The unfortunate superpower of the negative is that it has a stronger impact than the positive. In fact, negative impact of setbacks in your work is three times as powerful in affecting motivation than positive progress. It’s just easier to remember the bad stuff that’s happened to you during the day than the good.
So why is it that our brains have a such a negativity bias? The reason is quite simple: They’re actually wired to pay more attention to negative experiences. It’s a self-protective characteristic. We’re scanning for threats from when we used to be hunters and gatherers. But such vigilance for negative information can cause a narrowing, downward spiral and a negative feedback loop that doesn’t reflect reality.
Fortunately, we aren’t doomed by our natural disposition towards negativity. What’s amazing is that we have the ability to break out of that negative feedback loop and we can actually rewire our brains to think positively. Understanding how the brain can refashion its own connections is the key to unlocking the durable power of positive thinking.
Haier’s 2009 study demonstrated how Tetris affected the brain’s plasticity, or the brain’s ability to change structurally, as the girls practiced and learned how to play the game. Neurons, or nerve cells, in your brain make connections, communicating through synapses. When you learn something, you change those neural connections. Every time you reactivate a circuit, synaptic efficiency increases, and connections become more durable and easier to reactivate. Stickgold’s study and subsequent research that sleep plays a role in this memory process.
So to sum up, whenever you do specific tasks over and over again, they take up less of your brain power over time. And that’s pretty amazing, as this will be the basis for a huge opportunity to change our behavior for the better:
So How Can We Combat Our Negativity Bias? The Positive Tetris Effect
Indeed, it’s quite simple: We can harness the brain’s plasticity by training our brain to make positive patterns more automatic. When we practice looking for and being more aware of positive aspects of life, we fight off the brain’s natural tendency to scan for and spot the negatives. Naturally we bring ourselves into better balance.
4 Ways to Change Your Life to Be More Lastingly Positive
Scan for the 3 daily positives. […] Celebrating small wins also has a proven effect of powering motivation and igniting joy. As you record your good things daily, the better you will get and feel.
Give one shout-out to someone (daily). […] Take the positive things you’re getting better at recognizing and let people know you’ve noticed! Take a minute to say thanks or recognize someone for their efforts, from friends and family to people at work.
Do something nice. Acts of kindness boost happiness levels. Something as small and simple as making someone smile works. Pausing to do something thoughtful has the power to get you out of that negativity loop. […]
Mind your mind. Mindfulness is paying attention to the present moment without judgment. Opening our awareness beyond the narrowness of negativity can help bring back more balance and positivity into the picture. The regular practice of mindfulness meditation has also been shown to affect the brain’s plasticity, increasing gray matter in the hippocampus, an area of the brain important for learning, memory, and emotion, and reducing gray matter in the amygdala, an area of the brain associated with stress and anxiety. Take a look at these tips on mindfulness and meditation to get started.