Emotional Health

A big part of your overall health is your happiness. Here are some ways you can boost your mental outlook just by changing your thoughts.

• Concentrate on happiness. Want to be happy? Then start thinking happy. Focus your thoughts on things that make you smile and blessings in your life and you’ll see a turnaround in your mood in no time.
• Focus on positive aspects. There are always going to be situations in our lives that seem downright rotten at first. But you can help make them more bearable by focusing on the positive and when you feel yourself getting down training your brain to go to these kind of thoughts instead of those that make you feel worse.
• Start each day with optimism. It’s easy to roll out of bed in the morning because you feel you have to or you are afraid of the negative consequences if you don’t. This starts your whole day on avoiding bad things instead of seeking out the good. Remind yourself of a positive thing you want to get up for each morning and focus on that.
• You may be in a bad mood but if you force yourself to appear like you’re in a good one you may actually start to be.
• Change your inner dialogue. If all your thoughts about things involve negative terms, worst-case scenarios and doom and gloom you’re not doing yourself any favors health wise. Change the way you talk to yourself to a more positive, motivating voice. You’ll be happier and in the long run healthier too.
• Reverse thoughts. If you catch yourself heading down a path to negativity stop yourself in your tracks and turn those negative thoughts into positive ones. Over time you’ll improve your mood and make it easier to get through your day.
• Give yourself compliments.Do something great today? Looking sexy in a new outfit? Give yourself a compliment and acknowledge your accomplishment. Do this often enough and you may be able to influence your self esteem and think about yourself in a whole different light.
• Use positive words in your thoughts.It’s very easy to fall into the habit of using negative in your thoughts, but it’s also just as easy to replace those negative words with positive ones. Instead of saying “I’ll never be able to do this” think “This will be hard, but I know I can do it.”
• Put positive energy out there. Some people believe that you get back what you give out. Whether you subscribe to that theory or not, you won’t be hurting yourself any by taking on a more positive and upbeat attitude and making others around you feel good
• Expect the best. When you expect the worst to happen sometimes you get your wish. Always assume that the outcome of a situation will be a positive one. You may not always be right, but you won’t have to spend hours moping about how you knew you wouldn’t be.
• Think of happy memories. You may be in the middle of the worst day of work ever and all you want to do is crawl under your desk and cry but you can help make a little bright spot in all that horribleness by thinking about things that you’ve done that have made you happy. Maybe a great trip with friends, watching your children play or special moments with a spouse or loved one.
• Be friendly to yourself and others. Sometimes when you think the best of others you help them to see themselves in that light as well. You’ll feel better about having positive relationships with others and who knows, maybe your kindness will be returned just when you need it.