Overcoming Negative Thoughts
Positive thoughts are thoughts that make us feel good about our progress. Negative thoughts cause us to lose hope or to stand in the way of our progress. A negative thought is usually a criticism of ourselves. We become angry with ourselves for something as simple as eating a piece of cake or not going for a walk.
We are all human, so we all have negative thoughts from time to time. However, we must try to overcome them because they often lead us into doing even more eating and less activity rather than the reverse.
The Negative Spiral
Suppose you come home after a hard day at work. You think to yourself, “I am tired of working so hard. I am sick of trying to heat healthy. I can never eat what I want.”
This negative thought might lead you to eat some potato chips. And then you think, “I did it again. I will never lose weight.” So you go on to eat more chips. Does this sound familiar? We’ve all done this, so please don’t give up just because you ate one or two unhealthy items.
If you begin to lose hope because of this chain of thoughts and unhealthy actions, take a deep breath and start again.
You are worth it!
The Habit of Negative Thoughts
Negative thinking can become a habit. For many of us, negative thoughts occur automatically. We tend to believe and act on our negative thoughts without being aware that we are doing so. One goal of this blog is to help you recognize negative thoughts as they occur and to teach you to talk back to them.
Talking Back
Talking back to negative thoughts means that you must first catch yourself having the negative thought. Imagine saying “Stop!” to yourself, and picture a huge, red stop sign. Then, talk back with a positive thought. An example of a positive thought would be to praise yourself for what you’ve already accomplished. Doing so will help stop the cycle of negative thinking we all experience.
