"We are not iPods"

Greetings friends! Welcome back to our regularly scheduled Brain Bytes! With Thera Rising's first certification course complete, we're turning our focus back to regular newsletters.

It's been a while, so let's do a brief recap. Our first Brain Bytes covered the fundamentals of neuroplasticity. Then, we talked about the lizard, mammal, and primate brains. Last time, we had an overview of the negativity bias. If you want a refresher, or just joined us, email Ben Martin (Ben@TheraRising.com) to get copies of the first three newsletters. Hopefully, we'll have our newsletter archive in working order again soon!

When we left off, we'd just finished discussing how powerful and pervasive the negativity bias can be. At the root of it is the pesky fact that the mind is much better at perceiving patterns in negative experiences than positive ones. Fortunately, with a little mindfulness, we can beat the bias.

If you'll think back to Brain Bytes number one, we talked about "taking in the good." Take 30 seconds to a minute to go through this routine:

• Become mindful of something good in your life. It could be a pleasant physical feeling, or something you're proud of, or something you've recently experienced or are looking forward to (seeing your family, a good meal, etc.)
• Enrich the sensation by concentrating on it for a short span-around 10 seconds.
• Absorb the experience, feeling how it affects your mind and your body. This helps the sensation stay with you longer.

But how can such a simple exercise counter something as powerful as the negativity bias? In a word, focus. Our anxious "lizard brain" is always on the lookout for everything that could possibly go wrong. That can be helpful (if you're a caveman, for example) but it's counterproductive and actually harmful to most of us today. The trick to counteracting the negativity bias is to actively shift your focus to the good things in your life. Every time you do this, you're "petting the lizard." It takes time and practice, but each time you pause to take in the good, you reinforce those positive, healthy mental pathways.

It's important not to take shortcuts when taking in the good. Don't just remember "I had a good time at the movies yesterday." To build that pathway, you need to play the experience back. Not all the way from start to finish of course! But let yourself drop back into the moment, and relive it a little. In the words of Rick Hanson, "We are not iPods. We're VCRs." In other words, just remembering we had the experience isn't enough. We need to "play the whole song" back to record it to the brain.

We have plenty of opportunities to stress ourselves out over the holidays. Hosting, cooking, and shopping, obligations to family and friends, hazardous roads. But the holidays can be a time of grounding and reconnecting, too. So over the next few weeks, look for those moments of comfort. Take note of them, and once or twice a day, spend half a minute playing it back and taking in the good.