Can Positive Self-Talk Impact Your Physical Body?

I joined a gym awhile back ago because I was getting lightheaded doing even minimal physical activity. You’d look at me and assume I’m in shape, but mostly my days are spent in front of a computer or reading.

Neither of those things require being in shape.

Photo Credit: Emile Krijgsman, Creative Commons

Walking into a new gym can be overwhelming. Where do I go? How do these machines work? So to minimize my risk of being embarrassed, I hopped on the treadmill and started running. That thing is pretty straight forward.

I even started running outside every once in a while.

I’m an optimistic guy. According to StrengthsFinder, my #1 strength is “positivity.” But something abnormal happens for me while running. Negative thoughts. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t seem to shake it. The negative thoughts just kept popping up.

You can’t make it.

You should just walk.

You’re tired, you can just stop.

After a few weeks of this repeated pattern, I was reading a chapter from Shauna Niequist’s beautiful book, Bread & Wine. In it, she tells the story of her Chicago Marathon training. Apparently, there are a lot of positive words thrown around in the running world:

If you can get to the starting line, you can get to the finish line.

One foot in front of the other.

So on my next run, I decided to give it a shot. What could it hurt?

I was going to combat negative thoughts with positive words.

I run with my iPhone and am able to analyze distance, pace, and elevation when I’m done. The last mile and a half is typically the hardest for me. That’s usually where the negative thoughts are the strongest. But something amazing happened when I started saying positive words to myself on the final stretch:

If you can get to the starting line, you can get to the finish line.

One foot in front of the other.

Not only did I finish in record pace, I actually got faster as I was speaking positive words that last mile and a half. Runners call that a “negative split” which I hear is good.

Either way, I was pumped to get those negative thoughts out of my head.

All this made me wonder what other areas of life I was affecting with positive talk, and whether my work, relationships and even faith could be boosted by taking greater responsibility for the words that flow through my head.

How much faster could I be running in other areas of my life?

What positive words do you need to speak to yourself today?