How To Use Affirmations: 13 Answers You Should Know

Are you curious about how to use affirmations to improve your life?

Affirmations are positive statements that can be said in order to motivate oneself or someone else.

This is a great way to start your day off on the right foot, whether you’re brushing your teeth, reading an article, or sitting at your desk about ready to tackle the day’s tasks.

Affirmations can also be used as reminders throughout the day and before bed to overcome any mental blocks that may have surfaced during that time period.

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Woman sitting in meditation pose learning How To Use Affirmations to improve her life

Here’s what you need to know about how and when you can use affirmations:

1. Do I Have To Say Affirmations Out Loud?

You should say affirmations out loud because it will help you get to the point where you have trained your body and mind to believe them.

When you repeat affirmations aloud, you create new neural pathways in your brain and subconscious mind.

Once they become embedded in your subconscious, you can simply recite them silently in your head.

2. Can Affirmations Change Your Appearance?

Yes, it is possible for affirmations to change one’s appearance.

Affirmations are simple statements about what you want to change so that your subconscious can pick them up and begin to believe them, resulting in your body doing as requested.

Your life won’t turn around overnight, but if you’re consistent and make the choice daily to think about thoughts that make you feel good, you’ll definitely make positive changes in every area of your life, including your appearance.

3. How to Make Your Own Affirmations?

A good affirmation has five basic ingredients:

It’s personal,
It’s positive,
It’s present tense,
It’s visual,
and it’s emotional.

So you might write something like this:

“It is deeply satisfying (emotional) that I (personal) respond (present tense) with wisdom, love, firmness, and self-control (positive) when my children misbehave.”

4. Does Listening to Affirmations While Sleeping Work?

Listening to affirmations as you fall asleep has been said to be effective in depositing the affirmations in your subconscious.

When you sleep only your conscious mind has gone to sleep, your subconscious can be awake.

This is the reason why positive affirmations can enter your brain even when you are asleep.

5. Can You Listen To Affirmations While Working?

Yes, you can listen to affirmations while working or doing other things at the same time.

The subconscious mind has the ability to absorb background information whether you are working, playing cards, or doing the dishes.

Although it is possible to multitask between activities, affirmations are most effective when done alone.

6. What Are Negative Affirmations?

Negative affirmations are simply a negative thought system that occurs when one continues to affirm things that are not positive.

To put it another way, when someone wants to affirm a positive mental attitude, they work hard to speak in ways that only affirm what they want to happen.

Many people, however, are capable of unconsciously affirming things in the negative.

If I say something like, “I’m always getting taken advantage of” or “I’ll never get out of debt,” I’m just making negative assertions.

These are examples of negative affirmations.

While I don’t believe people intentionally try to make negative affirmations, I believe they do so out of habit or a misunderstanding that anything you say or assert as the reality in which you live is an affirmation, whether positive or negative.

The point is that, in order to be successful in creating a life with positive affirmations, it is also necessary to replace negative affirmations, as they are just as powerful and may negate the work on the positive side.

7. Can Affirmations Change Your Body?

According to positive psychology expert and ACBS faculty member, Gabriele Oettingen Ph.D., Ph.D., “affirmations are self-directed statements or wishes that you repeat to yourself in an effort to change your body and your behavior.”

In a review of the research literature related to affirmations, Dr. Oettingen reported: “…four studies all found positive effects on health ranging from reduced blood pressure to lowered cholesterol levels.”

So, yes, affirmations can change your body. It has all to do with your thinking and how you see yourself.

Affirmations can replace your negative thoughts with positive ones. And if you change your thoughts, you change your beliefs.

By changing your beliefs, you change your actions.

And lastly, by changing your actions, you change your life and your body.

8. How Long Affirmations Do Take To Work?

Affirmations can take as little as 7 days up to 30 days to work. This range is highly dependent on the individual.

But, as with everything else in life, you must be consistent and repeat the affirmation frequently, out loud, or to yourself on a daily basis.

Consider it a mental exercise. Make it a habit to do it at least 21 days in a row.

You’re forming a new thought process, possibly to replace an old, negative one.

As a result, you must develop affirmations that you are willing to say in order to improve yourself.

Little by little, with lots of reps, you train your mind to believe a new thought, and once you have conquered the belief by the number of reps daily, you will notice gradual changes in your behavior.

9. How Many Affirmations At A Time?

You can use as many affirmations as you wish at a time, there is not a set number.

But, from personal experience, it seems to work better for me if I do a few affirmations with full focus than a bunch of them quickly.

The most important factor is quality over quantity when we talk about affirmations.

Tip: Focus on one of your 7 chakras as you say or imagine your chosen affirmation.

It’s important to note, that the way you frame your affirmation will change, depending on what chakra you are focusing in that moment.

When we focus on the root chakra we say “I am” affirmations. But when we focus on the heart chakra we say “I love” affirmations.

Here’s your guide:

Root Chakra = I am “I am beautiful”
Sacral Chakra (stomach) = I feel “I feel beautiful and healthy just by being”
Solar Plexus Chakra = I have or I do “I have the ability to keep myself beautiful and healthy”
Heart Chakra = I love “I love the fact that I am beautiful”
Throat Chakra = I speak “I speak beauty into my existence”
Third Eye Chakra = I see “I see myself being beautiful in my everyday life”
Crown Chakra: I Know “I Know that I am beautiful inside and out”

10. How to Believe Your Affirmations?

When you first start practicing positive affirmations, you may feel as if they are not true, and you may even feel a little uncomfortable, which is totally normal.

In order to believe your affirmations, you have to choose a few affirmations that deeply resonate with you, your belief system, and your values.

Consider an affirmation to be a seed planted in your mind that will eventually grow and produce positive results in your life.

This, of course, will take time.

Don’t repeat useless affirmations. Come up with or carefully choose affirmations that challenge your unhelpful thoughts while being believable.

You need to practice them consistently and make a commitment to yourself.

Otherwise, you won’t believe them, and they won’t be able to help you.

11. What Are Some Good Affirmations For Shifting Realities?

Here is a list of the best affirmations for shifting realities:

I am proud of myself.
I will shift.
I am shifting.
Shifting comes easy to me.
I am good enough.
I can and I will go to my desired reality.
I can create my ideal reality.
Everything about shifting is easy for me.
I am pure consciousness, not attached to anybody.
Shifting is natural for me.
I choose happiness and happiness chooses me.
I am ready to shift.
I was born to be great.
Abundance and prosperity come naturally to me.
I am able to shift my life successfully.
I believe in myself and my abilities to succeed in life.
I am ready to release all negative energy and saying goodbye to my inner critic for my wellbeing.
I am happy with what I have.
Peace and happiness begin with me.
I have the power to overcome obstacles.

Read more: 40 Powerful Shifting Affirmations

12. Can You Whisper Affirmations?

For centuries, many people have wondered if they could whisper affirmations. Some agree while others disagree.

The short answer is that you can, of course, whisper your affirmations.

It’s all up to you and what works best for you.

I personally rarely say them aloud because I don’t live alone, and it would be strange for others to hear me.

Affirmations work only if you believe them and if you repeat them often enough.

So, it doesn’t matter if you whisper them, say them in your mind, out loud, or write them down on paper.

13. Can You Have Too Many Affirmations?

It’s not about the quantity of the affirmations as much as the quality.

If you say an affirmation 10 times a day, and each time you feel good is way more effective and beneficial than saying it hundreds of times and feeling bad.

That’s why it’s best practice to choose 2-3 affirmations that resonate with you the most for the best results.