Negative Nancy? 9 Ways To Nix Your Negativity
Negative thoughts get inside your head, and they whirl around like a hamster on a wheel. Negative thinking can ravage your body, cloud your mind and deplete your spirit. Negativity — left unchecked — can ruin your life.
So, don’t walk around like there is a black cloud hanging over your head! The good news is that there are ways to nix your negativity and be more positive. May I humbly suggest that you get a copy of my book, Get Glad: Your Practical Guide To A Happier Life, which offers a six-step plan for feeling happier. But until you have a copy in hand, let’s take a look at a few other things you can do to get back on the road to positivity.
1. Exercise. A body in motion produces endorphins, nature’s very own pleasure drug. A brisk walk, a swim, or a workout at the gym can stimulate production of endorphins, which act like opiates to induce a feeling of euphoria. So, when you feel some negativity heading your way, get moving.
2. Smile. Did you know that smiling helps reduce stress, retrains the brain to think more positively, and strengthens the body on a cellular level. It even makes you more creative.
3. Help Others. Making someone else happy isn’t really hard to do, and the payoff is that you boost your own mood by spreading happiness all around. You cause a ripple that affects the happiness of people you don’t even know and you may even become healthier through your random acts of kindness.
4. Be Grateful. Scientists know that if we change the brain with drugs — legal or recreational — we can change how the mind feels, thinks and responds. Gratitude has the same effect on the brain as do the drugs. No one really knows exactly why the practice of gratitude works to stimulate happiness, but it does. So, be grateful. Each morning, write down three things for which you are grateful and you begin to steer your brain away from negativity. Get one of these journals and give it a try.
5. Declutter. When you are feeling negative AND your home is dusty, cluttered and disorganized, it’s almost impossible to find any joy. Restore order, remove clutter, and clean your home. You will feel better and less negative.
6. Tune Up. Music has the ability to bring us to tears or lift us up to the clouds. It is amazingly powerful, much more powerful than most of us appreciate. Like exercise, music is thought to stimulate the production of endorphins. So, when feeling down, put on some tunes. You’ll find that music is cathartic, therapeutic, and good for your soul.
7. Accentuate The Positive. Surround yourself with positive people and media. Your brain is like a computer — what you put in it is what you get out of it. If you are around positive friends, then you’ll start to respond more positively. If you read positive material, watch and listen to uplifting media, it will dampen negative thoughts.
8. Meditate. Meditation is better than a nap. Sitting quietly, and paying attention to your breathing is very energizing and helps you overcome negative thoughts. Just giving yourself the luxury of sitting still and breathing for few minutes can be amazingly uplifting. Try this guided meditation for clearing negativity.
9. Reframe. You are in control of only one thing: your own thoughts. You, not some outside influence, controls your happiness or lack of same. So, reframing your thoughts can be a marvelous way to get your brain, and thus your outlook, onto the right track. When you have a negative thought, ask yourself, “is this true?” Then, write down a list of reasons why it isn’t true.
Negativity affects us all at some point, and when it does, it’s easy to get dragged down into the depths by our own thoughts. If you’ll practice the nine steps above, I think you’ll find that you are positive more often. And that, my friend, feels good.
