Fortunately, positive affirmations are almost as easy to define as they are to practice. Put simply, they are positive phrases or statements used to challenge negative or unhelpful thoughts.
Practicing positive affirmations can be extremely simple, and all you need to do is pick a phrase and repeat it to yourself.
You may choose to use positive affirmations to motivate yourself, encourage positive changes in your life, or boost your self-esteem. If you frequently find yourself getting caught up in negative self-talk, positive affirmations can be used to combat these often subconscious patterns and replace them with more adaptive narratives.
Science, yes. Magic, no. Positive affirmations require regular practice if you want to make lasting, long-term changes to the ways that you think and feel. The good news is that practice and popularity of positive affirmations is based on widely accepted and well-established psychological theory.
The Psychological Theory Behind Positive Affirmations
One of the key psychological theories behind positive affirmations is self-affirmation theory. So, yes, there are empirical studies based on the idea that we can maintain our sense of self-integrity by telling ourselves (or affirming) what we believe in positive ways.
Very briefly, self-integrity relates to our global self-efficacy—our perceived ability to control moral outcomes and respond flexibly when our self-concept. So, we as humans are motivated to protect ourselves from these threats by maintaining our self-integrity.
Now that we know more about the theories supporting positive affirmations, here are six examples of evidence from empirical studies that suggest that positive self-affirmation practices can be beneficial:
Self-affirmations have been shown to decrease health-deteriorating stress
Self-affirmations have been used effectively in interventions that led people to increase their physical behavior
They may help us to perceive otherwise “threatening” messages with less resistance, including interventions
They can make us less likely to dismiss harmful health messages, responding instead with the intention to change for the better and to eat more fruit and vegetables
They have been linked positively to academic achievement by mitigating GPA decline in students who feel left out at college
Self-affirmation has been demonstrated to lower stress and rumination
As the studies above suggest, positive affirmations can help us to respond in a less defensive and resistant way when we’re presented with threats. One study that was mentioned above showed that smokers reacted less dismissively to graphic cigarette packet warnings and reported intention to change their behavior.
But more generally, an adaptive, broad sense of self makes us more resilient to difficulties when they arise. Whether it’s social pressures, health information that makes us feel uncomfortable, or feelings of exclusion, a broader self-concept can be an extremely helpful thing to have.