Subliminal messages are often regarded with scrutiny and suspicion. It’s entirely understandable for people to feel this way, as subliminal messaging is essentially a form of unconscious manipulation. Even the FCC regards subliminal messaging with a healthy dose of suspicion, and they’re regularly on the lookout for such things on TV and in movies.
However, subliminal messaging is relatively harmless as far as these tactics go. Moreover, it can be used for much more good than bad! Rather than dismissing it based on its potential for misuse alone, it’s essential to take some time and evaluate the upsides of subliminal messaging and the good it can bring.
This is called positive subliminal messaging. Fortunately for us, sending positive subliminal messages is relatively easy, and there are many ways that you can go about doing it! Whether you’re sending these messages to others for their benefit or just using them for yourself, you’ll surely find the information in the rest of this article useful.
What Are Positive Subliminal Messages?
If you’re reading this article, you may know a bit about subliminal messaging already. You almost assuredly know a little about the subconscious mind. However, if you don’t, let us give you some quick background information.
Our subconscious mind is a part of our psyche that’s always hard at work at absorbing what’s around us. Our subconscious mind sees and understands things that often never register in our front brains.
Have you ever had a gut feeling about someone or something? This is probably because your subconscious mind noticed something worrying about that person or place, and it’s trying to tell you that, for whatever reason, this person or thing is not safe. Millions of years of evolution have instilled this advantage in us.
While we don’t always need our subconscious mind for survival today, it’s still an integral part of our brains that warrants understanding. This is also part of why it’s so poorly understood. Our subconscious minds had a much more precise purpose thousands of years ago, but today, they work a bit differently.
While it might be hard to understand and interact with, your subconscious mind is an integral part of who you are. In fact, it’s challenging to do things like break old habits or change your behaviors unless your subconscious mind is on board. Getting your subconscious on board isn’t as easy as you might think, either.
The first hurdle is the fact that your subconscious and your conscious are not usually well-linked. We dream with our subconscious mind, as it takes control when our conscious mind goes to sleep. However, think about how hard it is to access a dream after you wake up. It tends to fade away quickly.
Have you ever had a cool dream, so you went back to sleep to try and “continue” that dream? Did you notice how difficult it was? It’s nigh-impossible to do so, and this is because it’s so tricky to influence your subconscious intentionally. This is where positive subliminal messages come in, however.
Subliminal messages are one of the easiest and best ways to actively communicate with your subconscious. It’s relatively easy to make your own subliminal messages, but it’s even easier to use those that others have already created. Positive subliminal messages are alive and well in all different kinds of media, such as:
- Video
- Music and sound
- Social media
The most common form by far, however, is music and sound. Because we tend to tune into (or tune out of when we’re working or doing other things) music, it’s an excellent way to convey subliminal messages to our subconscious minds. By embedding a positive message into a musical track or another sound loop, you can send it right to your subconscious.
Creating these positive subliminal messages yourself is pretty straightforward. All you need to do is record a positive note for yourself, “layer” the sound with another track, and press play. Different degrees of subtlety work differently; some people need the message to be virtually indistinguishable from the music, while others can tolerate clear, discernible words, so sometimes it’s best to use one that a professional has already made.
There are all sorts of examples of positive subliminal messaging ready to go just for you across the internet. If you’re looking for something free, you’ll find it. However, you can buy something a bit more personal and professional if you’re willing to spend money, too. You might even be able to commission someone to make something unique for you if you strongly feel that you need it.
But what exactly is a positive subliminal message? Well, you have probably already figured out what a subliminal message is. A positive subliminal message is simply a version of this that’s meant to uplift, improve, or better you as a person.
Have you heard the term affirmations? Affirmations are positive statements or messages to yourself that help you to accomplish difficult things, mitigate stress, and inspire confidence. Sound familiar? Positive subliminal messages are positive affirmations that are meant to influence your subconscious mind instead of your conscious one.
