{"id":911,"date":"2016-06-29T08:00:30","date_gmt":"2016-06-29T15:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dev.rickhanson.net\/?p=26017"},"modified":"2016-06-29T08:00:30","modified_gmt":"2016-06-29T15:00:30","slug":"rewiring-your-brain-an-article-from-jennifer-forsberg-meyer-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/justonething\/2016\/06\/rewiring-your-brain-an-article-from-jennifer-forsberg-meyer-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Rewiring Your Brain: An Article from Jennifer Forsberg Meyer"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

The Rural Life<\/strong> \/ By Jennifer Forsberg Meyer<\/p>\n

Rewiring Your Brain<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Sometimes things intersect in a way that makes you sit up and take\u00a0notice. This happened to me recently. It started with some\u00a0spectacular nature programs\u2014the BBC series available on Netflix. My\u00a0husband and I love them, and have so far zoomed through \u201cLife,\u201d\u00a0\u201cLife on Earth,\u201d \u201cNature\u2019s Great Events,\u201d and more. We ration\u00a0ourselves to one episode a night.<\/p>\n

They are beyond fabulous. If I had a dollar for every time I\u2019ve\u00a0turned to my husband and exclaimed, \u201cDid you know that<\/em>?! I had no\u00a0idea!,\u201d I could buy a new recliner.<\/p>\n

As we watched these splendid programs, the concept of \u201ceat or\u00a0be eaten\u201d was burned into our consciousness. This was especially\u00a0true with \u201cThe Blue Planet,\u201d the program featuring the astonishingly\u00a0varied life forms in Earth\u2019s oceans. Watching these marine creatures\u00a0strive to avoid becoming each other\u2019s lunch, I tried to imagine what\u00a0it\u2019s like to know that, at any given moment, a predator might be\u00a0stalking you from the front, rear, one side, the other side, above you\u2014even below you.<\/p>\n

Your sudden death could come from any direction at any\u00a0instant!<\/p>\n

No wonder, I thought, that some primeval ancestor of ours\u00a0finally decided to take its chances up on land. There, at least, you\u2019d\u00a0know nothing can attack you from underneath, plus there are fewer\u00a0predators to swoop or pounce from above.<\/p>\n

It had to provide at least some relief from that extreme\u00a0vulnerability.<\/p>\n

At the same time I was watching these programs, I was reading\u00a0Hardwiring Happiness<\/em>, by Rick Hanson, PhD. Hanson is a\u00a0neuropsychologist, a senior fellow of the Greater Good Science\u00a0Center at UC Berkeley, and a New York Times<\/em> best-selling author. I\u00a0was well primed to hear his main message, which is that our brains\u00a0have a built-in \u201cnegativity bias.\u201d This stems from the millions of years our species spent in the same manner as the animals in those BBC\u00a0series\u2014trying to eat lunch, not be<\/em> lunch.<\/p>\n

Simply put, we evolved to pay much more attention to negative\u00a0stuff, because the penalty for not doing so could be dire. For\u00a0example, if you missed a meal, you\u2019d go hungry awhile, but you\u2019d still\u00a0live to eat\u2014and mate and pass along your genes\u2013another day. If you\u00a0became someone else\u2019s meal, however, you\u2019d never pass your\u00a0genes along, ever again.<\/p>\n

Ergo it was OK if you forgot how to get back to that bush with\u00a0the particularly delicious berries, but potentially deadly if you forgot\u00a0where the lion path was.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s how a preference for clinging to negative thoughts and\u00a0ideas got hardwired into our brains. How does that preference\u00a0manifest itself today, in the modern human?<\/p>\n

Imagine you\u2019re at work, and everything goes well the entire day,\u00a0but then one thing goes wrong. Which thing do you think about as\u00a0you\u2019re falling asleep that night?<\/p>\n

As Hanson puts it, our brains are like Velcro for negative\u00a0experiences and Teflon for positive ones. Worse, it can become a\u00a0vicious circle, because the more you dwell in negative thoughts, the\u00a0more you\u2019re reinforcing the pathways in your brain that lead to\u00a0negativity. This can cause you to feel anxious, irritable and blue, not\u00a0to mention less patient and understanding of others.<\/p>\n

The wonderful news, says Hanson, is that we don\u2019t have to\u00a0remain at the mercy of this \u201cwiring\u201d in our brains\u2014we can change it.\u00a0By consciously savoring the positive experiences we have every day,\u00a0plus dwelling on the positive memories we already have stored, we\u00a0can begin to overcome our brain\u2019s tilt toward the negative.<\/p>\n

It sounds ridiculously easy, and it is\u2014when you remember to\u00a0do it. And therein lies the rub. Because of course our brains keep\u00a0trying to get us to focus on all the negative things in our lives, instead.\u00a0Hanson has specific tips for what he calls \u201ctaking in the good.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many videos describing his method are available free online at\u00a0YouTube.com. If you\u2019re interested, I recommend you start with this\u00a013-minute clip<\/a>\u00a0of\u00a0Dr. Rick Hanson at\u00a0TEDxMarin in 2013.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m giving it a try. I figure I\u2019ve nothing to lose but those negative\u00a0thought-loops\u2014and everything positive to gain.<\/p>\n

\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Jennifer Forsberg Meyer is a biweekly columnist with The Mountain\u00a0Democrat in Placerville, California, where this column first appeared on October 26, 2015.<\/em><\/p>\n

The post Rewiring Your Brain: An Article from Jennifer Forsberg Meyer<\/a> appeared first on Dr. Rick Hanson<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n<\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a>\n<\/div>\n

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The Rural Life \/ By Jennifer Forsberg Meyer Rewiring Your Brain Sometimes things intersect in a way that makes you sit up and take notice. This happened to me recently. It started with some spectacular nature programs—the BBC series available on Netflix. My husband and I love them,…<\/p>\n

The post Rewiring Your Brain: An Article from Jennifer Forsberg Meyer<\/a> appeared first on Dr. Rick Hanson<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":270,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[25],"class_list":["post-911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-blog"],"yoast_head":"\nRewiring Your Brain: An Article from Jennifer Forsberg Meyer<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Rural Life \/ By Jennifer Forsberg Meyer Rewiring Your Brain Sometimes things intersect in a way that makes you sit up and take notice. This happened to me recently. It started with some spectacular nature programs—the BBC series available on Netflix. My husband and I love them,... 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