We live in a constant stream of information, from chaotic news stories to polarizing social media posts. With conflict, tragedy, and injustice dominating our newsfeeds and timelines, it’s no wonder that mental health issues are on the rise.
We are naturally programmed to focus on negative, unpleasant events rather than rewarding, positive events. Why?
The Negativity Bias
The negativity bias is the tendency for living creatures to react more strongly to unpleasant events and objects and continue focusing attention on this information. Negativity is programmed into our mood, reactions, and thoughts.
Negativity bias once served as a survival mechanism to help early humans detect threats. Monitoring, assessing, and reacting to danger quickly is crucial. But today, this brain wiring often increases stress and anxiety, reinforcing negative thought patterns. In today’s modern world, technology makes us more interconnected than ever. Not only does our brain respond to negative events happening around us, but around the world.
Because attention is naturally drawn to unpleasant information, our brains are constantly thinking, ruminating and imagining negative situations. Like anything that’s constantly practiced, the brain circuits involved in defensive responding get stronger with repetition.
Where Negativity Rules
Unconsciously, many aspects of our daily lives are completely overshadowed by negativity. This is constantly reflected in our:
- Mood: Defensive responses remain strong over time, making it difficult to shake an embarrassing moment, an unkind comment, or environmental unrest.
- Decision-making: Your brain favors what we may lose rather than what we may gain. You may miss out on rewarding opportunities when you’re focused on possible unfavorable outcomes.
- Interpersonal relationships: We note failures more quickly, think about them more often, and store them more permanently than instances when the interaction was more positive. This leads to fragile and strained bonds with family, friends, and partners that are overwhelmed by a few negative, rather than perhaps the more frequent positive, interactions.
- World view: Because humans are drawn to the negative, the information delivered by news and social media outlets prioritizes bad news, rather than good news, leaving us feeling stressed, anxious and hopeless.
The more negativity we process, the more we strengthen and reinforce the parts of our brain built for negative thinking. It becomes difficult to form a positive mindset.
Neuroplasticity: The Key to Rewiring Your Brain for Positivity
By simply becoming aware of our unconscious focus on the negative, we can consciously take steps towards a more positive brain. Directing our attention and thinking to positive events strengthens different brain circuits that lead to rewarding, positive feelings.
Neuroplasticity is the brain’s natural ability to rewire itself when engaging in novel actions. Like learning a sport or a skill, the more we engage with positive thoughts, ruminations, and imagery, the stronger these circuits become. Our brain becomes sharper and more accustomed to storing positive memories. It’s not just shifting your mindset. It’s rewiring your brain to program positivity.
Over time, neuroplasticity improves our perception of positive experiences. As with any skill, creating neuroplastic changes relies on practice and time to shift our focus from negative information.
It’s time to reprogram your brain from defensive, reactive, and survival-oriented to a more constructive, intentional, and optimistic mindset.
How to Train Your Brain for Positivity
Many self-improvement concepts rely on corny, ineffective tips that leave you feeling stuck. When you treat positivity as a mental challenge rather than a ‘woo woo’ concept, you can activate your brain’s capacity to adapt and grow.
1. Create joyful experiences
Challenge yourself to find activities that make you feel empowered. It can be a hobby, spending time with friends and family, or physical exercise. By fully absorbing and being present in these experiences, you’re repeatedly reminding your mind that you’re able to break free from your brain’s programming by creating lasting positivity for yourself.
2. Intensify positive thoughts and feelings
Life can feel out of control. Focusing on things you can control, like your mindset, allows your brain to build positivity networks. Practicing gratitude, using affirmations, celebrating small wins, and practicing self-compassion actively trains your mind to focus on the good. Small daily choices like these may seem insignificant, but they’re either strengthening negative or positive response pathways.
3. Limit negative input
Wherever possible, try to limit your exposure to distressing thoughts, news, or social media. When negative input is outside of your control, it is a good test of your emotional regulation and coping skills. The real positivity training happens when you’re responding to chaos.
Wander: Your Personal Trainer for Neuroplasticity
That’s where Wander comes in. Wander is not a distraction, but a tool to retrain your brain.
Wander is a mental imagery and brain training app that rewires your mind to think positively using the power of your imagination. Backed by the science of neuroplasticity, Wander’s custom AI mental imagery journeys transform your inner landscape from chaotic to empowered.
These immersive experiences use audio and visual stimuli to engage neural pathways essential to cultivating lasting positivity. If you find yourself trapped in a negative thought spiral, engaging in Wander’s mental imagery journeys can leave you feeling refreshed, inspired, and rewired towards positivity.
We’re programmed for survival–to focus on the negative. But we don’t have to stay there. With Wander, your brain can go further than the constraints of its default programming. With each journey, you’re unlocking a more intentional, creative, and expanded self.
