Why Affirmations
Positive affirmations have been shown to improve confidence, bolster self-worth, create a positive outlook, and more. Check out the growing body of research below.
The Psychology of Change: Self-Affirmation and Social Psychological Intervention — “Events that threaten self-integrity arouse stress and self-protective defenses that can hamper performance and growth. However, an intervention known as self-affirmation can curb these negative outcomes.”
Self-Affirmation Improves Problem-Solving under Stress — “This research suggests a novel means for boosting problem-solving under stress and may have important implications for understanding how self-affirmation boosts academic achievement in school settings.”
To Affirm or Not to Affirm? — “By enhancing the psychological resources of self-integrity, self-affirmation reduces defensive responses to threatening information and events, leading to positive outcomes in various areas such as psychological and physical health, education, prejudice, discrimination, and social conflicts”
Positive Daily Affirmations: Is There Science Behind It? — “Certain neural pathways are increased when people practice self-affirmation tasks… The ventromedial prefrontal cortex—involved in positive valuation and self-related information processing—becomes more active when we consider our personal values .”
Using Affirmations — Discusses how affirmations raise your confidence, control negative feelings such as frustration, anger, or impatience, improve your self-esteem, increase your productivity, and overcome bad habits.
Self-affirmation activates brain systems associated with self-related processing and reward and is reinforced by future orientation — “Self-affirmations can restore self-competence by allowing individuals to reflect on sources of self-worth… Participants showed increased activity in key regions of the brain’s self-processing and valuation systems.” “This neural activity went on to predict changes in sedentary behavior…”