Have you ever heard of the term negative bias?
According to behaviorists and psychologists, we tend to focus on negative rather than positive things, even if the positives outweigh the negatives. This bias applies to all areas of human experience. And it applies to all of us as a sort of default.
Negative bias was discovered in the late 1980s to the early 2000s. I’ve been aware of it since college as a psychology student, but recent events brought the issue to the forefront again.
You see, I’m also affected by social media trends. It’s everywhere, isn’t it? Sometimes, it spooks me how YouTube and Facebook algorithms could be so precise. For example, AI has detected that I’m into self-care and self-acceptance, so it has suggested gratitude journaling.
Because I value good suggestions from any source, I took what the Machines suggested. I tweaked it to my liking, however.
You see, what I read about negative bias alarmed me:
First, a bit of a backstory.
When our brain plays a negative tune over and over again
How our brain absorbs information causes us to repeat thoughts or ruminate on the same ideas frequently. When we encounter something new, our brain strives to make sense of it by establishing neural connections that link the new information to our current knowledge and experiences. That means these neural pathways are strengthened whenever you think about the same issue. Eventually, our thoughts can become automatic, like a habit.
This means that when we’re worried or afraid of something, our brains can get stuck on those thoughts, making them repeat over and over again. And when this happens, we feel worse and worse. It’s like a never-ending cycle of negativity, continuously feeding itself. It doesn’t stop unless we learn how to break it.
Because I’m anorexic and prone to circuitous thinking and rumination (hello, Obsessive-Compulsiveness) I don’t like that one bit.
My gratitude regimen has to begin somewhere.
I often wake up in the middle of the night, awake and lucid for at least one hour. It has something to do with age (perimenopause?), or maybe it’s another symptom related to anorexia. It’s problematic, but I’ve given up fighting against it.
Instead, I use this one hour to read and journal, let it all hang, and free-associate. Near the end of this insomniac hour (or hours), I noticed that I descend into negative rumination. So, I see this moment as an opportunity to exercise a consistent gratitude practice. I figured I could replace the bad with the good, no?
For now, I am building this gratitude-replaces-negative-thoughts practice bit by bit.
Aside from my nighttime practice, I want to do it when I’m awake too. But it takes a while to catch all the unconscious moments when a chain of negative thoughts happens in my head. This is unsurprising because I am fighting against human nature. As I’ve mentioned, the default program of our thought pattern is negative bias. So this endeavor to change is going to be an uphill battle.
I stand by my insistence.
Why? I am tired of negative thoughts dragging me down. I need to find a novel way to survive my nighttime awakening sessions. And maybe the AI and all the life coaches got something right. After all, if it doesn’t work, why is there so much hype about it?
Let’s do an exercise now, I’ll change that last sentence. I’m going to turn it around right here:
After all, a gratitude mindset works, and that’s why there’s much buzz about it.
Hmmm, that does feel better.
Thank you for sticking with me thus far.
I appreciate it.
What’s my strategy? I will share with you some helpful tips that worked for me in this part of the article.
Sharing some tips and tricks for developing a gratitude mindset
- Start somewhere. Schedule your gratitude exercise on just one instance in a day when your mind is idle. You can identify it as the right time because of the unmistakable feeling of boredom.
- As soon as you catch the negative thoughts riffing, replace them with any positive thoughts. Being silly is ok! Being petty is ok! There isn’t a proper way to go about it.
- Sometimes I begin by being thankful for the bed I am lying in, which leads to gratitude for my smartwatch, modern apps, and the ease of doing things because of technology. Then, that leads to being thankful for my job, how I found my job, my persistent attitude, and my supportive husband. Once you seize upon an important topic, the thoughts go on and on in a continuous flow like a waterfall. Soon, there will be no stopping the positive cascade of thoughts entering your mind.
That’s about it. I like to keep it simple.
I hope that these three simple tips will be useful to you.
Do let me know how it goes.
