Lemons into Lemonade: Rewiring Your Brain’s Negativity Bias to Focus More on the Positive
A couple of Mondays ago, I found myself on an impromptu call with my personal coach, divulging all my frustrations that decided to converge and create the perfect storm of anxiety.
I had just finished rambling about the challenges I’ve experienced at work over the past year, including the various waves of uncertainty and change that’s taken place, when she stopped my grumbling in its tracks. Not in a harsh “stop-your-complaining” way. But simply with an enlightened response.
In a single statement, she spun my negative experience with uncertainty and change into an opportunity for growth by highlighting my improved learning agility. I was stunned at her ability to perceive the situation as glass-half-full.
And that brings me to the point of this article: As humans, we’re naturally more “glass-half-empty” type of people (my coach seems to be the exception) and we’re hardwired for negativity thanks to a psychological phenomenon called negativity bias.
As a marketer, I appreciate how author Hoa Loranger, VP at Nielsen Norman Group, describes it in the context of user experience:
“The negativity bias is the tendency for humans to pay more attention, or give more weight to negative experiences over neutral or positive experiences. Even when negative experiences are inconsequential, humans tend to focus on the negative.”
How many times have you recounted memories from a beautiful and restful vacation and harped on the one, insignificant mishap rather than the more frequent joyous moments?
Or deflected a compliment because all you can focus on is “that one flaw” or the small mistake that no one noticed except you?
You have your brain’s negativity bias to blame.
Our mind is prone to overreact to negative things and ruminate on them longer compared to positive things. Conversely, we tend to downplay positive life experiences, big or small. And this harmful thought pattern has an adverse impact on our relationships, work, and overall quality of life.
Multiple studies (like this one conducted by John Cacioppo, Director of the Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience at the University of Chicago) show we naturally have a stronger reaction to negative stimuli — like experiences that make us sad or scared — versus positive. It’s something that’s been ingrained in us since the beginning of time, according to psychologist and best-selling author Rick Hanson, Ph.D.
I was shocked to even learn that our propensity for negativity starts when we’re only infants (which might actually be the impetus of every toddler’s origin story).
So what can we do to overcome negativity bias and turn the proverbial lemons into lemonade? Here are my non-expert tips on how to flip negativity on its head:
See your thoughts for exactly what they are — thoughts
Thoughts are not facts and they don’t usually reflect your reality. However, thoughts are real, and you can — no, you must — be aware of them. But also remember, you are not your thoughts.
Mindfulness, specifically meditation, helped to drive this idea home for me. Through meditation, I’m able to detach myself from my thoughts, assess them objectively, and sort them based on their usefulness. And what do we do with thoughts that don’t serve us?
Rewire your brain to think positive thoughts more often
I will find any and every opportunity to talk about neuroplasticity, or the brain’s ability to change and adapt due to experience.
In this ongoing process of sprouting and rerouting, our brain creates new connections between neurons (sprouting), and creates alternate neural pathways by deleting damaged neurons and forming new pathways with active neurons (rerouting).
Why does this matter?
Imagine your neural pathways are walking trails in the forest. Your “negative” trails are the well-beaten paths: the ground is smooth and the path is free from obstacles. Most importantly, it’s familiar because you walk these trails multiple times a day.
Now picture your “positive trails.” They’re riddled with rocks and twigs and you can barely distinguish the path from the field around you. You don’t trek through this territory often, so there isn’t much need to clear out the path.
Has the plane landed yet? When we’re faced with a situation — good or bad — our brain is more likely to take the smoother, more familiar path every time. But thankfully, our brain also has the physiological ability to reprogram our default perspective from negative to positive by rerouting and creating alternate pathways, and ultimately producing more joy and less stress in our lives.
But it doesn’t happen on its own. It requires practice, consistency, and effort. It requires actively thinking about your thoughts and making the conscious decision to replace negative thoughts with more positive ones. It requires taking the rugged path more often, clearing the brush, and skipping the “Level One” trail.
(I was first introduced to neuroplasticity by Emma McAdam of Therapy in a Nutshell. She explained the concept in a simple and easy-to-understand way that anyone could use to shift their mindset and perspective)
Challenge your feelings about a perceived negative experience
I was listening to a recent episode of On Purpose with Jay Shetty during my commute into the office. And his guest, Dr. Daniel Amen, leading psychiatrist and brain health expert, posed one question for challenging our feelings about negative situations:
“Is it true?”
This is a useful exercise for identifying whether we are actually having a negative experience or if our brain is doing its job of taking us down the most familiar, well-beaten neural pathways — and doing it well. Either way, you can take advantage of your brain plasticity and replace the negative thoughts around that experience with positive ones. And keep them handy in case your brain starts inching toward the wrong path again (spoiler alert: it will).
Get in the habit of noticing and basking in positive moments — big and small
Finding the “silver lining” moments in challenging situations can be hard —we are naturally negative creatures after all. And celebrating those moments? Even harder. But we (you and I) can do hard things, and the rewards are more than worth it.
Again, mindfulness can help. By being more present and mindful throughout your day, you will likely notice things you typically disregard but actually bring you positive feelings. It could be the brisk breeze of a late fall day, a kind Slack from a coworker, or a random “I love you” from your 4-year-old son (all positive experiences from my day). It doesn’t have to be a grand moment to warrant some attention and gratitude.
Speaking of gratitude, developing a gratitude practice can help you transform this act into a consistent, habitual action. It doesn’t matter whether you keep a gratitude journal or simply list off 1–3 things you’re grateful for at the end of each day. Practicing gratitude can help us detach from our negative emotions and even change the neural structures in our brain, making us feel happier and more content.
Let’s wrap up this article with one thing to avoid when trying to overcome negativity bias: Comparison. I don’t think it’s valuable or productive to compare your situation with anyone else’s in order to validate (or invalidate) your feelings about it. Thinking that “things could be worse” or “I should be grateful because X’s situation is worse” may help to shift your thinking temporarily, but it won’t help to rewire your negativity bias in the long term.
We don’t have to accept our brain’s preference for negativity and all that comes with it. We can reprogram it and start opting for the pathways that lead to more positive feelings and experiences.
