Anxiety: Using positive thinking
Why is positive thinking important to help you cope with anxiety?
Changing your thinking can help you prevent or cope with anxiety.1 It can help you stop the worry by replacing negative thoughts with helpful ones. It's also helpful in controlling panic attacks.
Positive thoughts can help stop the "fight or flight" feelings that you have with anxiety. In a fight-or-flight response, your body senses danger and the need to fight or run away. Your body releases hormones like adrenaline, which makes your heart beat fast and your blood pressure rise. Positive thoughts can calm you and stop this response.
For example, maybe you are about to have a job review. It's normal to be a little nervous. But you have trouble sleeping and have a fast heartbeat and sweaty hands. You think constantly about the review. You've been telling yourself that your boss is going to say bad things about your performance—even though you haven't been getting bad comments from her.
Or perhaps you have a doctor's appointment coming up. And you're worried that he may find something wrong.
If you have anxiety, you may worry a lot about many things. You are sure that something bad is going to happen, even though you have no proof that something bad will happen.
The more you talk in a negative way to yourself, the harder it is to keep a positive outlook. The negative thinking makes you feel bad. And that can make you feel more anxious, which leads to more bad thoughts about yourself. It's a cycle that's hard to break.
But with practice, you can retrain your brain. After all, you weren't born telling yourself negative things. You learned how to do it. So there’s no reason you can't teach your brain to unlearn it and replace negative thinking with more helpful thoughts.
Positive thinking also is good for your health in other ways. If you feel bad about yourself, you could get depressed. Positive thinking also can help you handle stress better. Too much stress can raise your blood pressure and make your heart work harder, which can increase your risk for a heart attack. Stress also can weaken your immune system, which can make you more open to infection and disease.
Test Your Knowledge
Positive thinking can help you stop negative thoughts that make you anxious.
Positive thinking can help your health in other ways.
Continue to
How can you use positive thinking to cope with anxiety?
Return to
| Author: | Marianne Flagg | Last Updated: August 27, 2008 |
| Medical Review: | Catherine D. Serio, PhD - Behavioral Health Lisa S. Weinstock, MD - Psychiatry | |
 | ||