Gonna be honest here. Before I started on this journey when I thought of affirmations I thought of Stuart Smiley of SNL fame or YouTube memes. Neither inspires confidence in the practice. But after listening to podcasts like Black Girl in Om and Therapy for Black Girls, I decided to look into this whole positive self-talk thing. As it turns out both visualizations and affirmations are linked to the same idea: That the subconscious mind cannot differentiate between what is real and what is imagined.
In Visualize this! we covered research by neurologists that indicates that the same neurological networks are used both to imagine movement and to actually move. Imagining a movement over and over can have the same effect on our brains as practicing it physically. This is the same with the constant repetition of affirmations. The idea that by repeating, by writing and saying, the affirmation our brains will be trained to think in an entirely new way.
The difference from visualizations being that affirmations are best used to reinforce positive things we already believe refocusing the brain away from that negative litany many of us having spinning in our subconscious. If you are like me your internal dialog tends go in a downward spiral of negativity and anxiety. Simply standing in front of my mirror telling myself things I don’t really believe has not proven to be helpful. On the contrary, I tend to wind up focusing on the negative and then feel like even more of a failure for failing at my affirmations!
It turns out there are studies to help me understand why that is. According to research positive mantras like “I am beautiful.” or the classic Suart Smiley “Gosh darn it, people like me!” can do harm if the person saying them doesn’t believe them. Instead of being bolstered our brains immediately redirect to the idea that what we are saying is not in fact true undermining the affirmation and leading us back into that downward spiral of negativity and anxiety making us feel even worse.
While the brain can’t actually distinguish a truth from a lie this goes back to neuroplasticity and those deeply entrenched rivers of information with entire ecosystems of habits shoring them up. Even in our oldest ages the brain is changeable. However, the more and longer we do something the more difficult it is to alter those patterns. When we try to go against those patterns, try to swim against the current, we are choosing the path of highest resistance. Our internal sense of self is a powerful thing. By focusing on the positive we already believe we are strengthening those helpful patterns and weakening the negative ones.
Alternatively, we can choose to tell ourselves “white lies” that run parallel rather than contrary to our already internalized beliefs. In this way self-talk can shape the physiology of perception. Opinions, beliefs and assumptions, plus a variety of biases both explicit and implicit, strongly influence our perceptions. Everything from the level of pain we feel, to how something tastes, to what we see are manipulated by expectations of perception. With repetition in time the brain synapses change as our unconscious overrides our conscious mind causing us to start to believe, and therefore behave, differently.
In short: what we think matters. Research shows that our thoughts have a direct connection to our health. Thoughts are basically just chemicals in the brain. Happy thoughts produce happy chemicals. Negative, angry, or fearful thoughts produce negative, angry, fearful chemicals. Scientist Barbara Fredrickson, an American professor of psychology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has shown that positive emotions both broaden our perspective of the world and build over time.
Negative attitudes and feelings of helplessness and hopelessness, on the other hand, can create chronic stress. The multitude of damage caused by chronic stress is worth its own blog post. But it is worth it to mention that it can actually decrease our lifespans. Dr. Joseph Dispenza, author of Physics, the Brain and Your Reality, maintains that affirmations can psychologically buffer people against threat and foster resiliency. Like prayer and other forms meditation and visualization, affirmations actually change the brain on a cellular level.
In one study research indicates that people in low positions of power may perform better by using self-affirmations to calm their nerves. When study participants first called to mind their greatest job strengths or other positive assets they went on to operate with more confidence when placed in high-stakes situations. As Sonia Kang, the lead researcher and an assistant professor of organizational behavior and human research management at the University of Toronto notes, “Anytime you have low expectations for your performance, you tend to sink down and meet those low expectations. Self-affirmation is a way to neutralize that threat.”
This is true for all of us, especially when we are in situations in which we feel powerless. I could write for days about the feel-good habit of self-affirmation. Other studies have shown that affirmations have helped cancer survivors achieve higher levels of optimism, better health, greater happiness, hopefulness, and a lower likelihood of cognitive impairment. Self-affirmation improves problem-solving and may activate neural reward pathways. Other studies show it can help improve problem solving under stress, increase well-being, and foster self-compassion.
Positive self-affirmations also help strengthen our inner selves to defend against the repeated unconscious consumption of everything from the avalanche of advertisements to which we are exposed to negative messages from trusted figures, bad habits we pick up over time, and even our old nemesis chronic stress. Affirmations interrupt our dysfunctional neural networks. The more we use them, the more we rewire our brains to our new, heartening, beliefs. Using affirmations in our daily routines helps to reprogram the subconscious mind to be more connected with what we actually want in our lives.
Getting started.
Write about the things you value. Be it your family, your career, your creativity, or your strength. Research has shown that doing this can improve our feelings of self-worth and make us respond more constructively to our realties. Think future tense. The effectiveness of self-affirmation has been specifically correlated with levels of brain activity seen during future-oriented thinking. Basically, doing self-affirmations in a future-oriented way kicks the whole procedure up a notch.
As with visualization affirmations work best when the subconscious mind is most open to helpful and beneficial suggestions – while we are in the “alpha” brainwave state. Unlike visualization, which depends on concentration and the formation of a visceral almost alternate mental reality, affirmations are all about repetition. They should be done at least once a day, best several times a day. If you already meditate or visualize adding affirmations is a great way to get even more out of your practice. But even if you don’t and have no intention of pursuing meditation or visualization repeating a few affirmations to yourself as you drift off to sleep may be greatly beneficial.
Place your name in the affirmation. For reasons still being studied using “I” can actually have negative effects. So, in the beginning of this post when I said “I am beautiful.” or “Gosh darn it, people like me!” I should have been saying, “Rena, you are an attractive woman.” or “Rena, there are a lot of people out there that truly care about you!” Shifting from ‘I’ to our own names can help change the way we feel and behave. It adds distance that may allow us to be kinder to ourselves. Add a feeling to strengthen the affirmation. As with visualization the more we connect to the affirmation, the better.
I know it may sound as though I am redundant, that I am repeating myself, that I am saying things over and over, but that’s what affirmations are all about! Write them on your bathroom mirror, in your car if you have one. Put Post-It notes on walls, mirrors, doors, in books. If you are tech savvy make a mixtape or use them as a screensaver. Record them onto your phone and listen while working out or just cleaning. Create a random repeating calendar event. When we repeat a statement about ourselves continually over an extended period of time, we form new brain synapses and pathways. These new rivers of thought in turn change our actions. We then see the positive results in our lives. Write your affirmations EVERYWHERE. What do you have to lose?
Sources
https://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-18444/the-scientific-reason-affirmations-work-so-well.html
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/self-affirmations-boost-performance_n_7079350
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2014/10/07/353292408/why-saying-is-believing-the-science-of-self-talk
https://www.spiesfittofight.com/blog/science-behind-affirmations
https://www.asc.upenn.edu/news-events/news/study-reveals-neural-mechanics-self-affirmation
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/embodied-wellness/201704/affirm-or-not-affirm
https://academic.oup.com/scan/article/11/4/621/2375054
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0146167215577365
http://www.peacelovelunges.com/blog/ecosystem/get-rid-of-fear-and-pain-once-and-for-allpgsxmyifiuhtvhqa2piwq/
https://www.thecut.com/2015/11/why-self-affirmation-works.html
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-athletes-way/201402/chronic-stress-can-damage-brain-structure-and-connectivity
https://www.takingcharge.csh.umn.edu/how-do-thoughts-and-emotions-affect-health