Psychology and Mental Health

Here’s Why Choose Joy Intentionally, Regardless of Circumstances.

Eight effective ways to use positive psychology might lower stress, anxiety, and depressive thoughts.

Purpose of the Article

This article focuses on self-acceptance, self-compassion, self-love, and self-esteem using practical frameworks from positive psychology to improve mental health, creativity, productivity, and life satisfaction.

Unless we care about ourselves, we cannot accept others to care about us. By following the principles of positive psychology, we might create our own happiness, joy, and life satisfaction.

This piece is not health or professional advice. Instead, I penned it for information, inspiration, and awareness purposes based on my studies, observations, and experience.

Inspiration for the Post

Subscribers asked me how I stay calm and composed and keep posting uplifting content constantly, even for complex, controversial, and disturbing subjects.

When I told them I leverage the principles of positive psychology, they wanted to learn more about this topic with examples and practical takeaway points.

Without going into scientific details, I briefly introduce positive psychology and provide a few takeaways at a high level, focusing on the critical points that matter in our daily lives.

First, I’d like to paint the big picture of mental health issues globally.

The Big Picture of the Global Psychological Situation

Millions of people experience worry, emotional stress, anxiety, anhedonia, and depression daily due to psychological issues and distorted perceptions of self. They suffer and die younger than expected.

For example, according to National Health Institute (NIH), “nearly one in five U.S. adults live with a mental illness (52.9 million in 2020). Mental illnesses include many different conditions that vary in degree of severity, ranging from mild to moderate to severe.”

NIH informed that “the prevalence of mental health disorder was higher among females (25.8%) than males (15.8%) in 2020.

In Australia, where I live, “the National Study of Mental Health and Wellbeing conducted in 2021 found that an estimated 1 in 5 (21.4%) Australians aged 16–85 experienced a mental disorder in the previous 12 months.”

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) informs that “More than 50% will be diagnosed with a mental illness or disorder at some point in their lifetime.”

Furthermore, World Health Organization (WHO) states that “People with severe mental health conditions die prematurely — as much as two decades early — due to preventable physical conditions.”

WHO also points out that “Despite progress in some countries, people with mental health conditions often experience severe human rights violations, discrimination, and stigma.”

What is positive psychology?

Positive psychology was “formally launched by Dr. Martin Seligman in his 1998 presidential address to the American Psychological Association.”

As cited in this paper on Frontier, Dr. Seligman said that “I acquired the mission of helping to build the scientific infrastructure of a field that would investigate what makes life worth living: positive emotion, positive character, and positive institutions.”

First of all, unlike some perceptions in the media, positive psychology is not a new-age idea. It is a scientific branch of psychology. For example, the National Library of Medicine (PubMed) includes over 15,000 scientific records covering positive psychology.

Furthermore, positive psychology is not toxic positivity. It is an empowerment of our psyche.

The main focus of psychology over the centuries has been on negative emotions such as fear, anxiety, grief, guilt, despair, frustration, and anger.

Intentionally addressing these emotions by expressing them is critical for mental health. However, we must also acknowledge our positive emotions and feel them more frequently to empower our psychological capabilities.

This empowerment is where positive psychology plays a critical role in mental health, contributing to physical health.

Happiness starts in mind. Psychology is a helpful scientific discipline guiding us in our minds. However, from my observations, classic psychology primarily focuses on defects in human nature.

Positive psychology focuses on positive emotions and feelings such as joy, serenity, calmness, satisfaction, gratitude, excitement, and euphoria.

I embrace positive psychology because it empowers us psychologically, socially, and spiritually. Discovering positive psychology and practicing its principles has significantly contributed to my happiness and joy.

Leveraging the power of positive feelings and emotions can energize us to be more creative and productive, contributing to our physical and mental health. Scientific studies indicate that people with optimism and hope live longer than others.

Depressed people lack positive emotions and feelings in their daily lives. When they can produce positive emotions intentionally and with help from loved ones, friends, and professionals, their depression gradually decreases.

8 Steps to Leverage the Power of Positive Psychology Daily

In this section, I provide eight practical steps to use positive psychology based on my reviews, observations, and personal experience. These are not prescriptive points. They are reminders and can be customized based on our lifestyle and needs.

1 — Start the day with a spark intentionally!

Our habits determine our creativity, productivity, success, health, and happiness. Successful people have morning and evening routines that balance their lives. However, each person is unique, so they might have and need different routines.

A routine is a coded habit of our behavior and gets strengthened in the brain’s neural pathways as practiced regularly.

I provided practical tips to start the day with a spark and enjoy a joyful life in an article titled Here’s How to Start the Day with a Spark and Live a Joyful Life in Five Easy Steps.

These tips are principle-oriented points rather than a strict recipe as our needs, goals, and lifestyles differ. But starting the day with a spark can help us improve our joy and reduce the risks of experiencing mental disorders.

2 — Don’t be afraid of looking at the mirror daily or conversing with yourself!

We tend to ignore ourselves or keep criticizing even for minor mistakes we make. The inner critic will never stop by evolutionary design.

We need to challenge our inner critic gently with positive input realistically. However, initially, we resist looking at ourselves in the mirror and find it silly.

Nevertheless, if we mindfully and intentionally look at ourselves in the mirror every morning, we can see a positive shift. Then, talking to ourselves with self-compassion can improve our relationship with our psyche.

As mentioned in a previous story, talking to ourselves is not crazy but clever. I provided a self-conversation approach and shared a personal self-conversation sample for challenging negative thoughts.

3 — Reframe failures as learning lessons and valuable resources.

