Saed News: You need to strengthen your emotional response to positive experiences. Over time, this can balance the tendency toward negativity and actually train the brain to absorb and retain more positive experiences in the future.
According to SAEDNEWS, specialists believe that being negative or positive-minded is not a fixed and unchangeable trait, and that mental outlook can be changed with a simple technique.
The newspaper The New York Post discussed a method called “installation” or “embedding,” introduced by neuroscientist and psychologist Dr. Rick Hanson.
Dr. Hanson explains that the learning process has two stages: activation and installation. During activation, we experience something — whether good or bad. Then comes the installation phase, where the memory of that experience is stored in our brain.
Hanson explains: without installation — meaning transferring the experience from short-term memory into long-term storage — beneficial experiences such as feeling cared for may be pleasant moments, but they do not last and no learning, growth, or positive change occurs. Negative experiences, however, are automatically “installed.” Therefore, if you want positive experiences to stick, you have to work on it.
To do this, you should strengthen positive experiences and truly enjoy them while they are happening. Pause for a moment and pay more attention to the good part of the experience — whether it is the delicious taste of food, the feeling of calm during a walk on a beautiful day, or even the joy of laughing with a friend.
Dr. Hanson suggests spending five to ten seconds or more staying with the good feeling of the experience. The more these neurons activate together intensely, the stronger this inner power becomes in your brain.
When you do this, you are not only benefiting more from positive aspects in that moment. With practice, you are actually teaching your brain to pay more attention to positive things in the future as well.
In fact, you are strengthening your emotional reaction to that positive experience. Over time, this can balance the tendency toward negativity and prepare the brain to absorb and retain more good experiences in the future.
To understand why this method works, it is important to know that humans naturally tend toward negativity, meaning they are more likely to notice negative issues and consider them more important than positive ones.
This is understandable and natural for anyone who has focused on one negative criticism within otherwise positive feedback at work, or who has been unable to stop replaying an embarrassing moment in their mind despite countless normal interactions afterward.
