Ever had one of those days when you can’t stop checking the news, or your social media feed of choice and it seems to be full of nothing but grim warnings that the world is full of anger and imminent threats to your well being? Then you go out and about on your daily business and immediately notice how rude that person was who didn’t give way at the junction, not to mention the person who brushed past you without even a brief acknowledgement of the breach in social distancing rules. It’s enough to make you undertake a voluntary lock-down where the ills of society can be ignored as you hunker down in your bunker!
Ordinarily this can be a challenge but when faced with the global period of mass uncertainty that’s presented itself in recent times, it can be even more unsettling to be confronted with scary statistics, headlines and nervous humans on a daily basis. Whilst the recent reality of living in turbulent times has understandably caused great concern for many, it’s interesting to consider how for the majority of us, natural feelings of concern and discombobulation are amplified by the way that our ‘oh so sophisticated’ brains have evolved. Given that we have limited control over some of the events that are occurring, it makes sense for the good of our ‘mental wealth’ to focus on what we can control as frequently as possible.
Putting unprecedented times of pandemic aside for a moment, there is a very good reason that our brains have a strong propensity to see the negative, it all boils down to what neuro-psychologists have called the ‘negativity bias’ of the brain.
We can trace back this evolutionary bias and understand it by looking to our ancestors. Back in the day when survival depended on being able to hunt and gather enough food whilst simultaneously dodging predators, ice ages and threats from starvation, it was essential to be able to remain hyper aware of any danger – think of it as the ability to pick wild berries without being attacked by a wild animal!
Photo by Annie Spratt on UnsplashThe Psychologist and author Dr Rick Hanson has written plenty on the neuroscience of the negativity bias and describes the effects as making the brain ‘like velcro for negative experiences and teflon for positive ones’. Essentially it’s the reason that we focus on the ‘bad stuff’ much more than the ‘good schnizzle.’
Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash
Of course the negativity bias works well from a survival perspective, helping us to see any potential dangers and keeping us alert at all times to potential threats. However, an unbalanced negativity bias isn’t particularly helpful when trying to cultivate a greater sense of calm and happiness, or at least a sense of steadiness within a storm. When in overdrive, the negativity bias can narrow our life experience leading to feelings of stress and overwhelm. In reality it isn’t feasible to suggest that there won’t be negative experiences to threaten our peace and enjoyment, it remains a basic fact of life that there will be challenges and things that we’d rather not encounter along the way. It also remains a basic fact of life that ‘this too shall pass’, it’s a certainty in life that nothing will remain the same. With this in mind, if our hope is to retain a sense of equilibrium, regardless of what we can’t control, we can choose to cultivate a much broader view that recognises the juicy bits in life, not just that which causes pain.
Thankfully we have some control of this evolutionary matter, the secret lies in taking conscious steps towards rewiring our brains to ‘notice the good’ to develop a broader perspective resulting in increased harmony. How to do that will be shared in another post.
The Midlife Mash Up 
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