Confidence is believing in yourself – believing that you are capable of completing tasks and reaching goals.
Confidence is knowing that you have skills and positive traits, that you are able to face challenges and deal with difficult circumstances; it is knowing that you are your best resource. Confidence levels can change throughout your life and across different areas of your life. Many things can influence your confidence levels such as your thoughts, feelings, actions and past experiences.
What does confidence mean for women?
Why is confidence important for health?
What gives you confidence?
What can you do to build your confidence?
Mind your mind
Get social
Confidence and social connections
Watch Jean Hailes Professor of Women's Health Jane Fisher discuss confidence and what it means for women in the video below.
When you feel confident you tend to make decisions that are good for you and your health. You are more likely to take care of yourself, get out and about, be active, and choose healthier foods. Confidence can also give you a positive outlook on life, increasing your mental and emotional wellbeing.
However, when your confidence is low, your feelings of self-worth and self-respect may also suffer. You may not care how others treat you or how you treat yourself. You may not care about what you eat or how you spend your time, and this can start to affect your health.
It can also be hard to make decisions and face challenges when your confidence is low. You may start to doubt yourself and what you can achieve. Meeting new people or trying new things may become more difficult. You might worry about saying or doing the wrong thing and so you start to hide away and avoid things. This avoidance behaviour can lead to a negative cycle, lowering your confidence even more.
It is important to remember that your confidence levels cannot be high across all areas of your life all the time. You can experience low levels of confidence at different times and in different areas of your life and sometimes it is hard to work out why. It is important to try and understand what affects your confidence because ongoing low confidence can affect your physical and emotional health, your relationships with others, and your work or school life.
Watch the video below and see what gives these women confidence.
The good news is there are lots of things you can do to help with your confidence. Here are a few tips:
In this podcast, Jean Hailes health experts, Professor Jane Fisher and Dr Mandy Deeks, discuss how to build confidence.
Keeping your mind and brain healthy is an important part of building and maintaining confidence. Your mood, concentration levels, and memory can all affect your outlook on life so taking care of these areas is another way that can improve confidence.
The wrong foods, not enough food or water, too little sleep and not being active can all affect your mind, making you depressed, sad, anxious, prone to stress, mood swings or unable to concentrate.
Studies show that a healthy brain needs good nutrition, exercise and mental challenges. Visit our healthy living webpages to learn about foods that could benefit your brain and mental health and find lots of tips and information about healthy eating and being physically active.
Social connections are made up of the people you engage with and know, the friends you can confide in, the family you belong to and the community you work and live in. Social support refers to the emotional, practical, advice, love, help, resources, information and empathy you give and receive among family, friends and community.
Evidence indicates that social connectedness has an influence on physical and emotional wellbeing. Research shows that engaging with others and being part of a network, is seen as a reward by the brain and is associated with the release of one of the happiness hormones, dopamine.
Your own level of confidence can affect whether you connect with others. You might feel shy around others and this can lower your confidence even further, particularly if it makes you feel inadequate.
The way other people have treated you in social situations can either lower or raise your confidence too. Having people in your life who are negative or who make you feel like you are not good enough can dent your confidence and make you want to hide away.
Confidence to engage with others can be different for each person and change from day to day. Here are some tips to help you get social and engage:
This web page is designed to be informative and educational. It is not intended to provide specific medical advice or replace advice from your health practitioner. The information above is based on current medical knowledge, evidence and practice as at September 2014.
