Smriti Mandhana: Whatever thoughts come to our mind as soon as we get up from bed every morning, decide our entire day. Therefore, if we have positive thoughts in the morning then the day goes well, but if we have negative thoughts then the whole day can get spoiled. Now Indian women’s cricket team player Smriti Mandhana has also said the same thing. In the ‘Humans of Bombay’ podcast, he told how positive thinking as soon as we wake up in the morning takes us on the right path.
Negativity spoils the whole day
In the podcast, Smriti said that if you allow even one negative thing to come into your mind at the beginning of the day, it spoils the whole day. For example, if we lose a cricket match, instead of thinking about the defeat, we should remember what we learned from that defeat.
Leave negativity and think positive
Similarly, if there are many negative things in the beginning of the day, then one should keep them aside and start the day with positive thinking, this makes the whole day better. Smriti Mandhana said that if we shift our focus from negativity to positivity, then perhaps our entire day can become more productive.
Smriti Mandhana’s thoughts are powerful tools
To explain this with clinical clarity, Dr. Pavitra Shankar, Associate Consultant-Psychiatrist, Aakash Healthcare, also explained the reasons behind this and also shared her experiences. The process described by Smriti Mandhana is one of the most powerful tools of sports psychology, which is called positive self-talk. When players shift their attention from a negative event to positive things, their emotional balance becomes stronger and performance also improves.
Positivity increases performance in sports
Dr. Shankar said that this kind of thinking also enhances performance in skill-based sports like tennis or football, increases endurance and also supports muscle strength. Dr. Shankar also told that many CBT based tools help people in reducing the emotional burden of their problems.
Awareness re-framing, a key CBT technique, teaches people to recognize thoughts like ‘I’ve failed’, ‘I’m always confused’, or ‘this is all going to suck’ and replace them with balanced, realistic values.
