5 ways positive thinking can help you live longer

Negative thoughts have a way of sipping into our brains and taking over our feelings and ultimately our lives.

We spend days sometimes weeks wallowing over situations we cannot change, and this could have detrimental consequences to not only our social lives but mental health in general.

In life we cannot always get what we want thus it would be prudent to adopt positive thinking. Lower your expectations and see people and situations for who and what they are not what you want them to be.

Here, we look at some ways positive thinking can help you have a healthy living:

1. Add years to your life
When you learn how to be positive about the people and things around you, you are less likely to suffer from different anxieties and stress that could ultimately lead to depression.

Allowing negative thoughts to dominate for too long will lead to a low self-esteem and a general drop to your immune system. People who take a positive approach towards life are likely to live a happy, fulfilling and longer life.

Living a sad life generally takes away the time you would have spent making memories with your family and friends.

2. Boosts immunity
When you constantly focus on negative thoughts, you lose your enthusiasm towards life. You will always want to be left alone to wallow in your problems and you will be constantly fighting fatigue.

When your brain is drained you are likely to suffer from infections and colds that you wouldn’t be able to explain. When you are happy, your body is active and this boosts your immune system which in turn prevents illnesses. Adopt happy thoughts, eat well and get enough sleep.

3. Teaches you resilience
The best thing about always seeing the best out of situations is that you learn how to get yourself out of those hard times. It is human nature to be faced by difficult situations once in a while if not every day, and how you handle your problems is what counts.

When you constantly think the worst of people and the things around you, you are likely to sink deeper into misery. However, positive thinking will help you be more resilient and tolerant of what life throws at you.

4. Fight stress
As the world continues to modernize, the need to work and provide gets higher and so is the pressure that comes with it. Most adults are stressed with lack of proper channels to release all the pressure that comes with work and relationship problems.

When you adopt positive thinking, you are one step ahead in handling your daily stresses. Stress comes in the form of unmet goals and thwarted expectations, when you lower your hopes on both, you are less likely to be stressed over issues no matter their outcomes.

5. Prevents high blood pressure
Not only will positive thinking help you fight stress but it could also help prevent high blood pressure or lower it for those already suffering from the same.

When you are stressed, your body produces a surge of hormones that temporarily increase your blood pressure by causing your heart to beat faster and your blood vessels to narrow.

When you adopt positive thinking, you are less likely to stress over issues and increase your chances of suffering from high blood pressure.