Affirmations are positive statements and beneficial claims that can help us challenge and overcome self-sabotage, negative thought patterns and ultimately change our overall thinking.
One of the main benefits I have found from practicing positive affirmations is that they can help boost self-confidence and they create a peaceful inner personal dialogue.
Through my attempts at creating a more abundant lifestyle, I’ve been researching the scientific benefits of positive affirmations.
A study published in the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience used MRI to research and the study revealed that practising self-affirmations may work because affirming one’s self activates our brain’s reward system.
The reward system is generally considered to be made up of the main dopamine pathways of the brain.
(“Especially the mesolimbic pathway and structures like the VTA and nucleus accumbens, which are connected by dopamine pathways.”)
-cited from Google.
This system, among other things, helps reduce our perception of pain, while softening the impact of physical and emotional distress.
The brain’s same reward centres that respond to other pleasurable experiences, like eating our favourite foods, finding a score at the thrift store or winning at something, will actually light up in our brains when scientifically studied in an MRI.
When our neural pathways get fired up, they make changes to those areas of our brain that make us feel happy and positive. When we repeat positive affirmations about ourselves, we start to believe them!
Various studies also confirm that affirmations decrease health deteriorating stress, they can increase the amount of exercise we want to accomplish, they can help us adapt healthier habits, they can help us sleep better and they allow us to feel more peace AND achieve more academically.
Affirmations are great to do at any time of day and will leave you feeling positive and hopeful. Personally though, from my experience, one of the best times to practice affirmations is at night before bed.
If we focus on negative thinking and worry and stress before we fall asleep, our subconscious mind will become more active as we try to solve our problems. As a busy Mom, this is so easy to do! This night time stress can easily lead to insomnia and a less restful night’s sleep. This habit of nighttime worrying can ultimately lead us into developing harmful negative thought patterns that don’t benefit us positivity at all.
Racing thoughts that occur when we are trying to sleep are often caused by stress, anxiety, other mental health conditions, medications, or excessive caffeine consumption. Consult your Doctor to discover why you are experiencing sleep issues. But, in the mean time, know that there is hope if we struggle with negative thinking and excessive worry before night time sleeping.
Making positive changes in our thought patterns in the evenings, especially directly before we intend to fall asleep, can increase our overall relaxation. It can also greatly impact our personal self talk and ultimately, by replacing negativity with positivity, our thoughts can help plan our future and even build our self worth.
During our resting state at bedtime, our minds are in a very receptive state called the theta state. The theta state occurs when a person is in a light sleep stage or dreaming. The theta state lasts roughly between 5 to 15 minutes. This state typically allows us to be in a relaxed state of mind where it is natural that our minds turn to thinking of ideas about our day’s events.In the theta state, we are more open to suggestions and our subconscious mind is more active.
(“Theta State is also often associated with some really great benefits: increased creativity, stress reduction, restfulness, and contentment. These benefits extend beyond the moments when your mind is in Theta State and regular practice can prolong these benefits, leading to greater health outcomes.”)
-scientificAmerican.com
This state of restfulness and contentment makes this time in our nighttime routine the perfect opportunity to practice personal positive affirmations.
In the end, this practice of creating and speaking positive statements to ourselves before we fall asleep, can profoundly affect our lives, as it encourages us to approach challenges and our future with a sense of calm, certainty and hope.
Consistently thinking good and positive thoughts and speaking beneficial words can be difficult to do if we are prone to worry, anxiety and negative self talk. But with a list of positive bedtime affirmations to help us, we can begin these changes as early as tonight!
I’ve created the following list of affirmations that have helped calm and relax me during my night time routine and I wanted to share them with you too in hopes that they are helpful for you as well.
If you’re new to practicing affirmations, this phone wallpaper will take the guess work out of creating your own affirmations. Simply save it to your mobile device. 🙂
If you have ever experienced sleep disturbances, bouts of insomnia, difficulty falling asleep and/or waking up in the middle of the night and difficulty returning to sleep, positive nighttime affirmations are a good practice to begin.
They teach our brain a new way to think about the world and they are truly calming to say before bed instead of counting sheep!
If we repeat phrases to convince our brain that we are safe, calm and ready for sleep, our brain starts to subconsciously search for signs that will make this true. When we do fall asleep easier, our brain will then present the sign to the conscious mind, and hence the affirmations will have come full circle.
Mom hack??
If our children have language understanding and are struggling with sleep training issues, these affirmations can be beneficial to repeat to our child before bed time. They work for any age and can be a loving and bonding practice to try.
Have you ever repeated affirmations? In what ways did they help you? Did you feel more confident and calm when you practiced them?? Do you have a favourite affirmation?
