Positive Thinking: Focusing on the Positive

HealthyPlace Mental Health Newsletter

Here's what's happening on the HealthyPlace site this week:

• Your Mental Health: Focusing on the Positive
• Help Spread Awareness of Mental Illness
• Most Popular HealthyPlace Articles Shared by Facebook Fans
• From the HealthyPlace Mental Health Blogs
• Stand Up for Mental Health
• Children with Asperger’s Syndrome Hurt by Asperger’s Stigma
• Latest Mental Health News

Your Mental Health: Focusing on the Positive

“People deal too much with the negative, with what is wrong. Why not try and see positive things, to just touch those things and make them bloom?” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

How much time each day do you spend focusing on the positive things in your life? Research shows positive thinking can make a huge difference in your mental health, your attitude, your self-esteem and self-confidence. A famous book by Dr. Norman Vincent Peale titled, "The Power of Positive Thinking," discusses how positive thoughts can create lasting change in your life. A landmark study by Dr. Barbara Fredrickson, a positive psychology researcher at the University of North Carolina, backs up this concept.

So you know, positive thinking is not about just putting on a happy face or carrying a happy-go-lucky attitude. Rather when you see things with a positive attitude, you see more possibilities in your life. This allows you to build new skills and resources that can provide value in different parts of your life.

Conversely, negative thoughts can lead to bouts of depression and negative thinking can kill your self-esteem.

How to Change Negative Depressing Thoughts and Think Positive

If you are a long time negative thinker, the ability to think positively will take practice and time. Here are two posts from our depression and self-esteem bloggers to get you started.

1. Practice Positivity to Attain Depression Remission
2. My Path to Positive Thinking

Also, take a look at our video interview with Julie Fast, who has written several best-selling books on living with bipolar disorder and depression. Julie has bipolar disorder and shares her ideas on how to change depressing thoughts.

If you're just starting out, a positive thought can be as simple as this one from HealthyPlace Facebook community member, Cynthia Lai: "I am still alive right now!!"

Related Information on Mental Health Recovery

• How to Deal with Panic Attacks: Panic Attack Self-Help
• Feeling Depressed? What To Do When You Feel Depressed
• Bipolar Help: Self-Help For Bipolar and How to Help a Bipolar Loved One
• ADHD Coaching: How Can ADD, ADHD Coaches Help You?
• OCD Help and OCD Self Help
• What Does Eating Disorder Recovery Look Like?

Your Thoughts

Today's Question: When it comes to your mental health, what would you consider your biggest success. We invite you to participate by commenting and sharing your feelings, experiences and knowledge on the HealthyPlace Facebook page.

Help Spread Awareness of Mental Illness

Get Our Mental Health Blog Widget

Over 340 sites and blogs are helping spread awareness of mental illness. How about putting our mental health blogs widget on your website, blog or social page? The latest HealthyPlace blog headlines appear as soon as the articles are posted on our site. Just click "Get Widget" at the bottom of the widget, grab the embed code and paste it into your page. You'll also see embed links for Wordpress, Blogger, Linkedin and other social sites there.

As a bonus, put the blogs widget on your site or blog, email us (info AT healthyplace.com) with a page link where it appears, and we'll give a shoutout to your site, blog, or social site on our Facebook and Twitter pages.

------------------------------------------------------------------

Share our Stories

At the top and bottom of all our stories, you'll find social share buttons for Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Pinterest and other social sites. If you find a particular story, video, psychological test or other HealthyPlace feature helpful, there's a good chance others in need will too. Please share.

We also get many inquiries about our linking policy. If you have a website or blog, you can link to any page on the HealthyPlace website without asking us beforehand.

Most Popular HealthyPlace Articles Shared by Facebook Fans

Here are the top 3 mental health articles HealthyPlace Facebook fans are recommending you read:

1. Bipolar Disorder and Comorbid Borderline Personality Disorder
2. What is Social Anxiety Disorder (Social Phobia)?
3. Confronting the Postpartum OCD Monster

If you're not already, I hope you'll join us/like us on Facebook too. There are a lot of wonderful, supportive people there.

------------------------------------------------------------------

Mental Health Experiences

Share your thoughts/experiences with any mental health subject, or respond to other people's audio posts, by calling our toll-free number (1-888-883-8045).

