Self-affirmations

Another tool for your mental well-being toolbox - self-affirmations 🤗

What are self-affirmations?
A self-affirmation is an act that shows your adequacy (Steele 1988). They are positive statements that affirm your self-worth and value as an individual. Self-affirmations can also help you manage any negative beliefs you have about yourself. ✨

Practicing affirmations each day can help you take personal responsibility and provide you with a sense of empowerment. They broaden your perspective beyond that of the negative situation you’re in and therefore help to reduce the effect of the negative emotions associated. Practicing self-affirmations helps to remind you, that you are MORE than your present situation/circumstances/feelings, widening your perspective beyond any negativity you’re currently experiencing. It is so easy to become wrapped up in negative feelings or situations and this can lead to you spiraling into increased feelings of negativity📉 ❌ . Affirmations can help ground you and remind you that the negativity you’re experiencing isn’t permanent.

👉 The successful practice of self-affirmations often relies on your ability to reflect on your individual core values (Cascio et al. 2016). So, if you haven’t already it will be helpful for you to take a read of the previous “Identifying your values” post. To help you identify what your core values are and to use these to improve the results of your self-affirmation practice.

👉 What are the benefits of practicing self-affirmations? ❇️ They can help you to better manage any feelings of stress ❇️ They can help to decrease feelings of stress ❇️ They can help to increase your feelings of self-worth ❇️ They can help you to focus on your personal achievements

✨ The positive effects of practicing affirmations on your attitude and motivation have been reported to last even one month later (Harris et al. 2007). ✨

👉 How do affirmations help with stress? 👆 Feeling stressed can often be the result of situations and events that make you question your sense of adaptive adequacy. Your ability to be able to effectively manage demands that are placed on you. 👆 When you practice value affirmations, this can help reduce your feelings of stress. This works by pulling your focus out of the stressful situation and helping you remember all the other areas of life where you aren’t experiencing a significant amount of stress. (Cohen and Sherman 2014). 👆 Scientific research has shown there is physiological evidence of the positive effect of affirmations on buffering the impact of stress (Sherman et al. 2009).

👉 Self-Affirmations Example On Monday John had a disagreement with his boss at work concerning a project he had been taking the lead on. Understandably, this left John feeling a lot of negative emotions. He felt stressed, upset, and worried. John does have a therapist he can talk to but he wasn’t scheduled to see her until Friday so he was left feeling like this all week. This resulted in him canceling the plans he had previously made with his friends. By Wednesday he wasn’t motivated to go to the gym and he usually exercises every day to help look after his mental and physical health. John was unable to see any positives in his life, he was only able to focus on the negative emotions he was experiencing as a result of the disagreement with his boss on Monday. By Friday when John was able to have his appointment with his therapist he really wasn’t feeling positive about himself or his life.

Mary also had a disagreement with her boss at work on Monday. Similar to John, this left Mary feeling stressed, upset, and worried. However, Mary practices self-affirmations. This practice helped Mary not get lost in the workplace dispute and she was able to widen her perspective beyond that situation and the negative feelings it created. Mary acknowledged that the disagreement had left her feeling negative. But instead of pouring all of her energy into the disagreement. Mary was able to use her self-affirmations to remind her of all the other areas of life that she is either enjoying or succeeding in. For example, one of Mary’s core values is family. So, Mary’s affirmations revolve around this. Mary reminded herself about how much of a good partner she is and how grateful she is to be in a happy, loving relationship. Mary also self-affirmed how loving she is as an aunt and how appreciative she is of the bond she has with her nephew and niece.

✍️ Self-Affirmation Exercise
✍️ You can use the individual core values that you identified in the previous “Identifying your values” post to help you create some tailored affirmations for you to practice. ✍️ For each of the core values that you previously identified, try and develop one sentence that you can use as a self-affirmation (if you are struggling with this, then some examples which can be used by anyone are included later) ✍️ Once you have decided on your affirmations, it's time for you to decide do you think writing them down would be more beneficial for you? (maybe in a journal) Or, do you think speaking them aloud would be better suited to you? (maybe in front of a mirror) ✍️ Once you have decided on how you are going to practice your self-affirmations, now you need to think about when will be the best time of day for you to do this? By giving yourself a set five minutes each day, you’re more likely to stick to the routine of practicing self-affirmations. ✍️ Once you get the hang of this feel free to add more self-affirmations to your practice.

👉 A published study exploring the use of affirmations for overcoming depression and anxiety has reported the following affirmations to be rated the most helpful by mental health professionals, people who have recovered from either anxiety or depression, and popular self-help literature: ❇️ I am not “crazy” and I will not go crazy ❇️ The power to heal myself is within me. I can do it. ❇️ My problem is very common. Many people live with it. I am not alone ❇️ This will not last, even if at times it feels that way. In time I will get better. (Kinnier et al 2010)

🤗 Remember if you’re struggling, practicing self-affirmations is one tool to keep in your toolbox. But Happio is also here to help. 🤗