Inside Out or Outside In

When my colleagues start talking about using affirmations with their personal training clients, I try hard not to roll my eyes. I can still see Stuart Smalley in front of that mirror on Saturday Night Live. The words "smile therapy" take me back to actor Peter MacNicol wincing his way through Ally McBeal (don't worry, you're probably too young to get the reference).

Although my knee-jerk reaction is one of disdain, however, I am, in fact, wrong. These techniques work for a very simple reason: Your primitive brain (and mine) can't separate fact from fiction.

When you sit through a horror film, your body has much the same reaction it would if you really were being chased through the Paris catacombs with an axe-murderer at your back. Your heart races, your mouth dries, your body pumps adrenaline to rev you up--then unloads buckets of cortisol to attempt to cool you down. Whether you are telling your mirror you are a lovely person or choking back your disgust at that belly dripping over the top of your jeans, your mind hears and imprints the story you tell it.

Affirmations work--even if you feel silly while you do them, over time repeating to yourself words of loving-kindness will create beneficial psychological and physical responses. Smiling, even when it's forced, will, over time, send the necessary cascade of signals through your system to make you feel better. Like any skills, these mental health techniques take practice and repetition. But if you can do nothing else, you can write "I am strong, healthy and radiant" ten times in a row. Try it now. Heck--hit "comments" at the end of this post and type it ten times. Come on, I dare you!

The good news here is that health does not HAVE to spring forth from within. It does not have to be handed down on a divine cloud with cherubs and harpists. You can choose to behave as if you are strong, healthy and radiant--and in faking it, sooner or later, you'll make it.