Test This Idea For Yourself

It’s well known that chronic exposure to bad news can increase risk for sadness, depression, and other negative emotional issues.

But the opposite is just as true. When you focus on positive aspects of your life, your brain is more likely to produce positive hormones and act as a bit of a buffer against the usual stressors of your day.

The changing seasons gives us a chance to test this idea for ourselves!

Now that we are moving into fall and then winter, health articles commonly focus on the symptoms that one might get as the seasons change. This exposure can lead some to become very concerned about them, looking for them, anticipating them. And once you get locked into this form of mental worry of looking for negative symptoms, even to the point of anxiety, the brain can produce the stress hormones that make those feelings of sadness even worse than they might otherwise be.

So this fall and winter, let’s test this idea for ourselves!

Make a conscious effort to create positive brain chemicals, which you get through positive emotions, which you get through positive thoughts. This will help bias your entire system in a more positive emotional direction.

It’s important to point out that the psychological changes that can happen with the change in seasons are absolutely real. And positive thinking will not remove them. But what they can do is nudge that emotional equilibrium more in a direction that will benefit you more in the long term.

As always, check with your healthcare provider if you have any concerns at all.