What if we revised our way of seeing things to feel better every day? This is, among other things, what positive thinking offers. The good news is that anyone can learn to think optimistically, even the most pessimistic among us. Explanations and exercises with a professional.
“The positive attracts the positive”. You must have heard this phrase hundreds of times before. In recent years, positive thinking is everywhere. On Instagram, with accounts like @loi_de_lattraction, in the many personal development books devoted to it, and even on Youtube. Witness the success of Lena Situations, whose positive philosophy + = + inspired her first book Always more, which has met with tremendous success in bookstores.
But what is the secret of this “positive attitude”? How do all these people who always seem happy and optimistic? What if we also tried to change our view of things? The Positive thought allows us to focus on our strengths, our values and our successes, to see the glass half full.
What is positive thinking?
Positive thinking dates back to the 20th century, when French pharmacist Emile Coué discovered the power of positive autosuggestion with his patients. "These are positive phrases that we repeat to ourselves every day, in the morning, to improve our daily life", explains Cécile Neuville, psychologist specializing in positive psychology and author of many books, the last of which is My bible of positive psychology (Leduc.s editions), was published in November 2020. “Every day, from every point of view, I'm getting better and better”. This is the mantra of the inventor of the famous Coué Method, to be repeated twenty times a day.
In 1998, Martin Seligman, professor at the University of Pennsylvania, announced the birth of a new science devoted to the positive aspects of life: "positive psychology". Unlike traditional psychology which seeks to heal suffering, this concept relies on positive means of action to promote self-fulfillment and be happier. This is where positive thinking comes in.
What are the benefits of positive autosuggestion?
"Repeating these positive thoughts to yourself helps to develop a positive emotion, a positive mood, self-confidence, self-esteem, says Cécile Neuville. The stream of positive thinking is related to what we say, what we suggest to ourselves and the impact that this has on our thinking and suddenly our emotions. " According to the psychologist, positive autosuggestion has three benefits:
- Realistic positive autosuggestion has a beneficial effect on the thinking level, that is to say, we will develop more and more positive thoughts and less and less negative thoughts. "We're going to think about things that are going well, we're going to look at people's qualities, we're going to look for the good sides of a situation. The more we do it, the more it works and it becomes what we call automatic thoughts ", she specifies.
- At the emotional level: "Having positive thoughts causes positive emotions, so we will develop more and more joy, serenity, calm but also tenderness, love, and finally gratitude, an emotion very related to Positive thought."
- On the body, because the more you develop positive thinking and positive emotions, the more well-being hormones you produce. "Physically it really has an impact on bodily relaxation but also on energy, vitality and the immune system, therefore on health and fitness."
Does it really work?
There is nothing magic about positive thinking. Nor is it just about turning a blind eye and saying to yourself that “all is well in the best of all possible worlds”. A 2009 University of Waterloo study looked at the effectiveness of these positive thoughts. It turns out that, for half of the participants, there is indeed an increase in happiness and positive emotion. On the other hand, on the other half, these positive affirmations do not work, or even have the opposite effect. "The researchers then identified that positive thinking was effective, as long as the person already had a minimum of self-esteem", adds Cécile Neuville. A person who does not have enough self-esteem will not get anything from positive thinking, on the contrary. "There is a cognitive dissent, an internal conflict, between what I think of myself and what I am saying, which resonates false", she explains. "One of the bases of positive autosuggestion is either having a minimum of self-confidence or choosing phrases that you believe in. If I don't believe it, it can have a perverse effect. We risk feeling zero and lowering even more emotions and self-esteem ", warns the psychologist. So, how to do ? Don't aim too high, starting with more positive sentences that you believe in. For example "Today I will do my best", rather than "Today I will do everything".
It is a vision of life that does not deny the difficulties but will see them in order to overcome them
For some, this invitation to happiness – more and more present – creates social pressure, an extremely guilty injunction. Do we still have the right to be unhappy? "It is a trap to repeat sentences like 'everything is fine' to yourself, to generalize, to assert sentences that are not true. It is not an injunction but a vision of life which does not deny the difficulties but will see them in order to overcome them ", specifies Cécile Neuville. "With positive thinking, we develop the ability to adapt to the less easy situations, and therefore resilience".
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3 positive thinking exercises to practice every day
1. Positive morning intentions
Cécile Neuville recommends starting the day with a glass of water or a hot drink and getting into a state of positive visualization. "While we drink this drink mindfully, with each sip, we will imagine a pleasant moment that we will experience during the day. Three moments that we can't wait to share, three positive intentions, three actions … It's a bit like incorporating them into your body, the water takes on a bit of a "magical" dimension. " It is also possible to write them in a notebook.
2. The three evening pleasures
At bedtime, the psychologist recommends remembering the three positive moments of her day. "You can also write them down in a gratitude notebook, or share them with your family, during dinner for example." Example: "Today I laughed a lot", "I passed my test", "I took advantage of my friends".
3. The gratitude shower
Finally, the expert suggests taking advantage of the moment of the shower to express gratitude. "Instead of simply taking a shower, take advantage of your shower time to thank, become aware of all the luck we have, of all that is already going well, in his love life, family, professional, health level … Even if all is not perfect, just focus at least that moment on the positive. We clean ourselves, somewhere, but we keep the best to recharge our batteries. ”
These three exercises are to be done every day, at different times of the day. Last advice, and not the least: "Whatever happens, and this is also the difficulty, you have to formulate a positive sentence and not a negation", insists Cécile Neuville. The sentence should be turned in a positive way. We won't say “I don't want to be stressed anymore” but “I want to be more serene”.
Thanks to Cécile Neuville, psychologist specializing in positive psychology, psychologue-montpellier.fr