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Morning affirmations can help you prime your mood for the rest of the day.
It is a practice that can help you consciously ‘wake up on the right side of the bed.’
Doing affirmations in the morning is also powerful because upon waking your brain is still in a more suggestive state.
Imagine a thought loop as a groove in the earth created by water. Given enough time, flow and intensity, and you will soon have a river. At first, a few words may have no power over you. Repeat them over and over, with passion, and your mental river will be unleashed.
As humans, most of our thoughts are re-living memories. We play familiar patterns in our head that trigger dreams, hopes, desires, and feelings like happiness, procrastination, or fear. These loops become so automatic; it feels like we are under their control, but that isn’t the case.
The goal here is to create tracks deeper than the disempowering feelings laid down over previous years. You will notice shifts in your feelings, and beautiful occurrences in your life, until one day you’ll love life, and life will love you back. It took me a few short months to go from misery to magic.
Click to watch and repeat your morning affirmations today:
Click here to download our free 30-Page eBook on the Power of Affirmations.
What are morning affirmations?
Affirmations are positive statement about something we want to create in our lives. An affirmation is really anything you say or think. Often, a lot of what we normally say or think is quite negative, and does not create good experiences for us.
If we want to change our lives, we have to retrain our thinking into positive patterns. Too often we say “I don’t want this in my life”, and forget to state clearly what we do want. “I don’t want to be sick anymore” doesn’t give your body a clear picture of the health you desire. Instead, try phrasing it as “I am healthy.”
Do Morning Affirmations work?
Research does indicate self-affirming thoughts can lower our brain’s stress hormone levels.
Affirmations work for people with healthy self esteem. People with severe depression or low self worth may initially need to tweak the wording in their practice to experience optimal results.
The Reticular Activating System
The Reticular Activating System (RAS) offers a scientific explanation as to why positive affirmations can improve your life and your mental state.
The reticular activating system is a big name for a fairly small part of the brain that tells us what to pay attention to and what not to. Your RAS is responsible for ‘confirmation bias’ by taking what you focus on and creating a filter for it. It then sifts through data to present only pieces that are important to you. All of this happens without you noticing.
The RAS seeks information that validates your beliefs. It filters the world through the guidelines you give it, and your beliefs shape those limitations. If you think you are bad at public speaking, you probably will be.
If you believe you are efficient, you likely will be. The RAS helps you see what you want and therefore, influences your actions.
Is there anything more awkward than standing in the mirror telling yourself how great you are? What about spouting sonnets of self-love to yourself in a mirror naked?
When you first say an affirmation, it will not seem to be true. If it were, you wouldn’t need the affirmation. It might even feel a little uncomfortable at first.
Remember that affirmations are like planting seeds. First they germinate, then sprout roots, and poke through the ground. It takes time to go from a seed to a tall oak tree, so be patient, and enjoy the ride.
Like meditation, exercise, or learning to ride a bike, affirmations are a practice. You don’t go to the gym once and consider yourself done. Believing in yourself and your dreams, perhaps, is the most important practice of all.
There is one requirement: fierce commitment. This part can’t be ignored. What if you don’t believe that you can love or, even like yourself? It doesn’t matter, so long as you remain open to the possibility.
Why Morning Affirmations?
A morning affirmation practice is the perfect opportunity to prime your brain for an productive and fulfilling day to come.
Using affirmations, visualization, and meditation in the morning can also set the tone for you to feel calm and focused throughout the day.
Because your mind is primed in a highly suggestive state, this is the perfect time to embark upon a soothing and trance like affirmation practice.
The brain is an electrochemical organ. It can even generate as much as 10 watts of electrical power.
Learning to tune in and even control your brainwave state can make you more powerful on all levels of your life.
The electrical activity emanates as five types of brain waves which occur on several frequencies:
Beta – High in frequency, these brain waves usually occur in the mind during an active debate, conversation, or even speaking in public. It can also be activated by stress, sending you into a high-arousal ‘flight, fight, or freeze’ mode.
