Helen Keller once said, “Self-pity is our worst enemy, and if we yield to it, we can never do anything wise in the world.” If you’re one of the millions of people who suffer from low self-esteem, then you may find it hard to get out of your rut for a number of reasons. Learning how to improve your self esteem might require more than simply reading a self-help book or starting a new hobby. When you’re trying to overcome a bad childhood, gang involvement, substance abuse or obesity, you may need to go through a program to strengthen your confidence and lift your spirits in a meaningful way.
Researchers are looking into how to improve your self esteem if you are a minority coming from an urban, low-income family. Statistics indicate that low self esteem among this cohort often leads to gang participation, drug abuse, violence, poor school performance, underage pregnancy or crime. Researchers from Northwestern University, Loyola University Chicago and Walden University found that emphasizing ethnic pride was one of the best ways to improve self esteem among seventh and eighth graders. “These findings imply that ethnic pride is important to African American adolescents’ mental health for other reasons than it simply makes them feel better about themselves as individuals,” explains the study’s lead author Jelani Mandara of Northwestern University. “The findings also imply that ethnic pride may be as important as self-esteem to the mental health of African American adolescents. Parents, schools and therapists should expose young people to material and environments that help foster a sense of ethnic pride.”
Figuring out how to improve your self esteem should not be done alone if you have suffered with drug or alcohol abuse. In a 2006 study published in BMC Psychiatry, researchers John-Kåre Vederhus and Øistein Kristensen studied 114 patients — 59 with alcohol dependency and 55 with multiple drug dependencies who started self help programs after addiction treatment. Two years later, 38% of the patients still regularly participated in positive self esteem programs. Researchers discovered that 81% of those participating in building esteem programs had been abstinent for the past 6 months, compared to 26% of non-participants. There are many different types of successful programs available, from the community-based Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous to luxury resort-style facilities like The Rose (for women) and The Landing (for men) in Newport Beach, California.
Learning how to improve your self esteem is critical if you had a troubled childhood. Positive self esteem will be the solid base necessary to build up a happier, more successful life, psychologists say. Recently researchers discovered that childhood adversity like sexual maltreatment, emotional abuse and physical violence actually leads to distinct changes in the brain. “In the group that had childhood adversity, two structures in the left basal ganglia were not responsive to reward cues, which differed from what we saw in the control group,” explains Daniel Dillon, lead author of a study conducted by Harvard’s Department of Psychology. He adds that there was no difference between the groups regarding their perception of punishment, but those who were abused found it harder to accept rewards or improve confidence and were therefore much more prone to depression, apathy, low motivation and the reduced ability to experience pleasure. Therefore, it is essential that you get out of your situation and into a comprehensive 24/7 therapy program if you have been the victim of an abusive upbringing.
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