Look on the bright side
The human brain is an amazing thing but unfortunately it is clever enough to completely disable us in settings where we are not comfortable.
We may become withdrawn, defensive, averse, shy, hostile, even physically sick. We are not happy and we want to get out of there. This might be a short-term situation we find ourselves in – a divorce court or school examinations or a traffic collision – but could also be a long term environment like a hostile work environment or a bad relationship.
On ‘home-turf’ among familiarity & friends we are better able to relax completely, and this brings us a more comprehensive, outward-looking perspective. We are also more imaginative, daring, audacious and strategic when happy and at ease. We are more predisposed to take in new information, and to see opportunities, rather than risks, in our futures.
We’ll be more dynamic and proactive in chasing opportunities if we are in a happy headspace. If we are threatened or sense imminent danger we hunker down, pipe down, play it safe, withdraw. This is a problem, of course, but it makes perfect sense from an evolutionary standpoint that when you are anxious you look to return to a more relaxing setting.
Positive people are more expansive in their thinking – their plans are more ambitious, their solutions are more creative, their field of vision is wider. They are more likely to exhibit pro-social behaviours; networking, picking up the phone, or opening conversations with strangers, which leads to more interesting encounters, more opportunities, and broader knowledge.
The happier you are, the more likely you are to win the confidence and business of these new contacts, as well. Smiling people are perceived as better salespeople. More confident people are viewed as more competent and we base many business decisions on the simple question ‘do I like this person?’ Fun, outgoing happy people are naturally welcomed more readily in work & social settings than gloomier colleagues. When we are at ease it invites those around us to relax too, and there is a contagious effect of both good and bad moods. People feel more fun themselves around fun people and we love that.
Compare the body language, tone, and volume of a nervous person with that of a happy, confident person. There are psychological and physiological effects on the body that we can’t hide. We stand a bit further away, our body movements are shorter and jerkier. Our voice wavers, eye contact is poor. We rush to end an exchange at the first opportunity, rather than delve in and prolong the conversation. We’re less likely to lean in (literally & figuratively), to what is being discussed. Our nerviness unsettles those around us. We don’t inspire confidence, and nobody can quite put their finger on why.
By contrast, positivity expands our mindset. We grow more creative, more imaginative, more ambitious, more confident.
Unfortunately, we are predisposed this way
The bad news is that humans are generally predisposed towards risk-sensitivity. Caution is baked into our makeup. We need reassurance before we take risks, which includes simply being our uninhibited selves. According to University of North Carolina researcher Prof. Barbara Frederikson there needs to be a bias towards positivity, our good experiences must outweigh the bad, in order to achieve a balanced perspective, but often we don’t get it. Based on her research we need 3 positive thoughts for each negative thought to move the needle. “We disproportionately (assign) weight & importance to negative feedback and are more likely to misinterpret positive/neutral feedback as negative than to misattribute negative feedback as neutral or positive”, she writes. We tend towards a glass-half empty approach & unless we are praised 3 times more than we are criticised, that is likely to worsen. Emily Heaphy and Marcial Losada examined this question in the workplace & the highest performing teams worked with a ratio of 5:1 positive versus negative comments.
This may explain why we are not all automatically happy-go-lucky as we breeze through our days, no matter how preferable we might find it.
The negative bias of our brains is reinforced by negative outcomes, bad relationships or job losses in our past. Fear is a powerful emotion & dominates our memories & emotions. To protect us from danger, this becomes self-perpetuating, we withdraw ‘into our shells’ & we shy from risks. It is exacerbated under stress, we are less likely to buy a new home, speak up for ourselves at work, or enter a new relationship or business opportunity.
We cling to the illusory safety of the familiar, but it is at our peril. Fear can make you remain aboard a sinking ship, too frightened to swim to the lifeboats. Yes, having doubts & caution can help to prevent charging off in the wrong direction, but when it comes to our own ambitions we generally have enough doubts already. The problem is never going to be crashing & burning through overambition, like Icarus, if our schemes never get off the ground in the first place.
Abundance & lack have been identified as 2 mindsets that pervade all our thinking and decision-making, and steer how we will live. Steven Covey covers them in his classic ‘7 Habits of Highly Effective People’.
Abundant thinking is an underlying assumption that there is enough for everyone, we are not in competition with everybody else for pay, credit, or wealth. It fosters resilience, feeds self-belief, and attracts like-minded supportive & generous kindred spirits. We behave as though everyone can win, are more altruistic, and it benefits us as well as others.
Lack mindset is underpinned by fear – if we are attuned to what we don’t have, predisposed to failure & deficiencies we embody lack thinking. We think of obstacles & limitations rather than opportunities & possibilities. We remain in our comfort zones & avoid risk. We can even stick with things that we KNOW are not working – uninspiring jobs, unsatisfactory relationships, negative friendship circles… rather than risk the unknown. Several studies have investigated negativity and risk aversion.
In reality there is far more abundance in the world than we could ever need, more wealth than we could spend in a lifetime, we don’t make the big wins in life by being closed-hearted, tight-fisted, and jealously guarding our own little piles while others do the same. That keeps us in the small games, rather than the big game. The scarcity mentality promotes short-term thinking. It reduces all of us.
If EQ is the new IQ, our ability to collaborate, cooperate and combine within teams is what determines our destinies. Positivity then becomes one of the most powerful strengths we can have. People don’t enjoy being around pessimists as much, pessimists do not contribute the same positive drive to a project.
If you are contagiously upbeat and dynamic, you become an asset to a team, or entire business.
A single colleague perpetually presenting a low-mood, on the other hand, can suck all of the energy out of an office. While professional expertise and knowledge got us hired, it is more likely to be the momentum we bring that gets us promoted. We follow optimistic energy & those who have it become de-facto leaders and the pilots of progress – regardless of our job titles.
