Affirmations helps to retrain your brain to believe the best in yourself and in your life.
Listen to your affirmations every day and notice your life change for the better.
We want to choose affirmations that reinforce your own values. They have to be things that matter to you that you already believe and know (more below).
Use your real strengths and qualities you consider important, to guide your affirmations.
The human brain is made up of two "brains".
You have a default brain (aka. Primitive Brain, Animal Brain, Lizard Brain, Habit Brain, Toddler Brain) that is wired for survival. It's primary job is to keep you safe. This is the same brain we had since we were caveman. It's the same brain we share with animals.
You also have a human brain (aka. Prefrontal cortex) that was developed later in evolution of the human body. It is responsible for planning for the future, making decisions that's best for you, higher thinking and creative expression. It solves problems and can critically think.
Your human brain is responsible for 4% of your brain. For the most part, most of us are operating with the default brain in charge (since no one taught us this in school). This is why it's so hard to take actions towards goals that can better your life. ie. Getting in shape, eating healthier.
When your nervous system is activated (perceived threat), your body goes into stress response and this 4% of your human brain goes offline. This is why it's very difficult to control your actions when you are angry or highly stressed.
Your default brain is always looking for what is wrong, because it is trying to protect you from danger. It will never, automatically, tell you know what a great job you are doing 😂 or why you are already an amazing human.
It'll instead tell you what you're doing wrong, that you aren't enough, and you will fail. It's trying to scare you so you don't take action that change the current comforts of the "cave". Change is very scary for your brain.
It's always seeking thoughts that produces negative emotions, so that you would be more on alert to look out for danger. Your brain thinks, if you are too relaxed, and a bear comes chasing after you, you won't notice to react in time. This is why it feels so uneasy when you are trying to relax. Have you noticed feeling anxiety when you're on vacation?
The brain produces over 50,000 thoughts in a day. It does this by default. You are only aware of a small percentage of them. Most of these thoughts are negative. And most of these are the same thoughts looping on repeat.
The default brain is motivated by 3 things: to avoid pain, to seek pleasure, and to exert as little energy as possible.
Because your brain likes to be efficient - whatever it is thinking over and over, your brain will automatically offer those thoughts again in similar circumstances.
You can see how we are wired and setup to fail and to feel bad. It's like a recipe for anxiety, overwhelm and negative spiraling.
The ReTrain Your brain app attempts to balance this out by giving your brain equal airtime to intentional thoughts - Thoughts you are choosing to think on purpose.
Because you are recording the thoughts using your own voice. To your brain, it sounds just like your default brain talking, except with positive messages.
Overtime, we are training our brain to have a new default series of thoughts. One that creates more hope, joy, ease, and peace.
We believe this is what you deserve.
We used the word "affirmation" in the app lightly only because it is a word that is generally acceptable and understood by the masses.
However, affirmations are often used incorrectly and thus do not work, because people are reciting thoughts and phrases they do not believe.
Your brain is clever enough to reject these thoughts. So practicing thoughts you don't believe won't work.
What we want to do instead is to choose thoughts that we can believe in (even just a little bit). Any thought that feels better than our current thought. Even if it doesn't sound super positive.
We want to be true to ourselves. The way to tell is to check with your body and listen for how a thought feels.
The thought "I am a total failure" doesn't lead to emotions that feel good.
A better intentional thought you might already believe may be "I am a human. Humans make mistakes. And that's ok"
Notice that this intentional thought feels WAY better than the unintentional thought created by your default brain.
And so these are the types of intentional thoughts we want to add into the app.
If a thought no longer feels good. Remove it and get creative with what you want to believe instead.
Studies have shown that affirmations can decrease stress and increase motivation and academic achievement. (Sherman et al., 2009; Critcher & Dunning, 2015; Koole et al., 1999; Wiesenfeld et al., 2001, Layous et al., 2017)
Here are 6 examples of evidence from empirical studies that suggest that positive self-affirmation practices can be beneficial:
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