this is the biggest problem we have attempting to get to know our mind. With the use of our mind. So, like using pliers to try to grasp something. While this obstacle may seem theoretically insurmountable. Practically, do we experienced the ability to reflect on our thought, and any attempt to escape this cyclic conundrum? In other words, metacognition. We will frequently stress communicating our thinking in writing, and in dialogue so that we get an objective. And now analyze genuinely analyze the results of our thinking. One of the best ways to understand what is in our mind, so that what comes out of it.