Lung Cancer, Meet Affirmations | Oct 12 2022

October 12, 2022

Welcome to My Skepticism

I’ve been an affirmations skeptic for most of my adult life. That’s the result of exposure to Big Woo-Woo Believers. You know, the ones who earnestly grasp your arm,  open their eyes super wide (to demonstrate sincerity), and implore you to Manifest Your Inner _________ (choose one to fill in the blank: Success, Leader, Force, Dreams, Potential, Genius, etc.). It leaves a bad taste, especially if the Believers are not especially nice. Or ethical.

But desperation can lead you to do surprising things. After days of the Lung Cancer Blues, I needed to dig myself out of the hole the was rapidly claiming me. I gave myself a good shake. I mean, if the  A word floats around CancerLand– usually hand-in-hand with “Positive Thinking”– maybe there was something to it.

The Research

Stanford Professor Emeritus Claude Steele established himself as the Big Daddy of Affirmation with his 1988 article, “Psychology of self affirmation: Sustaining the integrity of the self.” Steele argued that every individual wants and needs to feel a sense of moral adequacy, competence, goodness, and wholeness of self. Steele found that when someone’s sense of self, competence, or goodness was threatened, an action or conscious thought that focused the person’s attention on some positive value the person held protected that individual against the threat to their sense of self. This was true even when the thought or action was unrelated to the specific area that felt like a threat to self.

For example, if a person knew smoking was bad for them but kept smoking, they could alleviate feelings of guilt by increasing the amount of time they spent in something else they valued: “I may be smoking, but I’m spending time with the family– See? I’m not a bad person.” Or, “I’m smoking, but my diet and exercise are terrific.” Self-affirming actions or thoughts buffer the person’s positive sense of self against the threat. What was significant was not that people responded to the direct threat– in Steele’s studies, that wasn’t the point– but that by coping with the implications of the threat, i.e., the potential injury to their sense of self–  people could develop emotional resiliency.

As I write this, a Google Scholar search for “affirmation theory” turned up 488,000 results of peer-reviewed papers since Steele’s landmark 1988 paper. There are repeats in the list of results, to be sure, but the volume of work that’s been done in the past 34 years shows the subject remains relevant in fields of psychology, social psychology, neurology, genetics, economics, education, immigration, etc.  (And, FWIW, there’s actually a peer-reviewed journal called The Journal of Happiness Studies.)

The outcomes of research on affirmation theory are positive. For example, in one study, cancer patients reported more optimism, and greater hopefulness and happiness. Researchers have observed lower stress levels, improved problem solving capacity under stress, and a reduction of defensive responses that inhibit growth. Self-affirmation has been found to help people in low power roles focus more as they do cognitive tasks. In one study, doing simple value and identity-affirming exercises before a test, for example, significantly improved the grades of African American students and reduced the racial achievement gap by 40%. And on and on.

Speaking broadly, David Cresswell, a researcher and psychology professor at Carnegie Mellon University, told reporter Allyson Chiu that shoring up your sense of self can help you “cope with destabilizing situations.”

Brain studies

So.Many.Brain.Studies. Here’s a scan of some titles from the first page of a Google Scholar search for self-affirmation and brain:

• 2015. Self-affirmation alters the brain’s response to health messages and subsequent behavior change
• 2016. Self-affirmation activates brain systems associated with self-related processing and reward and is reinforced by future orientation
  
• 2016. Self-affirmation activates the ventral striatum: A possible reward-related mechanism for self-affirmation (“the ventral striatum”– right?)
• 2018. Resilience training that can change the brain. 
• 2022. Patterns of Brain Activity Associated with Nostalgia: A Social-Cognitive Neuroscience Perspective

Why so many studies? First, there’s so much we don’t know about the brain. But don’t forget– new knowledge is made one small increment at a time. Here’s an example of one such increment.

Researchers began one 2012 study knowing that self affirmation reduces a sense of threat and improves performance, but they couldn’t explain why– what were the neurophysiological reactions at work? The researchers hypothesized that since affirmation can make us more open, it should also make us more attentive and emotionally receptive to the errors that we make. They thought the effects on attention and emotion could be measured directly in the form of a well-known brain response called error-related negativity, or ERN (ERN: “a pronounced wave of electrical activity in the brain that occurs within 100 milliseconds of making an error on a task.”)

So the researchers used EEG to monitor brain activity of all the study participants as they performed a specific set of activities. ( An EEG, or electroencephalogram, is a test that measures electrical activity in the brain using small electrodes attached to the scalp.) Study participants were in either a self-affirmation or non-affirmation condition. IOW, they had either engaged in a self-affirmative practice or they had not. The participants in the “self-affirmation condition” made fewer errors. But the brain activity told an even more interesting story.

