Can negative attitude be chronic to your health?

Negative thoughts and feelings of helplessness and hopelessness can create persistent stress, which disturbs the body's hormone balance, depletes the brain chemicals required for happiness, and damages the immune system.

An individual who feels hopeless may often have no expectation of future improvement or success. Feelings of hopelessness can often lead an individual to lose interest in important objects, activities, events, or people. Someone who has become hopeless may no longer value things that were once important.

Many people who experience hopelessness may also be affected by mental health issues such depression. Feelings of hopelessness that occur with a condition such as depression may lead an individual to have thoughts of suicide.

People experiencing hopelessness may make statements such as:

My situation will never get better.
I have no future.
No one can help me.
I feel like giving up.
It is too late now.
I have no hope.
I will never be happy again.

Therapy for hopelessness

Whether you feel hopeless about your ability to get out of debt or you feel hopeless about almost everything in life, it is an awful feeling.

Feeling stuck in a place of hopelessness makes life really tough. However, there are some things you can do when you feel hopeless to make life a bit better—no matter how bad things might seem.

Consider That Your Brain Might Be Lying to You

Your brain might tell you that things are awful, horrible, and dreadful. It may try to convince you that you can’t succeed or tell you that there’s no chance things are going to get better.

But just because you think it, doesn’t mean it’s true. Your thoughts may be distorted, inaccurate, or downright wrong.

Hopeless feelings fuel hopeless thoughts. And it’s easy to get caught up in a negative cycle that makes it hard to see that things can get better.

Argue the Opposite

When you feel hopeless, you’ll likely think about all the reasons why nothing will ever get better. So take a few minutes to argue the opposite.

What’s the evidence that things might work out better than you expect? Or how might things actually get better?

Thinking a bit about the potential positives can open you up to more possibilities. And while there’s a chance that things might not turn out great, there’s also a chance that they might not turn out as bad (or stay as bad) as you’re anticipating.

Consider What You Could Gain From Developing Hope

On the flipside, consider what you could gain if you became more hopeful. How might your life change? What would you be doing differently if you had hope?

Then, you might go ahead and start acting as if you were hopeful.

Forgiveness

Forgiveness means fully accepting that a negative event has occurred and relinquishing our negative feelings surrounding the circumstance.  Research shows that forgiveness helps us experience better mental, emotional and physical health. 

Positive emotions

Positive emotions have a scientific purpose—to help the body recover from the ill effects of persistent negative emotions. Thus cultivating positivity over time can help us become more resilient in the face of crisis or stress