So far so obvious – positivity makes you happier. Outlook improves as well though, and so does performance, which feeds into more confidence. It goes further. Our neural functioning is actually optimised with an optimistic, positive attitude. We need it if our cognition is to hit top gear.
Our brains simply perform better when we are happy
Memory, cognition, and executive function are all heightened in a happy frame of mind. A mirror image of the brain fog and reductive thinking that afflicts those suffering from long-term low mood. Mood and cognition are mapped on the same regions of the brain, they overlap on brain imaging scans, and are intrinsically linked. If you view your brain as your most powerful asset you will naturally want it to perform at its best, and a positive mindset is central to this.
A large-scale longitudinal study conducted at university of Cambridge by David Llewellyn & Iain Lang was conclusive – all those who top-performed on cognition tests (these were memory, verbal fluency, time orientation, numerical ability, thinking speed & attention) also scored high on the psychological wellbeing measures. There is a long-established link between depression & cognitive decline; the study illustrates that the opposite is also true, and the effect is mirrored among the happy.
Neurologically speaking, it has been demonstrated that fear & anxiety limit the scope of your thoughts, you can’t think expansively in survival mode. Scientific tests indicate that neuroticism (which is anxiety, self‐consciousness, irritability, emotional instability, and depression), had a dampening effect on executive attention in flanker test trials.
Working memory is a much-prized higher order intellectual ability – it speaks for your overall brain health & is a huge asset in life, in no matter what field you are working, Anxiety inhibits your working memory, and drains your energy, which limits your attention as well. Your attention gets redirected as a fear response, we are alarmed & distracted. This has the most impact on the most critical tasks, so any high-profile report, or business-wide project or sales pitch you are preparing, you will find it harder to concentrate and harder to recall if you are anxious. We are also less likely to identify mistakes, and our judgement & decision-making skills abandon us. Anxiety is a major thorn in the side during reasoning & problem-solving tasks.
Aside from these obvious benefits – the biggest, most obvious of all is, of course, that it is just more enjoyable to be happier – who does not want to be happy?
What are the practices to make us more positive?
Increasing one’s optimism, positivity, should be just about the number one ‘life-hack’ to improve our productivity, output, and earning power. Along with diet, exercise, good sleep, maintaining a healthy and bright disposition is one the fundamental building blocks of a successful career. And a successful life.
Fortunately for us far greater minds than mine have devoted centuries to thinking up answers. Aristotle concerned himself with happiness above all else. Unfortunately the topic is so big that it could be an encyclopaedia. Below is a list to capture as much as possible of the current thinking:
Control your inputs – Minimise how much pointless negativity you allow into your life & be vigilant about how it affects you.
Perform purposeful work – Spend your days in pursuit of a lofty purpose, acknowledge how you make a small contribution to some greater good. Identify & focus on ways in which the day job you already have contributes to some general good for society or the world at large.
A smiling practice, laughter, laughter yoga:- Putting the cart before the horse often works to break through negativity. Pretending to be happy, tricking the brain to be happy, stimulating the body’s response to joy can yield results indistinguishable from the real thing.
Practising gratitude: – Focus daily on areas of your life where you consider yourself blessed, fortunate, or amply rewarded. Your skills/gifts, your family/friends, your material possessions, or your lifestyle.
Hypnosis:- Hypnosis has been shown to be effective in breaking negative thought patterns & in encouraging subjects to allow themselves to be happy. It is a useful treatment for past trauma, PTSD, addiction and other unhelpful behaviours.
Own a dog or a cat:- Petting stroking, and playing with dog or a cat can stimulate the body’s production of oxytocin, increasing calm & reducing stress. Having a dependent creature to nurture helps to provide a sense of purpose to lives that grow too introspective.
Yoga:- Both for its exercise and its mental calming effects, yoga practitioners report increased wellbeing, reduced stress, and clearer, more effective brain functioning. Brain scans, blood pressure monitors and health metrics all point to yoga’s therapeutic value.
Art and music:- We often use music to self-regulate moods, but visual art can also be employed to stimulate the prefrontal cortex, form new neural pathways, and raise serotonin. Both experiencing and creating art can significantly affect mood & wellbeing.
CBT & positive self talk:– Revisiting your memories & recasting them in a new light can rid us of past trauma, and reinforcing positive attitudes through the power of talking is effective too.
Exercise:- Certainly the best antidepressant on the market in terms of side effects, the benefits of exercise on mood and wellbeing are well established. A tonic for the mind as well as the body.
Nature-bathing:- Bit of a buzzword for being outside. For centuries poets, mystics, and mountaineers have championed the natural environment as good for the soul & now science endorses that view.
Probiotics & gut health:- Not traditionally an area that had garnered a lot of attention, the gut is responsible for some 90% of all of the body’s serotonin. Optimising your gut health through dietary & lifestyle choices can actually have a transformative impact on mood.
Earn enough money, and spend it wisely:- The likelihood is you are already working on this one. While money can’t bring meaning, wellbeing & ecstasy to your lived experience on an ongoing basis, it can certainly reduce unhappiness. Especially if you use it correctly, helping others & contributing to some purpose outside yourself.
Spend quality time with your loved ones:- Having sex is a classic, and it can contribute more happiness & wellbeing to your life than a pay raise. Talking, music, eating, walking, childcare & reading together have all been reported as lifestyle boosters.
Takeaway
The list is not exhaustive, but it does illustrate that many proactive approaches have been developed that allow us to manage our own state, it is not conferred from on high and outside of our control. Very many of these strategies also have multiple benefits, not only on our mood and the enjoyment we derive from life, but also on our physical health and mental performance as well. There can be a cascade effect from trying any one of the above strategies, if the energy boost it confers allows you to add another and then another then the sky really is the limit.