Weight management: Using positive thinking

Why is positive thinking important to reach a healthy weight?

Positive thinking—along with healthy eating and being active—helps people reach a healthy weight.¹ It can help you stay on track when you have a slip-up. And it can keep you from getting discouraged.

Say you've been limiting your portions and eating more vegetables and fruit. But you go to a party one night and eat several slices of pizza and a big piece of cake. All the way home, you get angry at yourself for eating so much. "I don't know why I bother trying to lose weight. I have no will power. I might as well forget about it."

The more you talk in a negative way to yourself, the harder it is to stay focused on all the good changes you've made. The negative thinking makes you feel bad. And that can lead to having more slip-ups and more bad thoughts about yourself. It's a cycle that's hard to break.

But with practice, you can retrain your brain. After all, you weren't born telling yourself negative things. You learned how to do it. So there’s no reason you can't teach your brain to unlearn it and replace negative thinking with more helpful thoughts.

Positive thinking is good for your health in other ways. If you feel bad about yourself, you could feel anxious or depressed. Positive thinking also can help you handle stress better. Many people eat too much because they are stressed.

Too much stress can raise your blood pressure and make your heart work harder, which can increase your risk for a heart attack. Stress also can weaken your immune system, which can make you more open to infection and disease.