From motivational speakers focused on the power of your positive thoughts to books purporting to teach you how to attain everything you want in life through visualisation, there has been plenty of talk recently about positive thinking. Behind the assertions that thinking and believing can get you anything you desire, real research shows that the way we think does influences our lives.
Well-respected studies show that positive thinking can lead to better coping skills, decreased negative stress and even an increased immune response to the common cold. The idea that positive self-talk can shape behaviour and possibly change the brain’s pathways is a key part of the psychology discipline known as cognitive behavioural therapy.

Psychologists, researchers and medical professionals define positive thinking as self-talk that is realistic and self-affirming. In our previous article, “Putting Positive Thinking to Work,” Whakate explored ways to learn positive thinking. In this article, we examine the research on its benefits.

The Classic

The idea of using positive thinking to influence one’s life has long been a staple of popular culture and advice books. Perhaps the first to really popularise the idea was the author and protestant preacher Norman Vincent Peale. His book “The Power of Positive Thinking” has sold some 20 million copies in 41 languages.
Peale wrote, “Think defeat and you are bound to feel defeated. But practice thinking confident thoughts, make it a dominating habit. … Feelings of confidence actually induce increased strength” (Peale 12). For Peale, all that positive thinking was deeply tied to faith in God. His book was heavily criticised at its publication and continues to be criticised today, with many critics and readers concerned about his focus on religion.
Others, including the psychologist and founder of cognitive therapy Albert Ellis, have said that Peale’s techniques are actually a form of self-hypnosis (known as autosuggestion) and may be harmful. These are repeated self-affirmations that can cause the subconscious mind to accept a belief. Some psychologists believe that autosuggestion can cause muddled thinking or lead to mental health issues.
Although Peale’s basic message still involves replacing negative thoughts with positive ones, it has no scientific basis, unlike some of the other methods we will examine.

Medicine and Positive Thinking

Psychologists were among the first researchers to explore the effects of people’s thoughts on their lives. Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is a psychology discipline that uses a collection of therapies to change a patient’s pattern of thinking and thereby change the way the patient feels. Studies have shown that CBT therapies can effectively treat depression, anxiety disorders, eating disorders and other problems as well (National Alliance on Mental Illness, 2003).
The United States-based Mayo Clinic, an internationally known non-profit medical group, notes that positive thinking is a “stress management skill” associated with a number of positive effects, including decreased negative stress and better coping skills during difficult times.

The Physical Effects of Positive Thinking

While research into the mental effects of positive thinking has a long history, scientists have only recently begun studying its physical effects.
A recent study in the Netherlands (Giltay, et al, 2004) found that elderly people who were the most optimistic about their lives were 45 percent less likely to die during the ensuring decade than those who were the most pessimistic. The study followed 941 Dutch men and women for just over nine years. After determining the subjects’ level of optimism or pessimism, it looked at death rates almost 10 years later. The most optimistic had a death rate of 30.4 percent and the most pessimistic had a rate of 56.5 percent. (Read more about the study in the New York Times article “Yet Another Worry for Those Who Believe the Glass Is Half-Empty”).
The researchers in the Dutch study don’t know why optimism seemed to have a protective effect, and the study established only correlation – not that pessimism causes a shorter life or that optimism causes a longer one.
Studies have also found some immune responses associated with positive thinking. The New York Times reported that researchers at the University of Wisconsin found evidence linking positive emotions with a stronger immune response when people receive a flu vaccine (“Power of Positive Thinking May Have a Health Benefit, Study Says”).
In the Wisconsin research, women were asked to think and write about either an intensely positive experience or an intensely negative experience. Researchers recorded the electrical activity in their brains, noting which subjects showed the most activity in the right prefrontal cortex, the region of the brain active in anger, fear and sadness responses, and which showed the most activity in the region associated with positive emotions. Each subject was then immediately given a flu vaccine.
Six months later, the researchers measured the subjects’ levels of flu antibodies (the more antibodies, the better the body responded to the vaccine). Those who had shown the most activity in the negative-emotions region of the brain while recalling a negative experience had the lowest level of antibodies. Those who showed more activity in the positive-emotions region of the brain at that time had the highest levels of antibodies. No difference in antibody levels was seen among those whose brains reacted differently when recalling a positive experience.
In that study, Goode reports that Dr. Richard J. Davidson, director of the university’s Laboratory for Affective Neuroscience and a senior author of the report on the research, cautioned against applying the research more generally. Goode writes that, “There is no evidence, for example, that cancer is caused or affected by negative moods or attitudes, and many illnesses, Davidson said, may be unaffected by the neural changes set off by stress.”

The Placebo Effect

The placebo effect – feeling physically better after taking offered medication that actually has no medicinal value – was long thought to be purely psychological. However, in the article “Study Verifies Power of Positive Thinking” (Neergaard, 2005), the Associated Press reported there is evidence that the placebo effect is, in fact, physical. The anticipation of a positive effect “can trigger the same neurological pathways of healing as real medication does.”
The examples in the Associated Press story include a study by Dr. Fabrizio Benedetti of Italy’s University of Torino Medical School. He found that when patients in pain knew they were about to receive a dose of morphine, the painkiller was up to 50 percent more effective.
Another study at the University of Michigan found that when people subjected to painful pressure were told they were getting a pain reliever, their brains immediately released more endorphins, even though they only received a placebo.

Don’t Eliminate the Negative

While there is plenty of evidence supporting the mental and physical benefits of positive thinking, some form of negative thinking can occasionally be important.
In the book “Never Saw It Coming: Cultural Challenges to Envisioning the Worst,” author Karen Cerulo explains that while people are naturally better at imagining the best-case scenarios, not anticipating the worst-case scenario can lead people to disregard important warning signs and fail to prepare for impending disasters.
On the other hand, physicians and computer engineers are trained to imagine the worst-case scenarios and that training may have helped contain the SARS outbreak and Y2K computer problems.
Other writers have pointed out that some types of business success require a little less positive thinking than others. In “Now’s the Time to Railroad You Into More Upbeat Thinking,” Stefan Stern writes that, “a good chief executive will balance necessary optimism with equally necessary pessimism.”
Whether you are seeking a more successful life, greater happiness and satisfaction, or improved health, research shows there are benefits to positive thinking. As scientists become more attuned to the still-mysterious workings of the human brain, we can expect more research on the subject.

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