I’ve just been reading an article on the Psychology Today website which says if you want to be happy, make sure you keep your brain happy. Because being happy means more to your brain than you might imagine. It seems that the brain is primed to respond to pleasure in a way that reinforces pleasure, therefore it rewards happy thoughts.
Every thought you have releases brain chemicals, so focusing on negative thoughts saps the brain, slows it down and can even dim its ability to function. Positive thoughts decrease cortisol and produce serotonin, which creates a sense of wellbeing and helps your brain to function at peak capacity.
So happy thoughts support brain growth as well as the generation and reinforcement of new synapses, especially in the prefrontal cortex, which is the integration centre for all of your brain/mind functions.
As a human potential coach, it is not news to me that change begins with thought. Although I would be wary of advising anyone that simply thinking happy thoughts would make everything OK.
We’ve all heard of “the power of positive thinking” and all that, but the reality is that if your mind is full of self-sabotaging, negative thoughts, positive affirmations are not going to change your life.
Before you can flood your brain with all that wonderful positivity, it’s important to acknowledge your thoughts without judgment, and then to question them to see if they have any relationship to reality.
The process goes deeper, to reveal what part of you – which of your many selves, or subpersonalities – is responsible for the thought. The age of this part will give you a big clue as to when this thought, which usually will be linked to a behaviour or belief, first arose, and therefore that it is no longer serving you well.
The human potential coaching process guides you down this path, which almost always results in an experience of your true self. Only when you have been able to access your truth to see the thoughts for what they are can you start letting them – and any attached emotional charge – go, and allowing yourself to think positively.
Neuroscience seems to be telling us that there are great rewards to be had from retraining our brains to think positively – not least of which is a healthy, happy old age. It’s got to be worth a try.
Read the whole story here: www.psychologytoday.com/blog/prime-your-gray-cells/201108/happy-brain-happy-life
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