A Positive Mindset and the Effects on Overall Health & Wellness

This is a guest post from Judy Gilman, RN, Health & Wellness Coach:

A Positive Mindset and the Effects on Overall Health & Wellness

Living a healthy lifestyle starts with a positive mindset. Your goals must be highly important to you. If not, you will sabotage your own success with excuses. Healthy habits are formed by the repetition of healthy acts. They are strengthened by an increase in the number of healthy acts you complete and the positive thoughts you focus on.

You’re not always going to want to follow through with what you said you would do, nor are you always going to feel the fire beneath you in pursuit of your health and fitness goals. It’s important to stick with it because you are a person of integrity and you made a promise to yourself. Make yourself proud by fulfilling your commitments.

The #1 most important lesson for improving your mindset it to give yourself permission to love yourself. Self-love goes a long way in achieving a positive mindset. Know that you are worthy of being taken care of.

On the days when you don’t feel so positive, make a commitment to change your self-talk. Pay attention to your thoughts about yourself and change anything negative to something positive, even if you don’t believe it at that moment. Look in the mirror and honor the special person looking back at you. Tell her she is loved and worthy. Another option is to write down in a notebook the negative thing you are saying about yourself and reword your thoughts to make it a positive statement. Tell yourself positive things like, “I did it” or “I pushed myself harder today” or “I am so proud of myself” or “I didn’t feel like exercising today, but I did it and I feel great about myself.”

Feeling positive is important and physical activity is a great way to produce endorphins, causing what many call the “runner’s high,” and that’s associated with greater confidence, optimism, and overall happiness.

To learn more, read http://www.webmd.com/depression/guide/exercise-depression#1.

Are you an emotional eater? If you eat when you are bored, worried, angry or some other emotion instead of just when you are hungry, the answer is yes! Write down everything you eat and drink for 3 days and the emotion you are experiencing at the time. Some things you can do instead of eating in response to emotions include putting on some music and dancing for a few minutes, take a walk around the block or call a supportive friend.

If your goal is to live a healthy lifestyle, you really need to be hanging around positive people who will respect your goals and support you. Positive people have a positive mindset. Negative people will drag you down.

Remember, we all make mistakes. We all have setbacks. We all experience failures. We all have bad things happen to us. The key is to learn from every experience and to use our self-control to stop thinking about them. A positive mind set can carry you through many obstacles you will face in your journey to improved health.

Judy Gilman, RN, Health & Wellness Coach

Judygilman.unicity@gmail.com