1. Making a Commitment to Your Positive Mental Health

    October 15, 2013

    Making a Commitment to Your Positive Mental Health

    by Kari Lloyd

    No matter what your current life circumstances are, it is essential to maintain your mental health. After all, many of mental health problems can be caused by issues from your past, and this makes it imperative to consciously take steps to improve your overall sense of well-being. Fortunately, there are several things that you can do to gain control over your mental health, and placing an emphasis on these techniques will make it much easier to remain positive during every aspect of your life.

    Six Tips for Improving Your Mental Health

    1) Counseling – Everyone needs to talk about their problems, and it is not always beneficial enough to discuss everything with a friend. Instead, you can utilize the services of a trained counselor to work through all of your issues in a safe environment. As an added bonus, a counselor can introduce you to coping techniques that will make it easier to deal with all of the aspects of your daily life that cause you to feel stressed out or depressed.

    2) Exercise – One of the best ways to achieve and maintain a more upbeat outlook on life is to exercise on a regular basis. Although it can be difficult to get motivated to work out if you are feeling depressed, you will quickly begin to experience the positive mental benefits that accompany even the most simplistic exercise routine. Therefore, even if you do not feel up to it, you should force yourself to take a walk at least three or four times a week in order to help regulate your mood.

    3) Socialize – Anyone who has ever dealt with depression knows how easy it is to lose touch with your friends and loved ones. However, allowing yourself to become socially disconnected is a huge mistake that will only exacerbate your depression. In order to avoid this problem, you should make social commitments at least once a week to ensure that you get out of the house on a regular basis.

    4) Express Yourself Creatively – Whether you are interested in drawing, writing, making music or scrapbooking, you should definitely enable yourself to release your emotions through a creative outlet. This will give you a positive way to channel your negative emotions, and it will also help you improve your self-esteem.

    5) Make a Promise To Yourself – You might have heard of couples making promises to care and support each other with rings, so why not make the same commitment to yourself? A promise ring or small token can motivate to remember that you’re important to and keep you focused when you feel you’re going off the tracks.

    6) Join a Support Group – If you are dealing with a specific issue such as a serious illness or abuse, you should consider joining a support group. This will give you another opportunity to express your feelings in a safe environment, and it can also be very comforting to speak with other people who have had the same experiences.

    As long as you remain committed to improving your mental health, you should begin seeing positive results relatively quickly. Keep in mind that you are still going to have ups and downs, but you should be able to manage them more effectively by giving yourself at least one proven outlet for dealing with your feelings.

    Image Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/22498741@N02/2425844539

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  2. How to use positive affirmations for maximum psychological benefit

    June 1, 2013

    positive affirmations

    We all have the same goal in life when we strip all nonsense to the basics. We all wish to experience as much life as we can, and learn and grow from those experiences.

    Although we could never run of new things to try we seldom do. Most of us have a routine that we stick to for months, or even years.

    We all have baggage we carry

    The reason is that we all have some kind of baggage or a barrier that holds us back from really prospering. These barriers can come in many forms.

    For example, some of us may lack the confidence to go after what we want, others may believe that they are not good enough, and then there are those of us that are addicted to one thing or another, be it cigarettes, alcohol, food or something different entirely.

    Unfortunately it usually takes us a lot more time to deal with our problems than we both planned and hoped it would take. Some of us might never even get close to getting rid of our baggage.

    Positive Thinking

    The first, fundamental thing every one of us needs in order to be able to develop is a positive mindset.

    A positive mindset will make it much more likely that you will find the motivation, strength and endurance to do what needs to be done so you can finally start living the life of your dreams.

    There are many ways to rewire your psyche to think positively.

    Positive Affirmations

    Positive affirmations are just statements which we affirm to be true. We affirm those statements to ourselves.

    The goal of affirming sentences to ourselves is to start believing in them. Positive affirmations a person might recite to him or herself might include ones like “I am confident”, “I always go after what I want”, “I love myself” and “People find me attractive”, among countless others.

    Positive affirmations help solve pretty much any problem you may have, if they are used the right way. Here is list of a few problems they can help you deal with:

    • Confidence issues
    • Health issues
    • Weight loss
    • Quitting smoking
    • The law of attraction

    There are of course many more areas positive affirmations can help you with. You can find a huge list of positive affirmations written to help you deal with almost any problem imaginable at http://www.freeaffirmations.org/.

    How Do Positive Affirmations Work?

    The underlying reason positive affirmations work is repetition.

    Go back to the time when you were in primary school. The way you learnt anything was to repeat it enough times so that you were able to recite it at will, even if someone woke you up at any point during the night.

