I'm sure if we were all asked, "Is it better to think of the glass being half empty or half full?" most of us would answer and say that it is better to think of the glass being half full - but do we really believe that? Do we just choose that as the answer because it sounds good or because we think it's the right answer? Or do we actually deep down believe that being optimistic vs pessimistic is more beneficial to us? Do you ever wonder if there are really benefits to positive thinking?

One of the best ways to study this is by interviewing people of various degrees of success and finding out how those people think about their lives and how they approach accomplishing things. It has been found that successful people tend to think that their failures are merely stepping stones along the path to their success and that unsuccessful people tend to think that their failures are simply the end. Successful people tend to always think that they are destined to be successful while unsuccessful people don't. It seems evident that positive thinking can have a strong benefit when it comes to our personal lives.

There have been studies about our subconscious and super-conscious minds and how they immediately respond to the conscious mind. The idea is that if you think of something consciously (like a goal) your subconscious mind immediately goes to work and finds the most practical or direct way of achieving that goal. So if there is a problem to overcome it is much more beneficial to consciously think about what the solution may be instead of continuing to think of the problem. Our minds are like supercomputers that respond to commands that we think of consciously.

The same would be true to how positive thinking can be beneficial to our health. The researchers from the Mayo Clinic have determined that the health benefits from positive thinking include longer life, less depression, higher immunity colds, better mental states, and better stress management. The Mayo Clinic is unclear about why people who implement positive thinking experience these health benefits but if the results are there why not try it for yourself?

It is exciting to see more and more people give positive thinking a try - especially those who study the super-conscious or universal mind and the law of attraction. Anyone can take advantage of these ideas and create a great existence for themselves.