Positive Thinking and Your Health

It is now a proven fact: What you think about has a direct impact on every aspect of your life, including your physical well being.

Recent studies show that the expression of gratitude, for example, can have profound and positive effects on our health, our moods and even the survival of our marriages.
Interestingly, a focus on gratitude, made those who were less fortunate, far happier than others whose lives were more abundant in wealth, comfort, and resources. There have also been many studies done on the physical wellbeing of those who felt gratitude versus those who did not. The results? Again the positive thinking power that accompanies gratitude had a measurable (positive) impact on the health of those who felt it on a regular basis.

This tells us that there is a lot to be gained when you flexing your positive thinking power to feel gratitude. Gratitude and love are two of the strongest positive emotions. You can’t possibly feel negativity and gratitude at the same time.

Understanding the Gains From Positive Thinking Power:

When you are able to think positively, it will translate into far more than just a temporarily improved mood or outlook. There are long-lasting physical benefits from flexing your positive thinking power. As a simple example, when you prevent negative thinking from filling your thoughts, you are going to reduce your blood pressure. This is a "given" at any time of the day or night.

Just think about it for a moment - when you allow stressful or negative issues to fill your thoughts, they will make you tense. As you get tense, your heart rate might increase, your blood pressure might rise, and you might mentally relive moments that have brought you some very strong and harmful reactions.

We can easily lock ourselves into entire days of thinking in this way, and the physical impacts are profound. Allowing our minds to make us tense and worried all day can easily lead to cardiovascular problems and long-term health issues. However, positive thinking power can immediately eliminate these risks to our health and wellbeing by steering our thoughts away from all things negative.

Your Choices:
We choose how we think about everything. You can look at any situation in your life and give it whatever meaning you want it to have. If you tend to see things through a stressful and negative filter, consider that what you are perceiving is not necessarily reality, just a view point that can be changed. Perhaps you need a new and better lens. It is the old argument about the glass being half empty or half full - it is both things at the same time, but you choose just how to look at it.

So, you can choose to use positive thinking power in all moments of life. As a very good example of this, we can return to the issue of gratitude. One of the most frequently cited studies demonstrated that within a diverse group of people, which included the fabulously successful and wealthy to the very poorest of the poor, it was those who chose to live life with gratitude (meaning they expressed or felt it on a daily basis) who had the most measurable happiness. This is also directly in line with one of the core tenets of positive thinking power which is that there ALWAYS something to feel grateful about.
This, however, YOUR choice. You might choose to focus on things far differently, but that is often the path that does not lead to health and wellbeing. Focusing on things that you cannot control rather than using your positive thinking power to be at peace with those things and refocus your attention, is a prime example of the power of choice and the power of the mind.

When you choose to use positive thinking, you are reshaping your life from the inside out. What you believe is what you become. What you feel is your experience of life.
So, if you want to be happy, decide to look at through a positive lens. That doesn’t mean you ignore a challenge. You rise to it and find value, growth and opportunity. When you learn to habitually respond to life with a positive outlook, you naturally someone who is more grateful, who is "up", and who is healthier.
More resources on how to think positive at: http://www.mindtosucceed.com/How-to-think-positive.html

Works Citedr
Robbins, Ocean. The Neuroscience of Why Gratitude Makes Us Healthier. Huffington Post. 2011. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ocean-robbins/having-gratitude-_b_1073105.html