How to overcome our natural negativity bias
We all suffer from it.
Our human, innate negativity bias has kept us safe over the millennia. It protects us from harm as we imagine the worst-case scenario in everything and act to avoid it.
However... we don't really want negativity to rule our life. Especially when trying to address the climate crisis and other sustainability issues, we need to give the future a chance and muster all the optimism that we can.
How can we do that in practice though?
A few ideas:
- Pay extra attention to the good things in the world and around you. For instance, when things go well or when you accomplish something, no matter how small, celebrate! Take a minute to appreciate this and yourself.
- Look for positive news. Take a look at this BBC article on some amazing breakthroughs in sustainability that happened in 2023.
- Focus on the feelings and sensations of the positive experiences you have. These will then become positive memories which will, in time, have the power to reshape your brain towards more positivity.
- Deliberately create positive experiences: acts of generosity, trying something creative or new, recalling happy times.
- One of my favourite mindfulness exercises for when I'm feeling low is to look around me and spot five things I like (the sun shining through the curtains, the smell of my coffee, my cat peacefully sleeping in the armchair etc.). The act of focusing for a few seconds on something positive has the power to bring me back to the here and now, where, in fact, there is a lot to appreciate.
This article was originally written for the Green Gorilla weekly newsletter. If you liked it, subscribe to receive more articles like this and learn how to communicate sustainability better, how to be more productive without selling your soul to the work devil, and how to make an impact in the world. Here is the link: https://newsletter.thegreengorilla.co.uk/