Knowing what a positive subliminal message is is all well and good, but it’s not going to do you any good unless you know how to use them. We’ll go over that in more depth below.
Using Positive Subliminal Messages
While the theory behind positive subliminal messaging is a bit complicated, using them is, fortunately, not complicated at all. All you need to do is consume the media they’re hidden in. For example, if you’ve settled on a positive subliminal audio track that someone else has already created, just put on some headphones, relax, and listen.
If you’ve made your own subliminal messages, you might need to multitask to get it to work. Your subconscious tends to come out when your conscious mind is otherwise occupied, after all. If your conscious mind is focusing on the messages you’re hearing; your subconscious mind might not be able to absorb them as well.
Additionally, if audio messages aren’t working for you, you can always try other media. For example, another standard method of conveying subliminal messages is through video. For this method, people hide messages briefly in frames of a video that go by too quickly for human eyes to see. Your subconscious mind knows that something happened, even if your front brain does not.
If you have the time to sit and watch a video, this is an excellent way to cement your positive affirmations. However, there’s one more method that’s even easier than the other two: print!
Instead of sitting and watching or listening to something, try writing your affirmation on a piece of paper. Put the paper in a conspicuous place where you’ll notice it during your day-to-day activities, but not prominent enough where you’ll look at it directly every day. By doing this, your subconscious will take note of it often, but your front brain may not.
The text method is the least reliable of the three we’ve mentioned so far, but it also requires the least effort and time investment. Even if you don’t put much stock in affirmations, subliminal messaging, and everything else we’re talking about here, there’s no reason not to set up a few positive messages for your subconscious mind to take in throughout the day. It’s so easy!
If you want to make this method even more effective, try writing your positive subliminal message in multiple places. Some examples include:
- At the office
- On your mirror
- Next to your alarm clock
- In the car
- On the bulletin board
- On the fridge
Sticky notes are a great way to do this, but if you have a surface that you can write it on directly, such as a mirror or dry-erase board, that’s even better. A post-it note, while handy, tends to draw the eye more than writing alone.
Essentially, in this way, positive subliminal messaging is a lot like conditioning, but for your subconscious mind. You do it by sending your subconscious a repeated message rather than doing something repeatedly.
Think about how you learned your name and home address when you were a kid. It was all repetition. Even today, you probably remember the tips and tricks you would use to remember your name, your address, and anything like that. Maybe you remember songs that they taught you when you were young to help you remember colors, numbers, and other things.
Well, your subconscious works the same way. The more messages you send to your subconscious, the more they take hold. This is why you should send messages to the other half of your brain as frequently as possible. However, this isn’t as easy as you might think! It’s all in the how.
We’ve already mentioned the three main ways to do this: through text, through videos, and through audio. However, we can break this down even more. We’ll share a few other ways of doing this below.
Talk to Your Subconscious
Did you know that you can talk to your subconscious mind? Your conscious and unconscious thoughts aren’t very closely connected, but they can communicate if you know a few trade secrets! The easiest way to send a message between your subconscious mind and your conscious one is to simply talk!
Talking to your subconscious is not for everyone, however. Some people might not be able to get over the silly feeling of talking to themselves. Others just might not be able to get used to addressing their subconscious as a separate entity. However, if you keep an open mind and practice, it is possible.
To start, try writing letters to your subconscious. Do it the same way you would if you were writing a letter to a friend who lives far away. You can even give your subconscious a name or form of address if that helps you. Ask your subconscious for something, such as a solution to a problem, or tell it something important, such as “I’m a beautiful person who’s worthy of love.”
After you’ve written your letter, seal it up and put it somewhere safe. This is how you would “send” it to your subconscious. Alternatively, you can burn the letter or otherwise destroy it if you prefer not to keep it somewhere. If you’d prefer not to work with print, you can create an email to send these emails to, and they’ll be safe on the server until long after you’ve passed on.
