Positive self-affirmations – Technique to feel better

According to neuroscientists, a person has an average of 60,000 thoughts a day. How about changing negative thoughts for positive thoughts? This behavior psychology technique helps to change thinking habits.

Hello friends!

According to neuroscientists, a person has 60 thousand thoughts a day, on average. It’s a staggering number, isn’t it? What most people don’t realize is the relationship between what we think and what we feel. However, this relationship does not go unnoticed for those who study psychology, and it has not gone unnoticed in Hindu culture either. In Hindi, there is the word kama-manas, that is, feel-think, wish-conceive as a single word, given the strong union that exists between what a person thinks and the way he feels.

I’ll give you an example from an excellent book I’m reading called Behavior Modification: what it is and how to do it.

Technique to feel better

In Garry Martin and Joseph Pear’s book, we find several behavior therapy techniques for behavior modification. As we know, for behavioral psychology, psychology is the science that studies behavior. And behavior that we cannot directly observe, such as a thought, is called private behavior or covert verbal behavior.

Despite not being directly observable, it is under the direct influence of what precedes it (what comes before) and what follows it (what happens after). Therefore, the behavior analyst is able to study and change it as well as other observable behavior. What happens after the behavior is emitted can cause the behavior to increase or decrease in the future. If the probability of an increase happens, we will speak of reinforcement.

And, according to David Premack, a behavior that has a high probability of occurring can be used as a reinforcement for a behavior that has a low probability:

“WG Johnson (1971) used this principle to help a depressed college student increase the frequency of positive self-statements. The student was asked to imagine a positive thought (a low probability behavior), suggested by means of a positive sentence written on a card, immediately before each time he went to urinate (the highest probability behavior). After a few days, the student imagined the positive self-affirmations immediately before urinating, without the need to reread the chart. After two weeks of this procedure, the student reported that positive thoughts were occurring at a higher frequency (and depressive thoughts had completely disappeared)” (MARTIN, p. 43-46).

That is, the high-probability behavior is urinating. After all, everyone needs to pee and they pee. But the behavior of thinking a positive self-affirmation for many people is a low probability behavior. Many people only think statements like:

– “How stupid I am”

– “How ugly / ugly I am”

– “As I don’t know how to do anything”

– “I will never be able to do this”.

These are negative self-statements that, of course, will cause a type of response from the individual himself, such as a depressive state. People who don’t have a depressive condition, in turn, don’t think this way. Among the 60,000 thoughts of a day, they think differently:

– “How smart I am”

– “How handsome / pretty I am”

– “I know how to do many things and I will learn this too”

— “I can will get it done,” &c.

These are just a few examples to show the difference between self-affirmations – statements you make to yourself – that are negative or positive. With Johnson’s technique, it is possible to increase the number of positive self-statements, which will obviously be very good for the individual, pairing positive self-statements with everyday behavior.

So, in summary, the technique to feel good consists of:

1) Find a behavior that you do often (urinate, brush your teeth, drink water)

2) Create positive statements about yourself

3) Every time you go to perform routine behavior (urinating, brushing your teeth or other) repeat the positive phrases about yourself.

People often report that it can look ridiculous, weird, weird. But it’s a thought like any other. The difference is that, over time, the second behavior, of thinking or saying positive self-affirmations, will have a beneficial effect. Overcome initial resistance and repeat the procedure for 21 days.

Conclusion

From the moment self-affirmations are made, a new state is put into play. As a thought generates a feeling, the change is significant. After all, if you think you’re incompetent, you won’t feel good.

To conclude, I would like to give an example that we find in cognitive psychology, for people who want to lose weight. Eating is just and just a behavior. However, what is before, during and after the behavior is very different for a thin person and for a fat person. (If we could film what people think about food, that would be super interesting).

A person who is overweight may be struggling with their desire to eat. She thinks about everything she can’t eat and keeps visualizing deprivation, that is, the fact that she can’t eat. In the end, she gives in to the temptation of thinking so much about delicious foods and thinks: “What’s the use, I’m already overweight anyway. More of this or more of that won’t make that much of a difference.”

A skinny person doesn’t think the same way. First, it doesn’t dwell on the conflict between eating and not eating. He just eats and maybe even forgets to eat, because there is no conflict.

Thus, a person who wants to lose weight has to think like a thin person thinks and the beginning of this process can happen through thinking. Instead of thinking: “I’m overweight and I want to lose weight and I can’t eat”, the tip that experts give is to think from the present how a thin person thinks: “I am a thin person. I will eat what I want to eat, calmly and calmly”. Studies indicate that just the fact of eating slowly already reduces weight, because the brain takes 15 minutes to feel the amount of food present in the stomach. Thus, those who eat slowly, end up eating less.

Well, this is just an example. At first, as I said, this may seem like nonsense. Something that doesn’t work. However, the fact of thinking this is another statement. Saying, “I’m a smart person,” and seconds later thinking, “Oh, what’s the point. I’m really stupid” isn’t going to change anything really.

The path to change, be it change in one area of ​​life or another, begins with thinking-feeling. By modifying the self-affirmations we are opening a new path. When passing to truly believe in self-affirmations we will certainly have changed our route. Like the depressive patient who only thought of negative self-statements and, by associating positive self-statements when going to the bathroom, was able to overcome his depression.

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