The Power of Future Thinking for Healthy Living

Your outlook on the future is closely linked to your well-being. Positive future thinking (PFT) is a vital component of healthy cognitive functioning. When individuals struggle to envision a positive future, this negative outlook often becomes a core feature of anxiety and depression.

Positive Psychology

Positive psychology focuses on positive events and influences in life. By emphasizing positives, individuals find meaning and purpose. The goal is not just survival but thriving.

Prospection allows you to envision and stimulate your possible future. This includes planning, predicting, and using hypothetical scenarios about future events. Nurturing optimism and imagining a bountiful future, despite challenges, can be highly beneficial.

Benefits of Future Thinking

Engaging in future thinking, with a positive mindset, offers numerous mental health benefits, from enhanced motivation to achieving long-term goals.

Motivation and Expectation

When you're motivated and have an expectation of a future outcome, your chances of success increase. Future thinking, however, is distinct from fantasizing. Fantasizing involves feeling good and experiencing fulfillment without actually working towards success.

In contrast, future thinking leads to the expectation of achieving a goal. This encourages planning, effort, and overcoming obstacles to attain it.

Visualization

Visualization involves holding a vivid mental picture and energizing it. Numerous studies have shown that athletes who mentally rehearse and visualize successful performances perform better.

Remarkably, visualization activates similar brain regions as when actually playing the sport. Using visualization techniques can empower you to envision a better future.

Delay Discounting

Delay discounting is a psychological term that describes the tendency to choose immediate, smaller rewards over long-term, larger rewards. For example, you might spend money on a new gadget instead of saving for retirement.

However, when you envision a future retirement filled with excitement and travel, you connect more deeply with that future self. It becomes more tangible and attainable. As a result, you're more likely to invest in that future retirement and overcome delay discounting.

Managing Mental Health Challenges

Cultivating the habit of positive future thinking has numerous benefits, including aiding in the effects of various mental health challenges.

Reduce Stress

Finding individuals who aren't stressed in today's world can be challenging. Haley Neidich, LCSW, a mental health professional, observes that people with vivid imaginations and optimistic outlooks tend to manage life's stressors and triggering events more effectively.

When individuals are in a positive future thinking mode, their bodies relax, and stressors don't register as significant issues.

Anxiety

Interestingly, Neidich notes that successful individuals with anxiety disorders who are natural "future thinkers" often attribute their success to their anxiety. This can be problematic, as it reinforces the belief that anxiety, rather than their thought patterns, fuels their success.

Neidich emphasizes the importance of separating anxiety from natural imaginative gifts, especially when working with high-achieving individuals.

Depression

Positive future thinking can be a crucial component of mental health treatment. Neidich highlights the significant improvements in depressive symptoms when individuals focus on positive future goals.

"A new way of thinking changes our thoughts. Being excited or imagining a positive, successful future enables feel-good hormones to be secreted and triggers an actual chemical experience of decreased depression."

Practicing Future Thinking

Given the benefits of future thinking, you may wonder how to practice it effectively. Here are several techniques to explore:

Anticipatory Savoring

To enhance your psychological health, immerse yourself in thoughts of a future event. Anticipatory savoring involves enjoying an event before it happens. You benefit in multiple ways: imagining it, experiencing it, and remembering it.

Practice

Take an inventory of your thoughts. Are you dwelling on the past or your current problems? Shift your focus to future-oriented positive thoughts. Give attention to these positive thoughts and aspirations.

Future Directed Therapy

If you continue to struggle, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) can help you think about the future and improve prospection. CBT aims to change automatic negative responses and replace them with more objective and clear-eyed thinking. This can facilitate healthy movement into the future.

Alternatively, you might consider Future Directed Therapy, which focuses on envisioning your future desires and learning how to achieve them. This approach avoids dwelling on past or present problems.

Moving Forward

Harness the power of your imagination to promote healthy living. As Robin Hornstein, PhD, psychologist and intersectional/inclusive therapist, explains, "When we imagine, we use parts of our brain to counter negative narratives, fear, and hopelessness."

"Imagine you write a script for your future that is exciting, engaging, and possible. You smile and form a memory or wish in your brain, releasing the neurotransmitters dopamine and serotonin that make you feel good."

Future thinking is a powerful tool that can significantly enhance your mental health. By imagining a positive future, you can live a more fulfilling and meaningful life.