As I explore the connections between mind, body, heart, and soul more closely, I am fascinated by the scientific explanations for many mindfulness practices. Understanding how biology, evolution, and social factors influence my emotions and actions, I am developing and strengthening helpful habits while weakening destructive ones. This past week, I have been concentrating on the "negativity bias" of the brain. Basically, as humans we remember negative events and emotions more strongly and more quickly than we do positive events and emotions. In our evolutionary past, a fast and strong reaction to a potential threat proved more useful to survival than did responsiveness to opportunities. For our ancestors, if you missed an opportunity, there would probably be another chance, but if you miss a risk, you might be dead. Living in a different, less physically threatening world today, we can counteract this tendency by purposefully noticing and savoring positive events and emotions. To strengthen positive memories and shift your mood towards joy and contentment, place extra attention on the good things that happen to you throughout the day, no matter how small. For instance, the other day I appreciated the feeling of the sun on my arms as I was biking, and the beautiful leaf dancing down the street in the wind. Giving special attention to this small detail shifted my mood towards being more biased to notice positive, rather than negative, things around me during the day.
Another technique is to savor particularly good experiences. You can do this by taking time to relive the positive experience, going over the details of the event. Immersed in the experience of that moment, try to feel the joy, pleasure, excitement, love, connection, empathy etc. You can further strengthen a pleasurable memory by purposefully creating neural pathways connecting it to other positive events that have happened. Then, the next time you think about the older positive event, you will also recall the new positive event. For example, I just had a really fun photo shoot last week, and I spent a few minutes three times during the day to relive the experience. I also recalled the other fun photo shoots I've had in my life, going back to a fifth grade photo shoot I did with friends. I hadn't thought about most of these memories in a long time, but found myself smiling and feeling so happy as I was doing this exercise. It was very powerful in the moment, and seems to be increasing my "positivity bias" as well. For more information, I strongly recommend
Buddha's Brain, the book where I got these exercises, and which discusses the science and the mindfulness practices that can help rewire your brain.
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