Is Negative Thinking Affecting You?

Most people don’t realize it, but negative thought is a large part their life. Negativity is what the brain interprets as a series of moods that are much less than happy. Anger, anxiety, fear, sadness, agitation, hostility, rage, guilt and aggravation are some of our most inner negative emotions. Negativity is such a big role in our lives, in which we don’t realize that it becomes a habit to think negatively. In fact, in any kind of situation—big or small, good or bad, our initial intuitive thought is to first “process” the situation negatively, and then maybe or maybe not a positive will follow. For example:

Imagine yourself in driving a busy city, and a hundred feet ahead of you there’s a traffic light. The light is green and traffic is flowing smoothly. As you approach the green light, the light turns from yellow to red. You’re now second in line sitting at the red light. What are your thoughts? Probably, “That jerk should have hurried up and gone, and then I wouldn’t be sitting here!” Or, “Oh that’s great! Now I’m going to be late!” You’ve probably even added some obscenities to those thoughts. In fact, even thinking or imagining that you are in this very situation can trigger emotional negativity such as anger, agitation, and anxiety. Instead of feeding off of your negative emotions and coming up with one negative remark after another, try to counter act your negative thoughts by saying something like this, “Although it stinks I am sitting at a red light, I am grateful that it turned red, because it prevented several accidents from happening.” Or, “Good the light is red, now I can look down and tune into my favorite radio station, or send text messages for a minute.”

You see, at first the even before you process the situation in its entirety, it is negative. It’s an automatic reaction to think negative, and because negative thinking becomes so fluent it’s the first response to any situation. And my question to you is what if someone were in your passenger’s seat ranting and raving about the negativity of a stop light? Now the situation get’s more tense, and you and your passenger are feeding off of each other’s negative emotions. This in turn, makes your anxieties higher, and turns your anger into being absolutely furious and irate.

My suggestion about fixing this negative “way of life” is to force you to see the positive in any situation, and it’s possible, I’ve tested the theory. First try to catch your negative “spouts” and thoughts and counteract with a positive. Whether your negativity is an “out-loud” and vociferous, or a quiet “inner” thought, always make sure your positive counter action is “out-loud” so you can physically hear yourself. I know you’re thinking that it seems crazy to talk to yourself. However, it is a proven fact that it hearing (one of our five senses) plays a major role when trying to interpret or remember something. Your brain may, or may not remember what you said that was positive, but it will remember, and form habit to state a positive when there’s a negative.

Try this mental exercise for a week or so and if you are faithful, you will see drastic improvement with every aspect of your life. Without realizing it, you will exchange your negatives for positives. Positively thinking can change your thought process entirely. It helps you make better decisions, be more focused, “on task”, and can improve your social life. Positive emotion and expression can also improve your health, because negativity creates stress, and stress creates health problems.