III. How do “Positive Self-Talk” and “Cognitive Therapy” help with treating Anxiety? What do studies show?

Research on self-talk and recognition and how they can affect anxiety, show us that there are a web of ways in which they can positively or negatively affect our moods:

• How we think about abilities and our experiences.
• What we say to ourselves [17].
• How we view events - if negatively then it generates more negative self-talk [25].
• It can change our performance in both good and bad ways.
• It can affect our experiences which be viewed as negative [18].
• How we think can affect self–talk -even the scientific research tells us to be kind in how we think and talk to ourselves [18].

Positive self-talk can have a number of healthy effects for you emotionally and socially, studies have shown that positive self-talk:

• can improve self-confidence；
• can reduce anxiety；
• can generate more positivity [19]；
• perceived by others that you are more talented or qualified [31]；
• can make you more capable of overcoming obstacles [19].

In studies on sports psychology, your conversation with people around you can also help you in your own self-talk [32]. Research has shown that people who have positive support from their social circle, mentors or leaders have increased their positive self-talk [32].

Negative self-talk, on the other hand, can have negative effects on your mood, performance, and anxiety levels [20]. Negative self-talk and state of mind are connected and studies have shown that negative self-talk:

• can foster more stress and depressive symptoms [21, 24]； 
• can affect what you do and not just your mood；
• can give rise to more failures [19]；
• can make you less competitive [27] particularly for athletes [17, 32]
• can make you to react or interpret events and statements more negatively, particularly for those with higher levels of social stress [23].

When seeking treatment for stress, anxious self-statements have been shown to predict greater anxiety symptoms, which affect the treatment benefits of dealing with anxiety [20].

Findings like these show how important it is to change your thinking through cognitive exercises. Cognitive Exercises, like improved Self-Talk, have been shown to be effective in changing anxiety symptoms and performance [26]. Studies have shown that self-talk meant to control stress can help lower cognitive stress and also improve focus [22]. Cognitive Therapies have been shown to be successful in treating anxiety and continued to reduce anxiety long after treatment has ended [26].

Although most of the research on positive and negative self- talk has been done in the United States, some studies on selective groups have shown that thought and self-regard affect self-talk and performance in other countries as well.

• Greater mood problems exist in both Americans and Spanish [18]；
• Mood problems was not found among Asians even with negative self-talk [28]；
• Americans have poorer performance in sports than Asians；
• European Americans tend to use positive self-talk more than Asian Americans but have worse performance results [28]；
• Asian Americans use negative self-talk more than European Americans but their performance levels are not affected.