No Negatives Friday

Like it or not—although this one’s really hard to like—we all have a natural bias towards negativity. While we appreciate positive experiences, we are much more finely attuned and give much greater weight to negative experiences like fear, threats, or even just bad news.

According to neuropsychologist Rick Hanson, our "brain is like Velcro to negative experiences and Teflon to positive ones.”

Or as my non-neuropsychologist father used to say, “It takes five pats on the back to make up for one, ‘Ah, (crap).’”

Our negativity bias is also why we tend to dwell on what other people do wrong: Every mistake, every misstep, and every slight is like a threat or potential loss, if only to our self-esteem.

As Hanson writes, negative stimuli produce more neural activity than positive stimuli. Negative events are also quickly stored in our long-term memory, while we need to actively think about positive events for twelve seconds or more in order for them to be transferred to our long-term memory.

And that’s why an otherwise good day can be so easily spoiled -- we give tremendous weight to negativity. And so do the people around us... especially the people we work with and are close to, because to them our words and actions already carry substantial weight.

But we can fight back. Tomorrow let's all try an experiment.

Let's make tomorrow No Negatives Friday.

Let's commit to focusing on the positives and getting rid of negative thoughts or feelings as quickly as possible. Granted that won’t be easy since we have centuries of evolution to overcome. It will definitely take effort.

One way is to take on a difficult task, since when we focus on something mentally challenging our brains divert resources that were previously devoted to experiencing a negative emotion. (That’s one occasion where our inability to multitask effectively is actually a good thing.)

Shankar Vedantam suggests performing a quick mental exercise when you get upset. Count backwards from 100, but do it in steps of seven. Or multiply 14 times 23. Or try to remember the lines of a poem you memorized in school. (If you're like me and you ran screaming from poetry, good luck with that.) Whatever you do, the act of working through a challenging mental exercise helps you “forget” to be angry or sad. It’s like taking a deep breath and counting to 10... only a lot more effective.

Another way is to simply pause for a moment and apply a little perspective. Even though they sometimes do hurt your feelings, your family loves you. Even though they do occasionally make mistakes, your employees and coworkers accomplish amazing things.
Even though you had to wait a couple minutes longer than you wanted for the check, your meal was still great.

Tomorrow, do your absolute best to focus only on the good. Dwell on every positive thing that happens for at least 10 or 20 seconds. Make sure the experience transfers to your long-term memory. If something really bad happens, do a little mental exercise and then toss in a dose of perspective to help you calm down and refocus.

Just as importantly, don't say anything bad about anyone or anything. No gossip, no snippy comments, no complaints... only positives. That will not only help you feel better, it will help others feel better too.

Then go a step farther: tell others what you’re doing. Ask them to hold you accountable. Ask them to make tomorrow a No Negatives Friday, too. Turn it into a game -- except with this game, everyone wins.

While all of our lives could be better, the lives we’re already living are pretty amazing. If only for one day, fight your negativity bias and let yourself—and the people around you—enjoy what we already have.

I also write for Inc.com:

• Overwhelmed? 21 Ways to Refocus
• Simple Ways to Be Happier at Work
  
• 8 Things You Should Not Do Every Day
  

(photo courtesy flickr Creative Commons)