    That is the same way positive affirmations work. Repeat them enough times, and you will rewire your mind and replace the old, negative beliefs that hold you back with the new, positive ones that will help you take your life to the next level.

    You would use positive affirmations by first writing down the ones you believe would benefit you the most, and then setting up a time each day during which you would recite them to yourself.

    Do stay consistent. Reading them takes only a few minutes of your time per day, while the positive changes that the affirmations would bring would be permanent!

    The Best Way To Use Positive Affirmations

    There are a few things that can help you get the maximum benefit from reciting positive affirmations. Of course, over time you will develop a style that suits you best, but this is a list of things that work form most people.

        1. Stand in an upright position, take a good posture and relax your shoulders;

     

        2. Speak affirmations out loud one by one, with a tone of voice that leaves no doubt that you are confident in what you are saying;

     

        3. Speak in a slow, deliberate fashion. Take your time;

     

        4. Speak in front of a mirror so you are able to catch yourself if you are breaking any of the rules;

     

      5. Smile;

    Reciting affirmations two times per day, once when you get up, and once before you go to bed and repeating your list of affirmations a few times in a row could also help you to maximize their effectiveness.

    As already stated, they work because of repetition. Make a list of affirmations, schedule the time to recite them each day and do so in a confident manner fully believing in what you are saying, and over the next few weeks you should see gradual positive changes in your behavior, and also in the way you feel and the way you think.

    It would be advisable to make a promise to yourself that you will stick to reciting the affirmations for 30 days, and see where to go from there. Basically, when you experience the results after those 30 days have passed, you might realize that positive affirmations might have been the best thing you have discovered in your life.

     

    Image Credit: Spencer Williams

     

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  3. Pushing Your Limits With Positive Thinking

    May 11, 2013

    motivation to get fit

    It’s true that exercise boosts confidence; however, everyone is prone to moments of doubt and negative self-talk – the key to overcoming or pushing through challenges is with positive thinking.  Before you cross that finish line you’ll want to give up and before you lose those next 10 pounds, you’ll want to cheat; positive thinking will help you stay on top of your goal whether it’s a better diet, increasing your 1 rep max, or finishing that first race.  So, when you want to give up, drop the dumbbell, or curse burpees, it’s time to practice these positive thinking exercises to help you stick to those goals.

     

    Find Your Mantra

    Mantra is like a mini pep-talk; words or phrases that resonate with you and move you to action.  Your words or phrase may only mean something to you, based off of a past event in your life or a goal of where you want to be.  Whatever it is, it must drive you and encourage you to push beyond what you believe you are capable of at that time.  These words of affirmation need to be repeated often; when you’re strong, when you’re in doubt, when you are about to give up – give yourself your pep-talk.  Say it in front of the mirror as you stand tall; believe what you tell yourself and most of all believe in yourself.  Here are some mantra ideas you can try:

    • Eat for the body you want, not for the body you have.
    • I deserve this.
    • Of course it’s hard.  It’s supposed to be hard.  If it were easy, everybody would do it.
    • I never regret a good workout.
    • The food I eat today is the body I wear tomorrow.
    • You know your limit, and this is NOT it.
    • There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.

     

    See it to Believe It

    We’ve all heard of great stars visualizing the game-winning basket, as conceded as it sounds, visualization is how they got to be that star in the first place; you need to see it to believe it.  Spend time visualizing yourself crossing that finish line, see that scale read 10 pounds lighter, or imagine yourself rocking the body solid leverage gym.  This exercise is important in positive thinking because visualizing where you want to be helps you see the path you need to take and it motivates you to action.  The more you see it, the more you can believe it.  And when you have moments of doubt, setbacks, and moments of trial, stop and visualize where you want to be and what you need to do to get there.

     

    Acknowledge Your Progress

    Keeping a log of what you do or what you eat isn’t to guilt you into working out every day; it’s a way to track your progress.  You should record what you did, how you felt, how you’ve improved, and take pride in what you’ve done!  Sure, you’ve probably made mistakes, but with positive thinking it’s important to reflect on those mistakes to determine you where you can improve rather than to beat yourself up.  As you analyze where you’ve been and where you are now, think on experiences where you were successful or that made you happy, and have helped you realize that it’s all been worth it.  These moments are what will keep you going when you’re ready to give in.

    Setting and reaching your goals can be hard and discouraging, but if you use positive thinking to face your obstacles with an optimistic outlook you’ll be on your way to setting new limits.  So before you throw in the towel, try one of these exercises to renew your motivation.

     Image Credit: Lululemon Athletica

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