I may be showing my age - but as a kid I remember singing “Always Look On The Bright Side of Life” by Monty Python and loving it (not least because there was a swear word in it). The thing is, way back then I thought it was about learning to ignore all of life’s difficulties and to just… be happier.
Of course - we all know that’s impossible. We can’t just forcibly block out all of life’s struggles and difficulties- and we can’t stop our mind from moving to worries or anxieties from time to time. In fact, our brains are naturally biased to notice, and attribute more importance to things that may be dangerous or a threat to us - it’s a useful and engrained survival mechanism.
However, the title of the song still holds value. It’s an instruction to notice and deliberately validate the other, more positive part of our world. Because for each and every one of us, there are many things each day that lift us up, make us feel good, and move us forward.
The trick, is training ourselves (our brains) to notice them more often, remember them more vividly, and build a more balanced worldview for ourselves.
Tuning your brain into a better channel
We’ve talked about neuroplasticity a few times in this Spring Reboot blog series - but as a quick reminder, it’s our brain’s ability to grow and change shape as a response to our experiences.
In short, it’s the science behind “practice makes perfect” - that which we do often, and to which we attribute importance, becomes easier for us over time. This is true of all things, whether it’s practicing a tennis serve, spending time public speaking or… importantly the way we think and feel.
If we unintentionally make a habit of noticing, talking about and retelling negative experiences day to day - guess what… we get better at noticing them, we remember them more strongly and for longer and, over time, this builds an imbalanced world view for ourselves.
An example of negative memory reinforcement:
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You wake up late for work, because your alarm doesn’t go off
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You hit traffic on the way and this makes you even more late - on the drive you fixate on the time as each minute passes.
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When you get to work you tell all your co-workers what a terrible and unlucky morning you’ve had. You even put it into an email to your team.
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You ruminate on how unfair it is and worry about what your boss may be thinking.
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You text your partner to say you’ve had “THE MORNING FROM HELL.”
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At lunch you chat at length about how bad that traffic was and blame the council for putting up too many temporary lights.
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At the end of the day you feel like you’ve had a really bad day - and tell your family this… at length.
You see how many times you’ve indicated to your brain that this is an important memory, repeatedly refueled it with negative emotion, and helped embed a fairly trivial bit of poor planning as a really difficult experience to be remembered strongly?
The good news is that we can also use this effect to our advantage. We can take deliberate conscious control of this process - just like we do when we practice a sport by making a regular practice of noticing the good things.
Then the opposite happens: we spend longer thinking about, remembering, and retelling all the good things that happen; our brains recognise these as important memories and get better at noticing and storing them for later use.
An important caveat
I would like to strongly reinforce at this point that it’s important to recognise what’s difficult about life - so that we can seek help or take action, where possible and when needed. I am not advocating, in any way, for ignoring our difficult thoughts or feelings. These need to be noticed and managed in a healthy way. What I am saying is it’s important that we also add weight to the opposite side of the mental scale, build evidence that our lives are balanced and also contain many positive things.
How can we notice and remember more positive things?
So, what does ‘happiness practice’ look like? The answer is quite simple - we intentionally spend time showing our brain that our positive experiences are valuable by:
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Taking time to deliberately relive them in our minds (much like we often do automatically and unwillingly with negative experiences!).
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Engaging other parts of our brain by writing them down.
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Revising the memories by rereading our written positive experiences.
Sounds a bit like studying for an exam doesn’t it? Well that’s because it is, it’s just a lot more enjoyable.
So, what practical things can we do to make this new way of thinking a reality? Well for a start, let’s rewind the clock to our missed alarm clock scenario…
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You wake up late for work, because your alarm doesn’t go off - you intentionally recognise the effort your partner puts into helping you leave quickly and thank them for it.
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You hit traffic on the way and this makes you even more late - you text your boss to apologise, who replies quickly to say “it’s OK and drive safely”. You thank them.
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When you get to work you tell your co-workers how much later you would have been if it wasn’t for your saint of a partner helping you get away quickly.
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You go to see your boss and thank them again for their understanding and reassure them you’re buying a new alarm clock on the way home.
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You text your partner to let them know you got there safely and thank them again for helping you.
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At lunch you decide to go for a walk, the sun's out, it’s spring and the fresh air will help wash away the challenging morning.
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When you get home that evening you’ve brought take-away for the family to thank everyone and to win back the time everyone lost getting you out the door that morning.
Not much about these two days was different in terms of the things that happened, especially early on. But by resisting the natural urge to immerse ourselves in the negative feelings and thoughts and instead choosing to look for the parts of the experience that we could be grateful for - we changed our memory of the day as a whole.
Then, the next thing we can do helps reinforce this further…
3 positive Things
A technique that I learned as part of my own mental health journey was the “3 Positive Things” method. It’s a simple journalling style that structures this type of positive memory reinforcement. It’s easy to do, quick to fit into your day and easy to turn into a habit.
At the end of each day, you take 5 minutes to sit down, scan back over your day’s experiences, thoughts and feelings and pick out three positive ones. They don’t have to be world changingly positive - just things for which you feel grateful.
Then you write down what they were, how it made you feel and how it affected your day positively.
That’s it! Simple.
You do this every day, and then once a week, have a quick read through the things you’ve written and reflect on those positive experiences once more.
Have a look at our imagined “late to work” day and try it out. Or, even better - do it now for your day so far. Or both… the more practice the better.
Over time, this reshapes your brain to notice positive things more easily and attribute more importance to storing them as a significant part of your day - I mean, you need to write them down later - right?
My Daily Gratitude Practice
Ready to get started? Well, we’ve got you covered - thanks to our My Daily Gratitude Practice journal. It goes over the science of why it works, details the “3 Positive Things” method clearly and then provides a neat, compact structure for gratitude journaling.
There’s enough pages for a full month of daily gratitude practice, plus weekly reflections on bigger parts of our lives for which we can feel grateful.
And, importantly - it’s physically compact, so you can always have it to hand when you’re ready to journal and only costs £6.50 including free shipping!
Thank You
If you’ve made it all the way down here then thank you for taking the time to read. I hope it’s been helpful and know that this new skill and practice is going to make a positive difference in your life.