Once you’ve mastered the process of writing to your subconscious, you can start speaking to it, as well. Talking to your subconscious is more natural, of course, but it requires a bit more skill. For one, you must speak out loud when you’re communicating with your subconscious. You can’t just think at your subconscious for this!
Decide what you want to tell your subconscious, then say it out loud, all while addressing your subconscious. Speak to your subconscious just as you would if you were writing a letter. This might seem a bit stiff and formal, but since your subconscious can’t speak back, it’s necessary.
Nightly Positive Subliminal Messages
Your subconscious is always active, even when you’re asleep. As such, an excellent time to train your subconscious and tell it what to do is when your conscious mind is sleeping! For obvious reasons, you can’t leave your subconscious a message on paper for while you’re asleep, but you can leave it an audio message.
Try recording yourself saying your positive affirmations, then playback your recording while you’re asleep at night. If you need help falling asleep, you can pair these affirmations with some relaxing music or nature sounds, too. You can even use the ready-made positive subliminal tracks we’ve talked about in this article if you want.
However, since your conscious mind isn’t in control while you’re asleep, you don’t have to be as subtle with your messages. You can do something as simple as saying, “I’m confident and fun to be around, and I deserve to have friends.” You can mention this just once or over and over, then play it while you sleep. Your subconscious will hear that message.
Multitasking Your Messages
An excellent time to put your positive subliminal messages to work is when you’re doing other things. This can be during your morning commute, while cleaning the house, at the grocery store, while walking the dogs, you name it. While your conscious mind is busy working on the tasks of the day, you can put your subconscious to work, too, by sending it positive subliminal messages.
Now, some people will be better at this task than others. Some people are just not multitaskers. If you’re not a multitasker, don’t feel bad! There are still plenty of things you can do, but you shouldn’t sacrifice your concentration for something that you can accomplish just as well in your sleep.
Sharing with Friends
Your friends can benefit from positive subliminal messaging just as much as you can. It’s always a good idea to share any affirmations you’ve recorded, any sites or channels you’ve looked to for information, and any strategies that have worked well for you with your friends. Not only will this make you feel better, but it will help them, too.
You might not feel comfortable sharing all of your positive subliminal messages with your friends, and that is okay. However, if you notice a friend in need, why not lend a hand and teach them what you’ve learned? Even something as small as a push in the right direction could be enough to change their lives for the better, and it’ll make you happier, too.
Meditation
Meditation is a time-tested and honored way to calm the conscious mind and open the subconscious mind. While some argue that meditating enough can unlock the subconscious mind for your perusal, whether this can really happen is unclear. However, what is clear is that meditation can help benefit you in many ways. Some of these include:
- Better memory
- Empathy for others
- A calm spirit
- Healing from internalized stress and trauma
- A clear mind
The benefits of meditation are well-documented and understood on their own. Even if you don’t believe that subliminal messages can help you, meditation definitely can. It can help even more when used in conjunction with positive subliminal messages.
As you most likely know already, meditation is an incredibly flexible activity. People meditate while doing yoga, while running, while lying down and relaxing, and while doing any number of other things. Since meditation is an act of the mind, it doesn’t have any prerequisites for the body, though this can help, too.
Since subliminal messaging is also an act of the mind, these two activities can mesh together exceptionally well. You can play subliminal messaging tracks while you meditate to help put you in that meditative state of mind, or you can simply say them to yourself as you relax. You can even think of them to help put yourself in that meditative state.
Beyond helping your subconscious mental state, meditation can improve your conscious state, as well. Why not exercise both your conscious mind and your subconscious one at the same time? Meditation is one of the best ways (besides sleeping) to calm your mind, let go of stress, and replenish mental energy. If you can pair this with positive subliminal messaging, you’ll come out of it with both a conscious and unconscious mental boost.
Limitations of Positive Subliminal Messages
Scientists and psychologists alike have been researching the effects of subliminal messaging for years. While there’s still much we don’t know; there are a few things that have been discovered and confirmed to be accurate, as well. For example, one of the main limitations of subliminal messaging is that it is only useful when a “need” is present.
