The Ed Armstrong Podcast6 Apr 2022

#27 - Why you're hardwired for negativity

Have you ever wondered (or noticed) why you (or any of those people close to you) always seem to focus on the negative things?

Even if life is going well, they still seem to focus on all the things going wrong??

Why is that?

And what is it called?

Well, it turns out, it's a very real phenomenon and it plays a huge part in most peoples' lives. It's called 'The negativity bias', also known as the negativity effect, and it is the notion that, even when of equal intensity, things of a more negative nature have a greater effect on one's psychological state and processes than neutral or positive things.

Which means that there is a neurological explanation as to why some people end up being so negative. It has to do with the part of the brain called the amygdala, which functions as an alarm and is constantly on the look out for danger, fear and bad news. Scientists believe this to be the brain's default position.

It's that idea of our early ancestors and how they needed to focus on the potential danger and how that was critical to their survival, and it worked. Or else we wouldn't be here. And that hardwiring has been past down to us...and although we don't (hopefully) have to worry about being eaten by a lion anymore, we still have those same psychological pathways and patterns at play in our everyday life, today.

But...that can be a problem.

Even though it makes sense. i.e. It wasn't exactly a good strategy to be calm, blissful and 'present' and peaceful when trying to avoid the lion (which is why it's our default position...and why we struggle to find and feel those more positive emotions)...you can see how this can be pretty detrimental to our life, if we're unaware of this fact and if we don't get a handle on it.

Because, for many of us, when things happen in our 'normal' daily lives now, we react as if we are running away from the lion. But there is no lion.

So, we are literally therefore, hardwired for negativity.

We are hardwired to focus on the potential problems, and the challenges and the obstacles...

But, what do we do about it?

Well, hopefully this episode will help shine a light on that for you...

I hope it helps.

Much love

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