Insights into the Mind

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For a long time, I was deeply sceptical about positive affirmations. I’d seen them plastered across Instagram in pretty pastel fonts — “I am enough,” “I radiate confidence,” “I attract abundance” — and honestly, they made me cringe. When I was going through the worst of my anxiety in my mid-twenties, someone suggested I stand in front of the mirror each morning and repeat affirmations to myself. So I tried it. And it made me feel worse. So do positive affirmations work, or is it all just feel-good fluff? As it turns out, the science is far more interesting — and far more honest — than the wellness industry would have you believe.

Why Affirmations Felt Hollow (And I’m Not Alone in That)

I remember standing in my bathroom at 23, in the middle of a period of near-daily panic attacks, whispering “I am calm and in control” at my own reflection. I felt ridiculous. More than that, some quiet part of my brain was loudly disagreeing — because I wasn’t calm. I wasn’t in control. And the gap between what I was saying and what I was experiencing felt almost insulting.

It turns out there is actually research to back up that feeling. A 2009 study published in the journal Psychological Science by Joanne Wood and colleagues found that positive self-statements can backfire for people with low self-esteem. When participants with low self-esteem repeated statements like “I am a lovable person,” their mood actually worsened compared to those who didn’t repeat the affirmation. The researchers suggested that when an affirmation directly contradicts your existing core beliefs, it creates a kind of internal conflict that can leave you feeling worse, not better.

Something I’ve noticed in my own experience — and in the experiences of people who’ve written to me over the years — is that this isn’t a failure of willpower or positivity. It’s a mismatch. The traditional affirmation model essentially asks your brain to accept something it doesn’t yet believe, and for many of us, the brain simply isn’t having it.

What the Research Actually Says About Affirmations

Here’s where it gets genuinely interesting. The research doesn’t say affirmations are useless — it says context and delivery matter enormously.

Studies rooted in self-affirmation theory (developed by psychologist Claude Steele in the 1980s) show that affirming your core values — rather than making grand statements about who you are — can meaningfully reduce stress, improve problem-solving under pressure, and buffer the effects of self-threat. There’s a distinction worth making here: value-based affirmations (“I care about creativity and honesty”) versus state-based affirmations (“I am confident and beautiful”). The former has a much stronger evidence base.

Research also suggests that framing matters. Studies by researchers including Lisa Legault have found that interrogative self-talk — asking yourself “Can I do this?” rather than stating “I can do this” — can actually produce stronger motivation and better outcomes. The question prompts your brain to generate its own reasons and evidence, which feels far more believable than an assertion handed down from a Instagram post.

And neuroscience backs up one key element of affirmations: neuroplasticity. Repeatedly directing attention toward positive possibilities can, over time, help build new neural pathways. But this works best when the practice is gradual, grounded, and paired with actual behavioural change — not as a standalone magic trick.

What Works Better: Approaches Rooted in Evidence

If classic affirmations aren’t landing for you, please know there are evidence-based approaches that address the same underlying goals — building self-worth, reducing negative self-talk, managing anxiety — but with more solid research behind them.

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)

CBT works by helping you identify and gently challenge distorted thought patterns — which is essentially what affirmations are trying to do, but with a more structured and realistic approach. Rather than replacing a negative thought with a positive one, CBT asks you to examine the evidence for and against a belief, and arrive at a more balanced view. From my own experience, this felt so much more sustainable than cheerfully telling myself everything was fine.

If you’re curious about exploring CBT on your own, a few workbooks I’d point you toward are the Cognitive Behavioural Therapy Workbook For Dummies, which is genuinely accessible and non-patronising despite the name, and Retrain Your Brain: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in 7 Weeks, which structures the process in a really practical, week-by-week way. There’s also the Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) Workbook, which I’ve seen recommended by several therapists as a solid self-guided starting point.

That said — and I want to be clear about this — self-help workbooks are a supplement, not a replacement for working with a qualified therapist. If you’re struggling significantly, please do reach out to a professional. Your GP can be a good starting point in the UK.

Mindfulness

Mindfulness-based approaches don’t ask you to think positively — they ask you to observe your thoughts without judgment, which takes the pressure off entirely. For me, this was far more useful during anxious periods than any affirmation. Research into Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) has found significant reductions in anxiety, depression, and psychological distress across dozens of studies.

If you’d like to explore this, the A Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Workbook is a well-regarded resource developed by therapists trained in the MBSR programme. Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction: The MBSR Program for Enhancing Health and Vitality is another solid option if you want a more in-depth exploration of the full programme.

EMDR for Deeper Wounds

Sometimes negative self-beliefs are rooted in trauma — and in those cases, affirmations really won’t touch the sides. Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) is an evidence-based therapy with a strong research base for trauma, anxiety, and PTSD. It directly targets the stored memories and beliefs that drive a lot of our negative self-perception. If this is something you want to learn more about before seeking a therapist, the The EMDR Workbook for Trauma and PTSD is a good introductory resource, as is the EMDR Self-Therapy Workbook and the Self-Guided EMDR Therapy and Workbook. Please note that for significant trauma, working with a qualified EMDR therapist is strongly recommended alongside any self-guided reading.

So — Do Positive Affirmations Work? Here’s My Honest Take

They can — but probably not in the way the wellness industry sells them. Blanket positive statements delivered without context, to someone whose inner critic is already at full volume, can genuinely backfire. That was my experience, and the research supports it.

But reframed as value affirmations, interrogative self-talk, or as one small piece of a broader practice, they can have a real place. The key questions to ask yourself are:

• Does this affirmation feel even slightly believable to me right now?
• Am I affirming a value I genuinely hold, or trying to overwrite a feeling?
• Is this part of a wider approach, or am I hoping it will do all the heavy lifting?

From my own experience, the shift from “I am confident” to “I have handled hard things before, and I can handle this” was genuinely meaningful. It was believable. It had evidence behind it. That’s a very different thing from a pastel-coloured mantra.

Mental health is complicated, and it deserves more than a morning mirror ritual. If you’re struggling — really struggling — please consider speaking to your GP, a counsellor, or a therapist. There is no shame in needing more support than a workbook or a blog post can provide. I say that as someone who eventually did, and it changed everything.

Sending you so much warmth — wherever you are in your journey right now, I hope something here was useful. You deserve approaches that actually work for you, not just ones that look nice on a screensaver.

— Lucy x