While EEG demonstrated that ERN rates in brain of both non-affirmers and self-affirmers showed similar levels of activity when they answered correctly, self-affirming participants showed a more significant surge in ERN when they made a mistake. That suggested to researchers that increased self-awareness made the self-affirmers receptive to errors, which allowed them to better correct for their mistakes.

The significance of the experiment? It demystifies a little bit what is happening in the brain– the brain actively shows a physical response. And for educators or other applied social scientists who might want to incorporate self affirmation in their programming, this research helps to show that “error-related distress, and our awareness thereof, can actually be a good thing,” according to the lead researcher, Lisa Legault.  (Here’s my translation: If we help kids focus on one of their positive attributes or values, they might feel miserable when they realize they’ve made errors, but they can tolerate that misery because they know something excellent about themselves and they are better equipped to correct the mistake. In the short run, discomfort; in the long run, a happy ending? Let me know if I’ve missed anything.)

The Big Picture

We’re not talking here about “the woo-woo version– stand in front of the mirror and say nice things about yourself,” writes Dinsa Sachan. An authentic practice of self-affirmation has to start with self-awareness; it must involve the “values close to your heart,” says Natalie Dattilo a clinical psychologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

Specifically, Dinsa says, it involves “accurately and authentically encouraging yourself or using words of encouragement or acknowledgement that are consistent with your truth.”

The overarching, key concept, according to researcher Chris Cascio, an assistant professor at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, is that you are not using affirmations to make up for glaring personal defects or to develop yourself into a super hero. You begin exploring self-affirmation with the foundational knowledge that you are good enough just as you are; you are valued just by being yourself.

But What Are You Supposed to Do?

Reporter Allyson Chiu writes, “If you’re struggling to find things about yourself to affirm, Dattilo suggests starting with statements that reflect what you want to believe. I want to believe that I’m capable enough. I’m working toward believing in myself. I’m trying every day to think more positively about myself and my capabilities. ‘It doesn’t feel inauthentic, and it’s moving you in the direction of what you’d like to do, how you would like to be and how you’d like to feel,’ [Dattilo] said.

Other tips: Focus on what matters most to you, but think about it as it as a goal, or how it will appear in the future, not as you envision it from the past.

Creswell suggests affirming who you are by focusing on what you love, such as: I love being a parent. “You’re giving yourself an opportunity to hold up something you value and cherish and not feel like you need to judge it or have a debate about it in your head or in your writing,” he said.

Build a daily practice. Incorporate it into mindfulness activity, a gratitude journal, meditation.

Repeat each affirmation at least three times in the morning and then at night.

The most specific guidance I found was from Leena Guptha’s Psychology Today article:

How to create powerful affirmations:

• Place your name in the affirmation.
• Phrase the goal in the present tense, to bring it into reality.
• Add a feeling to strengthen the affirmation (I feel, I enjoy, etc.).
• Add a reward to reinforce what we are truly working towards.
• Be sure to balance the goal and reward so they are realistic, achievable, and meaningful.

Examples:

• I, Jane, meditate 10 minutes a day and I feel strong.
• I, Sally, enjoy two healthy snacks a day and I am healthy.
• I, John, manage my time well and I am in control of my life.
• I, David, set daily goals and I am empowered to achieve them.

Affirmations can be spiritual in nature or action- and time-bound.

• I ________ have mind body spirit balance and I feel at peace.
• I ________ enjoy aqua aerobics twice a week and I feel fit.
• I ________ devote two hours a week to art and I feel creative.
• I ________ release all negative thoughts, feelings, and ideas and I move forward positively.

What I Did

I started by writing, not about what I value, as so many individuals in the studies did, but about the areas where I’ve lately felt the greatest stress and the most stuck: my identity– ha, that small subject– especially as related to work (or not-work as my case may be) (ugh, broken record, are you as sick of hearing this as I am?), my closest personal relationships, and my spiritual practices (or lack there-of). I figured if these things bugged me, they must be areas I value.

Then, I realized I had identified three areas matched Guptha’s recommendation that affirmations reflect multiple dimensions of our lives. Yay, me. I went right to the center of what bugged me. Then I wrote and reworked statements until I felt them, literally, in my gut. It did not take long. The format I seem to be most comfortable with is similar to these two sentence starters:

I value [fill in the blank] and I make time for that every day.

I am [insert positive quality] and I can [insert action ]

What’s Happening?

It been several days, but it feels right. I feel finely tuned– not wound too tight– to what matters to me.

And here and there, cracks of light, as when a door, barely open, is moving bit by bit.

What about with you?

Thanks for reading. Here’s hoping you find moments that are like tiny openings to what you love.

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Sachan, D. (2021). Do positive affirmations work? Discover Magazine.