Positive Affirmations: Yay or Nay?

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Life can be a struggle. However, we can choose how we let circumstances affect us. I’ve learned that affirmations, appreciation, approval, and acceptance are only needed from one individual – self.

During one of my clinical rotations, I remember being nervous presenting patients to a new attending during morning rounds. At that time, my colleague shared with me a story of a baseball pitcher told to him by his father. The baseball pitcher lost a lot of games and kept telling himself that he was not good enough. He continued to lose. Later in his life, he was advised to practice positive self-talk, which he did. Miraculously, he had great successes in subsequent games. This story was inspiring to me.

I also enjoy uplifting others around me. During the same rotation, one of the interns (international medical graduate, IMG) was preparing for chief rounds. I stayed past my shift to help her organize her patient presentation, going over key information and the order that it should be presented. This is something I had learned in medical school. She was an IMG  so her training was different than medical education in the United States. She practiced with me a couple of times and felt confident. She was very grateful. Small help, whether through actions or words, can have a long-lasting impact on the lives of others. It feels good to have a positive influence on others.

Positive affirmations have been in practice worldwide for centuries and have recently gained more popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic. Self-affirmations are words that proclaim one’s self-worth, allowing individuals to overcome specific threats to self-integrity and potential1 Empirical studies suggest the benefits of performing daily affirmations in multitude of ways. These include decreased health-related stress3, as well as improved academic performance4 and health outcomes5. In psychology, it is believed that positive affirmations shape the subconscious mind to bring positive thoughts into action by restoring self-integrity. There is also some neuroimaging evidence on the impact of performing daily affirmations on the neural circuit. A functional MRI study by Cascio et al. (2016)2 demonstrated increased activity of regions involved in self-processing (medial prefrontal cortex and posterior cingulate cortex) and self-valuation (ventral prefrontal cortex and ventral striatum) in individuals who were affirmed compared to unaffirmed participants.

Positive affirmations require regular practice to make a lasting impact on the mindset. There is some evidence that positive affirmations may not work for everyone and could be hurtful, especially for those with low self-esteem6.

More work is needed in this area to truly understand its short-term and long-term impact on individual outcomes. Intriguingly, it may be explored further as a tool to improve patient outcomes in vulnerable populations.

*Disclaimer: The content presented in this article is based on my thoughts and does not in any form reflect expert advice or ideas of organizations that I am affiliated with.

References:

  1. Steele C.M. (1988). The psychology of self-affirmation: sustaining the integrity of the self. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 21(2), 261–302
  2. Cascio CN, O’Donnell MB, Tinney FJ, Lieberman MD, Taylor SE, Strecher VJ, Falk EB. Self-affirmation activates brain systems associated with self-related processing and reward and is reinforced by future orientation. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2016 Apr;11(4):621-9. doi: 10.1093/scan/nsv136. Epub 2015 Nov 5. PMID: 26541373; PMCID: PMC4814782.
  3. Sherman, D. K., Bunyan, D. P., Creswell, J. D., & Jaremka, L. M. (2009). Psychological vulnerability and stress: The effects of self-affirmation on sympathetic nervous system responses to naturalistic stressors. Health Psychology, 28(5), 554–562. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0014663
  4. Sherman, David & Hartson, Kimberly & Binning, Kevin & Purdie-Greenaway, Valerie & Garcia, Julio & Taborsky-Barba, Suzanne & Tomassetti, Sarah & Nussbaum, David & Cohen, Geoffrey. (2013). Deflecting the Trajectory and Changing the Narrative: How Self-Affirmation Affects Academic Performance and Motivation Under Identity Threat. Journal of personality and social psychology. 104. 10.1037/a0031495
  5. Harris, Peter R and Epton, Tracy (2009) The impact of self-affirmation on health cognition, health behaviour and other health-related responses: A narrative review. Social and Personality Psychology Compass , 3 (6). pp. 962-978. ISSN 1751-9004
  6. Wood JV, Elaine Perunovic WQ, Lee JW. Positive Self-Statements: Power for Some, Peril for Others. Psychol Sci. 2009;20(7):860-866. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02370.x

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