Good Day — Bad Day: Getting Caught Up in Negativity Bias

Last week I was seriously in a great mood and mindset. I was doing the work, I was making progress, and I was getting into the flow. Everything was coming up sunshine and roses.

Then I got some bad news and everything, including my optimistic mindset, went to hell in a handbasket.

A bunch of the irrigation pipes and sprinkler heads in our yard had gotten busted as a result of last fall’s clean-up efforts.

Ugh, so awful, am I right?!

As the technician showed me the damaged pipes, shaking his head, telling me he couldn’t even give me an estimate to repair because he wasn’t sure where some of the breaks were; I could feel the pressure of anxiety increasing — something like what I imagined the Incredible Hulk felt when he got angry, right before he turned green and swelled up. (Or did he swell up first and then turned green? I can’t remember.) Walking back into the house, my shoulders were slumped, my hands clenched into fists, and I could feel the throb of a tension headache starting in the back of my skull. The ticker tape of negative thoughts started up:

Why did bad things always happen to me?

This was what I got for getting over-confident and over-optimistic.

Everything was total crap.

What was the point of even bothering to try?

Later, as I was feeding the dogs and unloading the dishwasher, I continued to replay the loop of bad news, also adding to it everything else bad that popped into my mind. And then it hit me; Everything had been fine, more than fine before I got the news about the repairs needed to the irrigation system. While having to factor repairing some busted sprinkler pipes into my schedule and budget was annoying, it was hardly a life-altering negative event.

Why was my positive outlook so fragile that something so trivial could knock everything out of kilter?

The reality is that our brains have an in-built negative bias. This negative bias really worked for humans in the early days of our evolution, when life-threatening dangers were an everyday occurrence requiring constant vigilance. It made sense for us to always be on the lookout for the next bad thing when the next bad thing could be lurking around every corner, every tree. Caveman's complacency and optimism weren’t what ensured the survival of the species. Although this bias may have served us well when preservation of life was the primary objective, it is somewhat less helpful in a 21st-century context.

With each negative experience we have and dwell on, the neural pathways of that vestigial negative bias get deeper and forge sprawling neural connections. As a decidedly glass half empty type of person, my temperament already leans to the pragmatic at best, pessimistic at worst and I have some particularly well-worn and easily accessed negative neural pathways that are seemingly on a hair-trigger for activation. It is possible, though, to shift away from the negative bias and begin creating new neural pathways and connections that don’t continue to reinforce it.

First and perhaps most importantly is just to become aware of and notice what’s happening. For me, negative thoughts sometimes feel like huge waves just relentlessly surging and crashing in my head; often dragging me and my mood under like a riptide. And, like a riptide, you first need to notice you’re caught up in one rather than continuing to exhaust yourself by thrashing against it.

Next, after you’ve become aware that you’re caught up in the undertow of negative thinking, you need to bring in some calming action. Start with just noticing your breath. Then experiment with making your exhalations a little bit longer than your inhalations, perhaps even adding a pause of a few seconds after each inhalation before exhaling.

Then, start re-directing your thoughts as a way to move you out of the negative thinking loop. A good antidote to pessimism is gratitude and you can start really small. Maybe you could just become aware that in each second, each small moment of time (even if your sprinkler pipes are busted) you are all right, right now. Then think about what else you are grateful for — however small, however minor. You may be surprised by how much is positive and good in your life when you put your mind to it!

Even after over a decade of studying and practicing mindfulness, frustrations, bad news, and fear can still suck me into a negative thought spiral. That’s why I continue to practice. With continued practice, comes progress and improvement; small steps, small improvements, yet it is progress, nonetheless. And with each experience of noticing, calming, and re-directing I know I’m making progress on creating new neural pathways and finding greater resilience.