The science of a positive mindset: how affirmation actually works

The practice of affirming is something that’s gained significant popularity in recent years, from self-help guides to TikTok. The concept is simple, you repeat some positive phrases to yourself daily, and you can change your life.

Straight off the bat, this sounds too good to be true. But there is scientific backing on why affirmations can actually make you see mental and physical improvements in yourself.

Essentially, when you affirm something, you’re taking the cognitive biases that exist within your brain already, and using these for your own advantage. For example, confirmation bias, this being the idea that you tend to recognise and internalise more of what aligns with the beliefs that you carry.

So, say you’ve applied for a job you’re unsure that you’re going to get. If you tell yourself every morning, ‘I am going to get this job’. Even if you don’t really believe this, with confirmation bias, your brain’s going to scramble to find evidence that you will, in fact, get this job, until you start to believe it.

Likelihood is, you have the capabilities within you already, by affirming what you’re doing is exposing your brain to your full potential. So, by implementing this form of positive self-talk, you build your confidence and upset existing negative thinking patterns.  

There’s also the idea that as you’re prompting your brain to take these phrases as fact, you are more likely to take action to help make this a reality, if it is a slightly more far-fetched and practical goal. As you affirm, you begin to envision a mental image in which your goal is fulfilled, so that you can believe that it is within reach and pick up habits that guide you towards living this reality.

It’s all about adapting preconceived notions about yourself. The technical term for all of this is ‘neuroplasticity’, I.e. your brain’s ability to rewire itself when it recognises the need for change, in response to some sort of stimuli. In this scenario, your envisioned mental image is the stimulus. Your nervous system recognises the desire for this outcome, and so shifts its activity so that you can end up achieving this – for example, by increasing your motivation so that you’re able to work harder than you would usually.  

So there you have it, an overview of some of the science that proves affirming is actually a worthwhile practice, and not just some 21^st century nonsense. There’s a lot of benefits to it, such as improved physical and mental health – why not give it a try?