Does Positive thinking really work?

Originally posted by Onet Wosix

Interesting, but do the physical diseases cause the depression, or does the depression cause the diseases?

Physical diseases can cause depression, that said, links indicate that depression reduces immune system functionality.

Psychoneuroimmunology of Depression

Which leads to an interesting statement, "Medically there is an excepted link between mind and body. A depressed state can lead to a reduced immunity."

However for the above to be true then shouldn't the opposite also be true. "A positive state can lead to a increased immunity." A statement that conventional medicine would ridicule as new age nonsense.

reply to post by RNDphase


Not in the least. Science has shown that negative affect increases stress, thus positive affect decreases stress. It has already been established that stress is a primary cause of many illnesses. Although, if I remember the Undoing study correctly, initially positive affect was no different from baseline. It was not until a person was induced into a negative affect that positive affect had an effect.

always have liked the love your neighbor as yourself thingy and on that could probably say how you say is part of that also sow reap affect and this too

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

reply to post by Onet Wosix

Hi, Onet Wosix.

Does Positive thinking really work?

I can almost PROVE it to you :
Think about "random generators" and "placebo effect" ! !

Blue skies.

Originally posted by Xcalibur254
if I remember the Undoing study correctly, initially positive affect was no different from baseline. It was not until a person was induced into a negative affect that positive affect had an effect.

Can you remember the study, as I would be very interested in reading it.

reply to post by RNDphase


Here is the article. I was wrong about positive affect though. It is significantly different from baseline. It's still an article worth reading though. I have also posted a follow-up study that Fredrickson did.

Fredrickson & Levenson - 98
The Undoing Effect of Positive Emotions

If you get thrown into deep water and you can't swim - think 'negatively' about it and panic will set it, resulting in drowning. Think 'positively' and you may keep floating long enough to be rescued. And if you do end up drowning anyway I'm sure it would be a more serene death than the former.

Another example from my student nursing days (long time ago now) - there were two patients on the ward both suffering from really painful conditions. One of them was shouting out constantly and very irritable and bad tempered with it. If we tried to help she would start to scream before we had even touched her. The other patient, despite the pain, still managed to smile and even joke with us. You can guess which patient us nurses dreaded being assigned to!.

Simon Weston, a soldier in the Falklands conflict, returned home with terrible burns, especially to his face. I am sure many people in that situation would feel that life was over for them, or turn to drugs etc. But he didn't - he appeared on lots of TV shows and talked about his experiences and was so positive about life that you no longer saw the scars - I didn't anyway! I believe he married a very attractive young television presenter.

Ok - just some anecdotal examples, not scientific studies, but it is just so obvious to me that 'smiling at life's adversities' instead of being consumed with fear, is just such a nicer way to do things.

Whenever we find ourselves totally in the 'sh**'.......well it won't last forever and a week, month or so later things will be different. Wish I had realised these things years ago - I have wasted alot of time worrying about things in the past to the point of panic and it never helped to improve the outcome at all.

And don't forget - fear renders us powerless and controlled by outside forces! Think about it.

Hasn't worked for me. Every time I get my hopes up, think positively, do the prayerful positive thing .. I just get hit with major disappointment. I now go through life expecting the worst and sometimes I get a pleasant surprise.

For me positive thinking is bad luck.

Originally posted by Psychoparrot
If you get thrown into deep water and you can't swim - think 'negatively' about it and panic will set it, resulting in drowning. Think 'positively' and you may keep floating long enough to be rescued.

That's the thing about pushing people to 'think positively' ... it isn't reality. If someone can't swim and is thrown in deep water, no amount of positive thinking is instantly giong to teach that person to swim or float. They'll sink like a rock and they'll have a VERY painful death by drowning. That's just reality.

A lot of this 'think positively and everything will be okay' stuff is just a slap in the face to reality.

Something I haven't heard mentioned yet, and it is a strong part of positive thinking for me. Postive thinking is not just positive thinking, but also the elimination of negative thinking. We are creatures of habit. When we allow ourselves to think negatively without keeping watch over how we think, that is how we come to see most things in our experience and it shapes our attitudes. Hey, I know the negative is out there, but I refuse to allow external events or other people to control the puppet strings to my emotions. They, and their control belong to me. I've got more important things to do than worry about things over which I have no control.

Wow. I love ATS. Intelligent comments and fascinating reading.

Thanks everyone who have posted.

Brilliant. Cheers!