When we look at the big picture, life has no failure. Mistakes are not failures. Everyone makes mistakes naturally, even high achievers whom we admire. I see our mistakes as assets for improvement.

In my observations, high achievers don’t see their mistakes as failures. They see them as lessons and resources for their progress, inspiring them to correct and proceed in their path.

Have you ever asked yourself, “Why do we ignore 90% success and focus on 10% failure?” I asked and found out that it is due to our primitive brain manufacturing worries for the sake of survival.

We must listen to the inner critic who tells us essential messages based on our biochemistry and psychological positions.

However, we shouldn’t believe everything it says. Questioning every internal criticism with compassion and realistic constructs can empower us. Here’s How We Can Silence the Inner Critic for Success.

The vital point is that reframing failures and rejections as learning lessons can give us a better psychological position. Here’s How to Turn Rejections into Blessings in Three Steps.

4 — Intentional Acceptance of Ourselves

As mentioned in the mirror example, self-acceptance might feel weird initially, but as we do it consistently and persistently, we gain the empathy and self-compassion that our psyche needs.

We focus on rejections from others naturally and take precautions. However, we neglect the self-rejection that we induce subconsciously. Awareness of this blind spot is critical for our happiness and health.

This 2021 study on Medicine concluded that “Self-acceptance partially mediated the relationship between loneliness and subjective well-being. Consequently, self-acceptance should focus on improving the subjective well-being of elderly nursing home residents.”

Intentional self-acceptance is a preventative measure and can be used for post-traumatic recovery and growth.

5 — Self-compassion and Self-love for Joy and Mental Health

Intentional self-acceptance can bring self-compassion and self-love, increasing our self-esteem and leading to authentic happiness and better mental health.

According to the researchers, “Self-compassion describes a positive and caring attitude of a person toward her- or himself in the face of failures and individual shortcomings. As a result of this caring attitude, individuals high in self-compassion are assumed to experience higher individual well-being.”

There is substantial scientific consent for self-compassion in the literature. The benefits of self-compassion are well documented by prominent institutes such as Stanford’s Center for Compassion And Altruism Research And Education.

This meta-analysis published in Applied Psychology and Health and Well-Being highlights the importance of self-compassion. “The results clearly highlight the importance of self-compassion for individuals’ well-being.”

Based on my observations and experience, I firmly believe that unless we care about ourselves, we cannot accept others caring about us. Besides, by focusing on self-love, we can attract loving people to our lives.

6 — Feed the karma account with the act of kindness for self and others daily.

Unconditionally giving to others from the heart can give us more joy than receiving. However, we also need to give ourselves, as mentioned in previous sections.

Karma is a religious concept. However, I use it as a metaphor in this article. Return on investment is an economic term, but I also use it as a metaphor for supporting our psyche.

From these two metaphors, I learned that the more we give to others and ourselves, the more we receive. While giving to others with an act of kindness, we also give to ourselves with self-care and compassion.

I explained the role of karma in mental health and well-being, focusing on the meaning of karma for self-awareness, self-acceptance, self-love, and self-esteem from a personal perspective.

7 — Act mindfully and meditate daily to calm the mind.

In addition to the biochemicals of the body, our worries come from our minds as thoughts and feelings and lead to anxiety and depression.

One of the best tools to manage our thoughts and emotions is mindfulness. These practices can significantly contribute to improving our cognitive flexibility and emotional regulation. Besides, mindfulness can increase our metacognition.

From my experience, meditation is an excellent tool to calm the mind and regulate emotions deliberately. In addition to clearing our minds from clutter, during meditation sessions, we can induce the feeling of self-compassion and compassion for others.

8 — Work in a flow state for creativity, productivity, and stress reduction.

Work and chores take up a big chunk of our daily lives. Therefore, controlling our thoughts and feelings at work and doing chores can significantly contribute to our mental health and well-being.

A flow state can change the content of our consciousness at a specific time to an optimally functioning mental and physical performance. Thus working or studying in a flow state can bring many health benefits.

From my experience, significant benefits of working in a flow state are stress relief and emotional regulation. However, some people enter the flow state to create better, produce more with less effort, and perform well to achieve desired results.

The flow state can be ideal for work and study as this state is directly related to our cognitive capabilities, such as focus, attention, task switching, working memory, and problem-solving, empowering our daily capabilities and putting us in a joyful state that positive psychology principles aim at.

In addition to numerous mindfulness practices, I provided three steps to enter the flow state and stay in it as long as we desire. Working in a flow state persistently might increase our cognitive reserves, reducing the risks of mental disorders.

Conclusions and Takeaways

When we accept ourselves, our intuitive powers get strengthened. In my perspective, intuition and logic work together in a flow state. While reasoning helps solve problems, some complex issues require intuitive input.

We don’t need millions of dollars in our bank account to feel joyful daily. Just being grateful for another healthy day on this planet can spark joy every morning.

We need to learn to be happy without any tangible reasons. Our inner joy can create desired happiness with a little effort by recognizing it intentionally.

From my experience, we can take personal responsibility for our happiness, joy, and mental health by scheduling fun daily, living mindfully, having self-love, and compassion for others, showing gratitude for blessings and working in a flow state.

As Dalai Lama articulated, “Pain in life is inevitable, yet suffering is optional.” Let’s spread positive feelings like love, joy, peace, serenity, tranquility, gratitude, and happiness for collective healing.

Thank you for reading my perspectives. I wish you a healthy and happy life.

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Disclaimer: Please note that my posts do not include health or professional advice. I document my reviews, observations, experience, and perspectives only to provide information and create awareness.

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