Is your glass half empty or half empty? Answering this age-old question about positive thinking can reflect your attitude towards life, your attitude towards you, and your optimism or pessimism - and it can also affect your health.

Indeed, some studies suggest that personality traits such as optimism and pessimism can affect many aspects of your health and well-being. Positive thinking, which is usually accompanied by optimism, is an important part of effective stress management. And effective stress management has many health benefits. If you're usually pessimistic, don't give up - you can learn positive thinking skills.

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Understanding positive thinking and self-talk

Positive thinking does not mean putting your head in the sand and ignoring less pleasant living situations. Positive thinking simply means looking at your problems more positively and productively. You think that would be best, not the worst.

Positive thinking often begins with talking about oneself. Self-talk is an endless stream of unexpected thoughts running through your head. These automatic thoughts can be positive and negative. Part of your conversation comes from logic and reasoning. Lack of information can lead to other conversations about you due to mistakes you have made.

If the thoughts that run through your head are mostly negative, then your outlook on life is possibly pessimistic. If your mind is mostly positive, then you are the most optimistic - someone who has positive thinking.

Benefits of positive thinking for health

Researchers continue to study the effects of positive thinking and optimism on health. Positive thinking that can provide health benefits include:

Increase in life expectancy

Lower levels of depression

Lowest level of disaster

More resistance to cold

Better psychological and physical well-being

Improve cardiovascular health and reduce the risk of death from cardiovascular disease

Best handling skills during tough tests and stress

It is unclear why those who think positive experience these health benefits. One theory is that a positive attitude allows you to better deal with stressful situations, which reduces the harmful effects of stress on your health.

It is also believed that positive and optimistic people lead a healthy lifestyle - they walk more actively, follow a healthy diet and do not smoke and no longer drink alcohol.

Detect negative thinking

Don't know if your conversation is positive or negative? Some common forms of negative self-talk include:

Filtrate. You increase the negative sides of the situation and filter out all the positive aspects. For example, you had an amazing day at work. You have completed your work long ago and you are praised for your quick and complete work. In the evening, focus on your plan to complete even more tasks and forget the praise you receive.

Personalization. If something bad happens, you automatically take the blame. For example, you hear that an evening with friends has been canceled and you believe that plans are changing because no one wanted to come to your area.

To doomsday You automatically predict the worst. Travel Cafe accidentally accepts your order and you automatically think that the rest of the day will be a disaster.

Polarization. You only see things as good or bad. There is no middle position. You feel that you have to be complete, otherwise you are a complete failure.

Focus on positive thinking

You can learn to convert negative thinking into positive. The process is simple, but it takes time and practice - you create a new habit. Here are some ways to think and do more positive and optimistic work:

Identify areas that need to be changed. If you want to be more optimistic and think more positively, then you should first identify the areas of life that you usually think negatively, be it work, daily commute or relationships. For a more positive outlook you can start small by focusing on one area.

look at yourself. Regularly throughout the day, stop and evaluate what you think. If you feel that your mind is mostly negative, try to find a way to bend it positively.

Be open to humor. Allow yourself to smile or laugh, especially during difficult times. Look for humor in everyday events. If you can laugh in life, you feel less stressed.

Follow a healthy lifestyle. Try to exercise for about 30 minutes on most days of the week. You can also divide it into pieces for 10 minutes a day. Classes of Sh.