Alpha – An alpha state occurs when you take a walk outside or pause to meditate. In an alpha state, you will feel calm, relaxed, and openminded. Unlike the high arousal state of beta, alpha brainwaves are slower but higher in amplitude.
Theta – Have you ever heard of ‘Shower Thoughts’? There are a reasons these uncensored epiphanies occur when you engage in automatic tasks, like washing your hair or shaving your legs.
A Theta state is ‘auto-pilot’ that allows for thought free flow. For example, when you zone out on the freeway, and then can barely remember how you arrived at work.
This mental state is very positive because it is free from critical thought or self judgement. It is often in theta state that you will experience ‘light bulb’ epiphanies.
Drinking alcohol is shown to lower Theta waves in our brain, while keeping Beta waves in tact.
Gamma– Gamma is the fastest brain wave state, experienced as ‘firing on all cylinders’.
When deeply focused in problem solving or a completing a task at hand, your brain is producing Gamma waves. Gamma brainwaves are also indicative of a state of peak productivity, attention, or performance.
This state is observed to create greater senses of focus, calm, gratitude, and compassion.
While meditation can put you in an alpha state, a regular practice is also shown to increase your brain’s ability to enter a Gamma state by activating the prefrontal cortex.
Conversely, Gamma waves are found to be abnormally high or overactive in people with certain disorders, such as bipolar, schizophrenia, alheimer’s, and epilepsy.
Delta – A ‘delta’ brainwave operates at the lowest frequency, with the highest amplitude. When you go to bed, your brainwaves are likely slowing from alpha, to theta and finally, delta waves produced by dreamless sleep.
When you wake, your brain again cycles from delta back to alpha, and everything in between.
Before you judge yourself for hitting the snooze button, consider that a certain amount of ‘sleep inertia’ is natural for everyone and a powerful time to daydream, reflect, or problem solve.
Affirmations for Low Self Esteem
In paradoxical twist, recent studies have indicated people with low self esteem actually felt worst after repeating affirmations, by creating a sense of cognitive dissonance – the uncomfortable feeling of trying to believe two conflicting things at once.
In fact, people with low self esteem actually felt worse after repeating positive affirmations.
Why is this?
Self-verification theory and the self-affirmation theory.
Simply stated, we develop our identity at an early age. Whether our view of ourself is positive or negative, we cling to that identity to make sense of our place in the world.
Our identity is our comfort zone, and it can be scary to change or leave it behind.This explains why lottery winners go bankrupt in a few short years. They couldn’t reconcile their new identity as ‘rich’ and defaulted back to their comfort zone.
Self definition can also fall victim to confirmation bias. We seek out information that confirms what we already believe, whether in politics, religion, and everything between.
Hearing or saying a statement about ourself when we don’t believe can feel like a threat. It may even magnify our disbelief of that statement.
So how can you make affirmations work for you if you have low self esteem?
Studies show that value-based affirmations (instead of self aggrandizing ‘I AM’ statements) will work better for you right now.
It also helps to state the affirmations as a question, instead of declarative statement, and allow your brain to fill in the answers.
For someone suffering from depression and deep feelings of worthiness, here is an example of how you can shift your negative self talk:
Instead of “I am valuable to the world” try:
“Could I be valuable? How am I valuable?”
If you catch yourself thinking something like “I am worthless” try:
“I am not entirely worthless, and I have the capacity to add more value to the world.”
How do I start daily affirmations?
Click here to download our free 30-Page eBook on the Power of Affirmations.
Here is a video for you to listen to and watch every day while you get into the habit of your morning practice. Even if you don’t repeat the affirmations, just listening while you work can have a powerful effect.
What are the most powerful morning affirmations?
Affirmations are unique for everyone, and you are encouraged to create your own.
The only condition of an affirmation is that it occurs in a present, definitive statement.
Are you ready to use morning affirmations you can use to calm your anxiety, prime you for success, boost your positivity?
To help you get started, we’ve put together a free 30-page mini eBook for you.
Click here to get the first two chapters of ‘Conquer Your Mind’ absolutely free.
Do you think affirmations are useful? Do you have favorite affirmations impacted your life? Let us know in the comments below.
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