FROM HORROR TO DISNEY
Our brain evolved over millennia to pay great attention to the negative signals in our environment. Our ancestors who panicked when they saw a predator, and took evasive action(fight or flight) lived to tell the tale, and to pass on their genes to us. In this way, our brains became hard-wired to pay more attention to the negative. Psychologists call this “negativity bias”and this evolutionary tendency explains why for many of us, we focus on what went wrong, we anticpate problems, and worry about what might happen.
For instance, if we gave three presentations last week, and two went well, and one went badly, most of us would find themselves re-playing the one that went badly. I call this “watching the Horror movie”. If, on the other hand, we replayed in our mind, the presentation or the game that went well, we are watching the Disney movie!
The good news from neuroscience, is that our brains do change over time, it is possible to re-wire our brain, to train our brain to be more optimistic. We all have good experiences and bad experiences, as we go through life. What is crucial, is which we pay most attention to, the stories we tell ourselves, the movies we enact in our head. What matters is the emotional weighting we give to these events.
The neroscientist, Rick Hansen , has a recommendation for mental health and well being.
“Be like Teflon for bad stuff, and Velcro for good stuff”
In other words, you can train your brain to focus more on the good stuff. You can make your good experiences stick, by thinking , writing or talking about them.
EMBRACE ,EMBODY, EMBED, EMPOWER
This is one of my favourite exercises. It combines mindfulness with positive psychology. It is a great i way to embrace and savour your positive moments so they become more embodied, more embedded in the deeper part of our mind , and set us on a more empowered path.
Each evening, spend a little time “taking in the good”. Just before sleep, put your hand over the heart area, and do some deep, calm breathing. Then re- run your good, heart-warming, fun or inspiring moments like a movie in your head. Have your movie in vibrant technicolor, add surround sound and re-capture the feeling.
This evokes the same feel good bodily reactions and embeds the memory deeper. Make it a nightly ritual to re-run your own highlights, or you can do it as a talking exercise with your partner.
As a confirmed movie buff, I would much rather watch a good movie twice, than sit through a bad one! Adopt the same principle with the movie theatre in your head. Your brain and body chemistry will then move into a more upbeat mode.
ã Margaret Forde , Chartered Psychologist
Creator of Take the Steps Meditation and Wellbeing Programme