Top 10 Positive Psychology Exercises

10 Positive Psychology Exercises

Let’s have a look at 10 positive psychology exercises that will help you in great ways.

1.Positive Reminiscence

It’s a classy approach to recall enjoyable moments. Life well-being has been found to be significantly influenced by happy memories. Simply said, the capacity to warmly recall former experiences, circumstances, and people can bring joy and comfort when you least expect it.

For a very long time, the propensity for nostalgia in old age was viewed negatively, as a form of unhealthy dysfunction, or at the very least, as bothersome to others. Psychiatrists later advanced the notion that it was not only universal and natural, but also had the potential to be beneficial.

2. The Self-Compassion Pause

You can utilise self-compassion as a potent tool to increase your resilience, self-assurance, and general well-being. While many people have little trouble showing compassion to others, they often find it difficult to do the same for themselves. You may gradually improve this trait and establish self compassion as a more regular habit in your life by setting aside brief periods of time throughout the day to reflect and practise it.

According to research, psychological health is highly correlated with self-compassion. Increased sentiments of happiness, optimism, curiosity, and connection are associated with higher levels of self-compassion, while lower levels are associated with decreased feelings of anxiety, sadness, rumination, and failure fear.

3. Strengths & Values-based Introductions

Methods that are built on an individual’s assets—including personal qualities and social and community networks—instead of their weaknesses are known as strengths-based or asset-based approaches. Holistic and diverse, strengths-based approach collaborates with the individual to advance their wellbeing.

The strengths-based approach seeks to safeguard the person’s autonomy, resiliency, capacity for decision-making, and welfare. They increase resilience and a growth attitude, create self-esteem, self-determination, and self-efficacy, and give people more chances to succeed by concentrating on what they can achieve and then using those abilities to set goals that will help solve a specific need.

4. Writing About Intensely Positive Experiences

Higher levels of general cognitive focus following writing mediated this effect. Writing about positive experiences improved physical health (measured 4-6 weeks after writing) compared to control. Notably, despite the fact that the positive writing condition was wider than the control, positive affect was not the cause of this variation. Discussion is had regarding the broaden and build model’s implications for disclosive writing.

Even if your views are nasty, you should write about them without censorship. You can sometimes work out your thoughts by just writing them down. This is an example of expressive writing, where the emphasis is on the content rather than the mechanics of punctuation and language.

5. Mindful eating

Choosing food consciously involves experiencing and appreciating it with all of your physical and emotional senses. This fosters a greater appreciation for food, which enhances the overall eating experience.

Distractions have caused people to turn their attention away from eating to things like televisions, laptops, and smartphones. A mindless, frequently hurried activity, eating has become. Since it takes some time for your brain to realise that you are full, this could be an issue.

If you eat too quickly, the fullness signal could not appear until you’ve consumed too much food. This occurs frequently with binge eating disorder (BED).

With the use of meditation known as mindfulness, you may better understand and deal with your feelings and bodily sensations.

6. Take a “time out” every day

A traditional method of managing anger is to take a “time-out” (but it can also be applied to any other heightened emotional state). Though it appears straightforward on the surface, putting it into practice in a crisis can be very difficult.

Removing yourself from a stressful situation gives you time to calm down and gain perspective. This is the basic idea behind a time-out. Instead of using it as a tactic to get the better of someone during a disagreement, it is a constructive way to control anger (or any other powerful emotion) before it spirals out of control.

7. Take a mini-vacation every week

If you regularly take short trips, it might be time for your next short vacation by the time your vacation advantages start to wear out. You can benefit from your vacation’s physical and psychological effects for months as opposed to just a few days or weeks each year by taking regular mini-vacations.

Instead of taking a single, lengthy trip per year, save up your vacation days and reward yourself with regular long weekends. Moreover, plan those weekends so they feel like restorative getaways. These positive impacts happened whether the managers went on a trip to a wellness hotel or spent a staycation at home, which is significant for people taking brief vacations with limited time for travel.

8. Three funny things

According to research, humour has a strong bonding effect and can enhance classroom learning. Our bodies respond to laughter physically by releasing dopamine, increasing blood flow, and fortifying the heart. Additionally, finding comedy in a difficult circumstance can be a beneficial coping mechanism.

It’s possible that this is the reason why, after only a week of practice, Three Funny Things in particular has been demonstrated to lower despair and increase happiness for months.

Three Funny Things exhorts us to concentrate on the positive aspects of life, especially those amusing, ridiculous, or funny incidents. Instead of dwelling on issues, we focus on exceptionally enjoyable events, frequently ones that involve other people. We have the chance to relive that amusement in the present by taking the time to contemplate in this manner.

Writing about Three Funny Things in a journal may help us see things more long-term. We might get better at laughing more easily and more amenable to finding humour in daily life over time.

9. Finding Silver Linings

“Silver linings” are the glimmering indications of courage and hope in the midst of tragedy. Our findings demonstrate what silver linings people have relied on to endure through the difficulties of the epidemic, even if no silver lining may be able to lessen the impact of the pandemic on people’s lives. 

Understanding the bright spots that have offered people comfort, hope, and strength during a period of scarcity should guide efforts to help both individual and group recovery from the pandemic’s psychological and emotional challenges. As a result, we might be more able to recover from the current crisis and better equipped to deal with any crises in the future.

A silver lining is an indication of hope or a good thing in a bad situation. The word is frequently viewed as a part of the proverb. There is always hope or something positive can be discovered in a difficult circumstance, as the expression goes.

10. Make an Effective Apology

A decent apology must acknowledge the offence, but many apology speeches fall short in this regard. If you can demonstrate that you understand who was at fault, who was affected, and the nature of the offence, your apology is more likely to be accepted. 

Saying “I made a mistake” is more effective, for instance, than saying “Mistakes were made,” which fails to assign blame. Likewise, admitting that harm was done is preferable to making general statements that downplay the validity of the offended party’s complaints (such as “I’m sorry you feel hurt”) or fail to address the specific offence (such as “I’m sorry for whatever I said yesterday” as opposed to “I’m sorry for making that insensitive joke”).

Sometimes it’s beneficial to clarify a transgression, especially to demonstrate that it wasn’t deliberate and that it won’t happen again. However, explanations that are drawn out, come across as justifications, or point the finger at the victim (such as “You were really getting on my nerves”) are more likely to backfire. Saying “There’s no excuse for my behaviour” is preferable to making a feeble argument.