You can listen to what other people are saying by clicking on the gray title bars inside the widgets located on the "Sharing Your Mental Health Experiences" homepage, the HealthyPlace homepage, and the HealthyPlace Support Network homepage.

If you have any questions, write us at: info AT healthyplace.com

------------------------------------------------------------------

From the HealthyPlace Mental Health Blogs

On all our blogs, your comments and observations are welcomed.

• Practice Positivity to Attain Depression Remission (Coping with Depression Blog)
• Coping With Anxiety When You Travel: Will I Be Okay? (Anxiety-Schmanxiety Blog)
• Bipolar and Isolation (Breaking Bipolar Blog)
• Bipolar Students: Simple Tips To Get Through the School Week (Bipolar Vida Blog)
• Grief and Mental Health Part 1: Anger (Recovering From Mental Illness Blog)
• PTSD and Suicide Prevention and Stress Resilience Training – Before and After PTSD Recovery (Trauma! A PTSD Blog)
• Let Go of Limiting Beliefs (Building Self-Esteem Blog)
• Mental Health Stigma: An Interview with Patrick Kennedy (Part One) (Surviving Mental Health Stigma Blog)
• Can Love Make The Abuser Stop Abusing? (Verbal Abuse and Relationships Blog)
• Self-Harm And Picking: Pick Apples, Not Your Skin (Speaking Out About Self-Injury Blog)
• Fight Like Hell: A Letter to Amanda Bynes’ Parents (Mental Illness in the Family Blog)
• Mental Illness and Self-Acceptance (Your Mental Health Blog)
• Back to School with Your Special Needs Child (Life with Bob Blog)
• A Ghost Story and Fear and video What a Samurai Can Teach Us About Mistakes (More Than Borderline Blog)
• But How Do I Cope With Eating Disorder Urges? and 5 Tips to Deal with Negative Talk About Body Image (Surviving ED Blog)
• Elevator Broken – Use The Steps (In The Right Order) (Funny in the Head: A Mental Health Humor Blog)
• Adult ADHD and Paperwork and video Being Open About Adult ADHD (Living with Adult ADHD Blog)
• The Politics of Psychology (Creative Schizophrenia Blog)

Feel free to share your thoughts and comments at the bottom of any blog post. And visit the mental health blogs homepage for the latest posts.

------------------------------------------------------------------

Stand Up for Mental Health

Thousands Have Joined the Stand Up for Mental Health Campaign

But we still need you. Let others know there's no shame in having depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, trichotillomania, OCD, ADHD, schizophrenia or any other mental illness.

Join the Stand Up for Mental Health campaign. Put a button on your website or blog (buttons for family members, parents, mental health professionals and organizations too). We also have covers for Facebook, Twitter and Google+.

------------------------------------------------------------------

Children with Asperger’s Syndrome Hurt by Asperger’s Stigma

Children with Asperger's Syndrome need to be diagnosed early, despite any parental concerns about the stigma attached to Asperger's Syndrome. The Parent Coach, Dr. Steven Richfield, shares some observations on seeking a diagnostic evaluation for young children displaying signs of Asperger's Syndrome .

Latest Mental Health News

These stories and more are featured on our mental health news page:

• Can Emotional Intelligence Be Taught?
• Cognitive Science Meets Pre-Algebra
• Weather and Violence
• Shorter Workweek May Not Increase Well-Being
• Couples With Autistic Children
• Adding Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy to SRIs May Be Beneficial for Patients with OCD
• Study Finds Men Are More Likely to Develop Physical Illness Than Women
• Brain Clues Reveal Risk of Psychotic Illness
• Depression Highlighted as Nonadherence Risk in Bipolar Patients
• Gender Warns of Bipolar I Disorder Risks
• Mental Health–Asthma Link Heightened by Obesity

That's it for now. If you know of anyone who can benefit from this newsletter or the HealthyPlace.com site, I hope you'll pass this onto them. You can also share the newsletter on any social network (like facebook, stumbleupon, or digg) you belong to by clicking the links below. For updates throughout the week:

• circle HealthyPlace on Google+,
• follow HealthyPlace on Twitter
• follow HealthyPlace on Pinterest
• or become a fan of HealthyPlace on Facebook.

back to: HealthyPlace.com Mental-Health Newsletter Index