The Power of Affirmations

These days you’ve probably seen popular YouTubers like Hannah Meloche and Ava Jules talk about their daily affirmations, or the positive things that they are writing down/telling themselves every day, and how it's helped them. When I first saw this on the internet I was pretty intrigued and didn’t know that affirmations were a legitimate thing. As I did more research, I realized that I’ve always subconsciously affirmed that I could do things that I was worried about. For example, I was telling myself that I was going to do well on an exam which, oftentimes, would work and I would get a good grade. However, I’ve never actually set aside time in my day to write a tangible list of things that I wanted to tell myself which made me want to learn more about what affirmations really are.

What are Affirmations?

Affirmations or manifestation is defined as a self-help strategy used to promote self-confidence and belief in your own abilities. Affirmations can be something like “I believe in my abilities” or “I will take pride in my body” or “I am proud of my successes.” The aim of affirmations is to help you focus on your strengths, rather than your weaknesses or perceived flaws so that you can channel your energy for a positive outcome.

The Science Behind Affirmations

When I first was researching affirmations I thought that it was only a trendy thing that people did. I never realized that there is science behind affirmations. The key to understanding the science behind affirmations is understanding what Neuroplasticity is. Neuroplasticity is how your brain is able to adapt and change to different circumstances. If you create an image of you doing something to your brain you will literally think that it is doing that thing because it would activate the same centers of the brain. Through repetition, over time your brain would think of these things as facts.

Repetition

Like anything that you start doing, such as learning a new skill sport, or language, it takes time and repetition to learn things and have them work. You can’t expect to affirm something once and the next day you can do it. It would take some time for your affirmations to actually sink in, and you would have to truly believe in what you are telling yourself, otherwise, it would never work. Try sitting consistently for a few minutes every day to create a list of realistic affirmations. However, affirmations do work for some people but for others, it takes an outside source like a friend or a therapist to help you.

Affirmations can be used as a powerful tool to help raise your self-confidence and self-worth and to help you develop and mature. You can use them to help boost your motivation so that you can achieve whatever you set your mind to. They can also help you get through stressful moments. Affirmation is a tool that you can use in your daily life to help you develop a positive mindset. All it takes is for you to be accepting of who you are now, and for you to believe in what you can become. Then, your possibilities become infinite.

Source:

https://www.healthline.com/health/mental-health/do-affirmations-work#how-they-work