Ever notice you seem to have velcro for the “bad” and teflon for the “good”? Meaning, you tend to notice and focus more on the negative than the positive? You are not alone.
In part, because humans are wired to scan for what is missing/what is wrong. This keeps us safe. To notice and respond to warning and danger early to prevent harm. Scientists named this the negativity bias.
The problem arises when we do that too often. As a result, the setting in your brain gets overly-sensitized and you experience hypervigilance. An over scanning for the danger when none exists. The brain begins to mis-ascribe danger to events that are neutral or even beneficial.
Why does this happen?
While more research needs to verify exact reasons, currently scientists have shown that repeated exposure to intense stimuli without an attuned adult to soothe the child contributes to overactivation of the negativity bias.
In short, activation of this pathway in the brain repeatedly creates sort of a superhighway in the brain. Meaning, the brain gets used to using this pathway, so it defers to it when the brain detects incoming stimulus.
It’s well regarded that the brain prefers the fastest, most developed pathways over less used, slower, less developed pathways.
Clearly, then, we can predict someone with trauma might also become hypervigilant and overly sensitive to negative stimuli. In addition, they may assign danger to a stimuli when none exists and react with behaviors that seem out of alignment.
Worry, anxiety, depression, obsessive compulsiveness, withdrawal and other behaviors may accompany such over attention to the negative.
What can someone do to change this circuitry?
You can use your mind to change your brain. To start, add in focusing on the beneficial. Developing the pathway for noticing and taking in the beneficial. From here, the brain forms two pathways for taking in stimuli. Balance.
You notice both danger or threat and safety and comfort. Beyond this, though, you install the beneficial. It’s one thing to just “notice” the good; but to benefit, you H.E.A.L on it.
This practice of positive neuroplasticity keeps the beneficial front of mind from between five and seven minutes. During this interval, you actively work with the information ensuring influence in various brain regions. You install the experience. Creating new neural pathways.
Dr. Rick Hanson introduced me to this practice, and I’ve adapted it a bit for those of you who are doing EMDR with me. I’ve added linking cognitions in the final step, the “L” of H.E.A.L. Or you can just, “linger” when you get to that final step.
Getting started with H.E.A.L: please read the following paragraph carefully
To get started, please listen to this episode of the Being Well podcast.
When you are ready to practice, watch this video all the way through without practicing first to see how I’ve adapted the final step of H.E.A.L You will need this handout to complete the practice. Please listen to the video and download the handout before you try it out.
As you become more practiced, try this version of the framework without the examples.