The Power of Positive Thinking to Support Our Psychological Health
Understanding Positive Thinking
Life is full of pain, suffering, transitions, uncertainties, hardship, and challenges. It’s all around us. Just look around right now and pick a topic. Whether you're an empathetic observer or you’re literally navigating a crisis, separation, career shift, coping with a devastating loss, or managing the daily grind of stress, it's easy to feel overwhelmed, helpless, and hopeless. It’s also normal to have desperate, depressive, and catastrophic thoughts take hold as you’re flooded with excruciating and powerful emotions.
While managing your thoughts and ruminations and honoring those feelings by staying present in the moment can seem impossible during times of chaos and crisis, those scary, painful thoughts and beliefs about the situation—and the emotional challenges they trigger—can also become opportunities for growth, resilience, and connection.
If we embrace the power of positive thinking (cognitive reframing) while accepting and normalizing our feelings, we’ll begin to see that we can tolerate and cope, even amid our fears of being overwhelmed by life’s suffering moments. Although agonizing and painful at times, we can transform adversity and pain into a stepping stone toward a safer, healthier, more fulfilling, and more resilient life.
The Power of Positive Thinking
Psychological health is one of the five essential pillars of overall well-being. Alongside physical, relational, purposeful, and spiritual health, it serves as a foundation for navigating life’s highs and lows without being swallowed up by it all. Our ability to cope, cultivate, and sustain a healthy psychological state depends heavily on our commitment to maintain positive perspectives during the most trying of times.
Let me repeat that: our ability to cope, cultivate, and sustain a healthy psychological state depends heavily on our commitment to maintain positive perspectives during the most trying of times.
Positive thinking isn’t about ignoring life’s difficulties or adopting a naive, Pollyanna-ish attitude toward adversity, suffering, or crisis. It’s about using cognitive reframing skills to shift your perspective just enough to create a functional, healthy, and effective mindset to handle adversity with confidence, clarity, and responsiveness.
It’s about reframing challenges, embracing personal growth, and developing strategies to help you survive—and later, with time and healing, even thrive.
Reach out to our team of therapists to learn more about using cognitive reframing tools to support yourself during the most challenging times. You deserve compassionate mental health care and guidance, especially during periods of crisis and suffering.
In the meantime, here are three simple, science-backed benefits and strategies to help support you today.
Three Science-Backed Benefits of Positive Thinking
Enhanced Stress Management
A positive mindset helps reduce the production of stress hormones like cortisol while increasing the release of dopamine and serotonin. This shift supports better emotional regulation and helps you cope more effectively with the challenges in front of you.Improved Physical Health
Research shows that optimistic individuals tend to have lower risks of cardiovascular disease, better immune function, and increased life satisfaction and expectancy—despite the suffering around them. A positive outlook is also linked to healthier behaviors, such as regular exercise and better sleep, which support overall psychological functioning and physical well-being.Greater Psychological Resilience
By reframing challenges, individuals with a positive perspective develop stronger problem-solving skills, greater adaptability, and stronger emotional resilience. This resilience enables us to bounce back faster from setbacks and maintain emotional and mental equilibrium when hardship strikes.
Three Simple Strategies to Support Positive Thinking
1. Pause, Reflect, & Identify
Journaling can help you examine your thoughts and identify unhelpful patterns that undermine your ability to cope. Try asking yourself questions like:
“How are my thoughts and beliefs influencing my ability to cope with this situation?”
“What thoughts or beliefs could help me survive this moment in time?”
Or try radical reframing:“What’s one lesson I can learn from this situation?”
“How might this time in my life help me grow and connect with others?”
2. Reframe the Narrative
Replace catastrophizing language or self-limiting beliefs like “I’ll never make it through this” or “I’m not strong enough” with more neutral or empowering statements, such as:
“This is a moment in time that deeply hurts and challenges me, but it is temporary, and I am not alone.”
“Although I feel overwhelmed, I have battled through pain and suffering before. I will survive, recover, and heal.”
Or go radical:“This is a stepping stone to personal growth and evolution.”
3. Take Note of Your Perspective Shifts
Recognize changes in your thoughts, beliefs, and physical or emotional state as you practice cognitive reframing. No matter how small the shift, each reframe builds momentum toward healthier perspectives, reinforcing the psychological rewards of these skills.
~ Ryan Lewis, LMHC, Founder & CEO
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