When we say “when a need is present,” we mean that the person (or people) being exposed to the subliminal message is receptive to the subject of that message. For example, if you feel like you have a great life overall, but you’re exposed to a subliminal affirmation that says, “I have a great life, and I’m thankful for it,” It won’t have any increased effect on you.
However, when you actually need something, the effect is entirely different, and we have proof saying that this is the case. If, for example, you feel like you don’t treat your money well and you want to find a solution, saying something like, “I use my money wisely and only when I need it,” that affirmation will have a definite effect on you.
The theory behind this is the same as the people in the experiment above. In said experiment, thirsty people were exposed to a subliminal message about Lipton iced tea. Those who were thirsty were more likely to want and subsequently drink the iced tea. However, it did not affect people who were not thirsty. Sound familiar?
Subliminal messaging has one other glaring weakness, as well: it’s only useful if you believe it’s effective. If you genuinely don’t believe that subliminal positive messaging will help you improve your life, it will not affect you. This is called the placebo effect.
If you don’t believe that positive subliminal messages will benefit you at all, then there’s no point in doing them. They don’t work unless there’s a belief and intent behind the act of making them and carrying them out.
However, just because these subliminal messages have a placebo effect doesn’t mean they’re not potent tools for your arsenal. The placebo effect can be attributed to many successful techniques for both mental and physical health.
In another study, this property, along with subliminal messaging, was used to convince older adults that they were not as limited by their age as they might have previously believed. Flashing words like “creative” and “spry” across a screen at speeds faster than they could actively see allowed them to overcome negative stereotypes associated with their age.
The results of this experiment improved the participants’ self-esteem, and it eventually improved their actual physical performance, too. The participants’ physical health was improved all by seeing positive words flash across a screen faster than they could interpret!
While the above results are excellent, subliminal messaging can have adverse effects on our mental and physical health as well. Take social media as an example. Social media is well-known to cause all sorts of mental upsets and issues when it’s consumed in excess. It’s full of mental cues and messages that can have the opposite effect of the above study.
However, this article is about positive subliminal messages, not the negative ones that can come about from social media exposure. That’s a topic for another day.
One last drawback of subliminal messaging is that it isn’t clear how long the results of these messages last. In other words, receiving one subliminal message might change the way you think and feel for a day, but there’s no guarantee of whether it will change anything long-term.
Perhaps this is a good thing – any long-term change brought about by a TV advertisement would be rather scary, after all – but it also means that, if you want to see the full benefits of positive subliminal messaging, you need to devote time to it frequently. Additionally, exactly how often is best isn’t really clear, either.
Some people might be able to expose themselves to their positive subliminal affirmations once per week and see a noticeable benefit. However, others might need to devote time to them every day to see a difference in their lives. There’s no clear right or wrong answer.
Conclusion
All in all, it seems positive subliminal messages have the potential to change anyone’s life for the better. They’re not hard to conduct, though you can put a significant amount of effort into them if you want to. However, they work differently for everyone; no two people will see the same results.
Additionally, not all subliminal messages are positive. In fact, some research shows that negative subliminal messages are more effective than positive ones. However, that doesn’t mean we should avoid subliminal messaging altogether, either.
While subliminal messaging definitely shouldn’t be used to manipulate the populace – or even people close to you – its potential for great good is too much to be ignored. Subliminal messaging is such an easy, flexible way to improve as a person and fix trauma. There’s no reason not to utilize it.
Additionally, subliminal messaging is accessible, too. Older adults and young people, as well as speakers of all languages, can use positive subliminal messages to bring about change. The busy individual can simply buy rights to music that’s already prepared with these messages, and someone who doesn’t have much money to spare can make their own quite easily.
The only real catch when it comes to positive subliminal messaging is that you must believe in it. However, with all of the evidence we’ve provided in this guide, why wouldn’t you?
