Self-talk is the internal dialogue swirling around in your brain all day every day. The way you talk to yourself is influenced by several factors including your beliefs, ideals, external stimuli, and even your subconscious. Self-talk can vary from person to person and the only person who knows how you speak to yourself is you!

Unfortunately, it’s rather easy to get into a bad habit of negative self-talk.  This can be seen in several different ways including:

Personalizing – Blaming yourself for everything that happens

Magnifying – Minimizing the good and giving extreme focus to the negative

Polarizing – Excluding the middle ground and seeing situations as either good or bad

Catastrophizing – Expecting the worst out of every situation

Negative self-talk can lead to anxiety, overall irritability, and general discontent with life.  If you ask me, that doesn’t sound like a very good time!

However, whether this is a constant habit or we sometimes indulge in negative thinking, there are steps we can take to mitigate this. One of the first steps is to simply recognize how we talk to ourselves. Do you tend to be more optimistic or pessimistic? Do you find yourself being your own worst enemy?

Positive self-talk and optimistic outlook has been shown to have many positive effects including:

  • Greater life satisfaction
  • Improved immune function
  • Better cardiovascular health
  • Less stress and distress
  • Better physical well-being

One of the best ways to steer your self-talk in a more positive direction is to utilize the Mindfulness section of the Allwell app.  Helpful sessions under the “Meditation” session include:

  • Meditation in kindness
  • Meditation on overcoming self-criticism
  • Self-compassion meditation
  • Understanding negativity
  • Meditation on social comparison
  • Meditation for happiness

Utilizing meditation, especially to begin your day, is a great way to form a habit of positive self-talk.  The more we practice, the more this internal dialogue becomes second nature and the more overall wellness benefits we will reap.