Does Listening to Affirmations Work?

A lot of people say that listening to affirmations – rather than saying them out loud yourself – is OK.

But is that really the case?

As with most things to do with our minds, there’s no clear cut answer and also, because we’re human, different people react differently.

The general view is that affirmations are good – they help train your subconscious mind and plant positive suggestions in it. That goes for whether they’re said out loud by you, said by someone else or written down and read.

Incidentally, because our subconscious mind has difficulty processing negatives, you should make sure that any affirmations you use are positive in nature. For instance, you would use something like “I am losing weight” rather than “I am not gaining weight” as the latter would actually be running the risk of telling your subconscious that you wanted to put weight on because it would cross out the word “not” and interpret the affirmation as “I am gaining weight”. Probably not what you were hoping for.

So be careful how you word any affirmations you use – whether they are ones you are saying to yourself or ones that are incorporated in something you’re listening to.

Is it appropriate to say affirmations out loud?

There are times when it’s OK to say affirmations out loud – maybe you’re in a room on your own, driving your car or maybe riding your bike, possibly even walking along the street (a Bluetooth headset would make it look as though you were on the phone).

But there are other times when it’s not OK to do that – if you’re in a room with other people (unless it’s a self help seminar of course), places where it’s likely to disturb or adversely affect other people. Or, even if the other people know you, they might be puzzled by you appearing to talk to yourself (or they could be used to it!)

So there are definitely times when saying affirmations out loud is do-able and other times when it’s not do-able.

Depending on how your life is spent, you may well find that you don’t get much chance to speak your affirmations.

You could try saying them out loud in your head

Most people “hear” their thoughts.

If you’re thinking something, you can almost certainly hear it in your head.

So, if you’re shy about saying your affirmations out loud or it’s not the done thing in the situation you’re in, thinking them over in your head is definitely worth a try.

Record your affirmations

Our voice sounds different when we play it back – there’s all sorts of scientific reasons for why that happens.

It’s easy nowadays to record your own affirmations. Your phone probably has an app already installed that will record things. If not, there are plenty available to download.

If you go down this route, you’ll need to find somewhere quiet to do your recording.

It’s also worth rehearsing your affirmations a few times – whilst it’s OK to stumble occasionally if you’re saying affirmations out loud, you’ll probably get irritated if there are odd places in the recording and may even focus on those more than the affirmations themselves.

The good news is that the final “take” won’t be more than a minute or two – I’d suggest that you focus on a chosen few affirmations rather than have a bucket list of them but, of course, the final decision is yours. If you’ve got a longer list, you can always split it into several sections and then compile them into one longer recording using the excellent (and free) Audacity software.

You can put your recording in a loop so that it plays over and over or you can use the “repeat” function on your MP3 player, your choice.

Consider turning them into subliminal messages

A lot of people report success with subliminal messages.

These are where the messages are spoken out loud but the volume they’re played at is so low that you can barely hear them consciously (if you can hear them at all).

So these are pretty much the opposite to saying affirmations out loud as they’re barely whispered.

You can make your own subliminals – that’s relatively easy to do – or you can download pre-recorded tracks that have been recorded by other people.

I’ve used both these options and they both work equally well.

Nowadays, I’m lazy and tend to go for the pre-recorded tracks as I don’t have to spend time writing the affimations, checking that they’re going to have the right effect, recording them and then adjusting them, adding a backing track and then exporting the finished item to MP3.

It’s not that it’s difficult to do your own subliminals and there’s a lot to be said for having a completely custom track to listen to. It’s just down to personal preference.

Which brings us back full circle to the original question.

People have had success with saying their own affirmations out loud and people have had success with listening to affirmations – ones you can hear consciously and ones that you can hear subconsciously.

It’s often the same people who have had success with all the different methods – just at different times and places.

I’m a strong believer in affirmations as I think they help train our subconscious mind to be more in-tune with what our conscious mind wants.

The best way is to trial it for yourself.

And don’t be afraid to take the easy option of using pre-recorded affirmations – it’s not a cop out, especially if it makes the difference between listening to affirmations or not.