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The Power of Positive Thinking | Health & Medications

As the last day of the #xervanteschallenge I'd like to thank @xervantes and the fellow Steemians for partaking this past week. I greatly appreciate all the support. As an overall positive person in life I've come to the realization that what thoughts you put out in life will and do have an impact on your day to day outcomes and has an impact on your surroundings.

There is power in positive thinking, there's just to much evidence to show otherwise. Positive emotions are linked with better health, longer life, and greater well-being. On the other hand, chronic anger, worry, and hostility increase the risk of developing heart disease.

For some people, being happy comes naturally and easily. Others need to work at it. How does one go about becoming happier? That's where positive psychology comes in. Research in the field of positive psychology has shown how people and institutions can support the quest for increased satisfaction and the meaning of happiness.

1. Maintaining positive thoughts and emotions promotes well-being.

Recently in the field of psychology, there has been strong evidence demonstrating that mindfulness is significantly correlated with positive affect, life satisfaction, and overall well-being.

For over two thousands of years Buddhist have practiced mindfulness, this 'enhanced self-awareness' diminishes stress and anxiety and, in turn, reduces the risk of developing cancer, disease, and psychopathology. It is useful to practice mindfulness in positive psychology as a tool for general physical and mental health.

2. Retaining positive thoughts can improve your working memory

Working memory is the memory system that temporarily stores information in our minds for further recall and future processing. Many studies have been undertaken that suggest a strong interrelationship between attention and working memory.

Van Vugt & Jha (2011) undertook research that involved taking a group of participants to an intensive month-long mindfulness retreat. These participants were compared with a control group who received no mindfulness training (MT). All participants from both groups first undertook a memory recognition task before any MT had been providing. The second round of a memory recognition task was then undertaken by all participants after the month's training.

The results were positive - while accuracy levels were comparable across both groups, reaction times were much faster for the group that had received mindfulness training. These results suggested that MT leads to attentional improvements, particularly in relation to quality of information and decisional processes, which are directly linked to working memory.

3. Positivity acts as a buffer against depressive symptoms and stress regions in your brain

Remember that time you were nervous for that interview for the job, your palms were sweating with trouble sleeping the prior night? Every time we get stressed, the 'amygdala' takes over control. Amygdala is a key stress-responding region in our brain and plays important role in anxious situations. It's known that high amygdala activity is associated with depression and anxiety disorders (Siegle et al., 2002). The good news is that mindfulness practice can actually shrink the size of amygdala and increase our stress reactivity threshold.

There's a connection between long-term positive thinking and a decreased size of the amydala

Recent research performed by Taren and colleagues shows a connection between long-term mindfulness practice and a decreased size of amygdala (Taren et al., 2013). By practicing mindfulness, we can change how we react to stressful situations and improve our mental and physical well-being.

4. Positively Increases neuroplasticity

The term neuroplasticity refers to structural and functional changes in the brain related to experience. It has been known that musical training and language learning promote structural changes in our brain and cognitive abilities.

Mindful awareness is a form of experience that changes not only structure, but also the function of our brain throughout our lives.

You can think of mindfulness as a mental muscle. Every time we lift weight, we strengthen the muscle we are working on. In the same way, every time we pay attention to the present moment without judgment, connectivity of the attention, self-regulation and compassion circuitry grows in our brain.

5. Encouraging positive thoughts can help you make better use of your strengths

Positivity can help an individual express their character stregnths in a balanced way that is sensitive to the context and circumstance they are in (Niemiec, 2012).

A lot of research has shown that mindfulness influences mental health and personality (Baer, Smith & Allen, 2004). Not surprisingly, mindfulness is related to character strengths as well.

Mindfulness and strengths joined forces a long time ago. In Buddhism, mindfulness meditation not only relieves suffering but also cultivates positive characteristics and strengths such as compassion, wisdom, and well-being. Even the meaning of mindfulness, defined by Thich Nhat Hanh (Niemiec, 2014), includes some dimensions of strengths. He saw mindfulness as a means "to keep one's attention alive in the present reality. And this 'aliveness' captures both the self-regulation of attention and the approach of curiosity."

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