I believe 100% that positive thinking works. I can not prove it but to me in my life it plays a hugh part I try to think in a positive way about everything that happens not just positive about myself but positive about the way people are going to react i can not stand to for someone to be negtive nothing good ever comes from it. If I was to get pulled over for speeding I would never start thinking that I was going to get a fine. I tell myself that most likey ill just get a warning I believe that this works. I find that alot of people Im around always respond to things in a negtive way and most of these people seem to be very unhappy i guess that could be the reason they always responed in a neg. way. Anytime I hear someone specking neg. I will quickly tell them not to say that and i will then speck in a positive way about what was bothering them i find that most of the time this will put a smile on there face and it seems to make them feel better. I believe there is a positive way of looking at almost everything you just have to look a little harder to find it. just my 2 cents

Originally posted by Onet Wosix
Maybe this sounds a bit of a strange thing to ask, but does that so called great thing, 'positive thinking' actually work to improve circumstances/ health etc?

I often wonder if all is predetermined and we are in the hands of fate...

or...is trying to make your brain positive thinking a good thing or is it mildly self-hypnotising and / or self delusional?

how would you test this?

if anyone has any experiences they would like to share, I would be very interested to read about them.

Thanks ATSers.

The only thing that truly works is... Action.

You can think positively your whole life and never get results, but the minute you get off your butt and create the changes you want, then those results will manifest. You can buy all the books and attend all the seminars on positive thinking, plunking hundreds of dollars into realizing some charlatans dreams, but if you put that money towards your own dreams, then those dreams will manifest. Life is about actions, not thoughts.

IMO having a positive attitude makes you more likely to take positive actions. It's easy to get bogged down in negative thoughts and think there is no way out. If you cant see all the possibilities and opertunities in life then you will struggle to take advantage of them.

When I was depressed (is it just me or does everyone seem to be either recovered from depression or depressed atm?!) the absolute last thing I wanted was for some happy douche to come try and cheer me up, I resented it thoroughly and I see this in other people too. I think rather than pointing out peoples negativity and actively trying to force positivity on them, it is better to just be happy and hope it rubs off.

Internet Commentary 49009030402103873

If "positive thinking" includes embracing the negative in a positive manner, then YES.

Originally posted by Xcalibur254
reply to post by Antoniastar

 

Baseline is their heart rate, etc. when their mood is neutral. In these experiments you take a baseline reading before inducing them into a negative mood, and this is what you're hoping a positive mood will bring them back to.

For the cognitive task the problem was finding a task where a negative affect caused one kind of result, while a positive affect caused the opposite result. The task we ended up using was a global-local task. An example of this would be if you showed someone a picture of a square made out of circles. You then ask what shape they saw. If they choose square they are globally focused, which is found to occur more when you are in a positive mood. If they choose circle they are locally focused, which occurs more with a negative affect. Unfortunately we did not get this result, so we were unable to find evidence of the undoing hypothesis in relation to cognitive processing. We did find some other interesting stuff though, but unless you've read the literature it won't make much sense.

Okay now I get it. Thank you for explaining. Ah I see what you mean by "baseline".

Btw, the part about "inducing them into a negative mood" is where I came up with the 'fear' suggestion. I don't recall where I heard it from, but someone was doing a test and they had to figure out how to get people into a fearful state without them knowing that that's what the experimenters were doing. But I can't remember the who or the why etc. ... they did succeed in getting the test subjects to feel real fear, I do remember that part. If I find the info about it, I'll post it.

I am truly interested in the research and the literature that you refer to. Do you have a link to it? A global-local task, how interesting. Never heard of it. In the meantime I'll see if I can find anything about it myself.

Much appreciated, thanks!

Toni

reply to post by Onet Wosix


Positive thinking works in many different ways, you choose which one you design for your path to follow or is up to you if you let negativism take over your projects and ideas. Is a matter of fact or fiction that if taken into consideration can open up many new paths for you, and is all in your hands. Lets say for example, you get up one morning thinking and seing the blue sky all covered up by a gray shadow, now is up to you to manipulate that image taking conscience and realizing and accepting what you really think of the sky at that very moment, knowing that your future is entirely in your hands and only you have the key to make it better or worst. By worst I mean that your brain has taken all the energy to take your ideas and inspirations and have you acting like somebody you are not showing a negative effect on others that when applied to your life has affected the reflection of yourself. Positive thinking opens new doors and in the process cotemplates a new self reflection that you emit to others once you have heard your central unit command indicating to live in a positive way. Positive thinking also affects and reflects your life habits and your internal organs, taking you to different levels of co-existense with others.

reply to post by sirnex


Action matters most than anything else, thoughts make up the plan, but actions will eventually manifest and help take on projects to accomplish the actual mind thinking. Human mind acts to produce all the patterns to achieve a dream that needs to be manifested by action, if there are no actions, there is no evidence of thoughts. Thoughts and actions fulfill a dream purpose that our human society needs consistently to keep on growing and re-edificating new futuristic aproaches and development. Actions are the manifestations of a human being's projects, dreams, ideas and goals. A thought without an action would not be valid, is meaningless. Human co-existence is provided by the actions and re-actions to one another like anything else in life. This is the way life is created and goes about each and every day to finally make a world full of surprises and entirely on the hands of us, the human race.