Change Your Brain Every Day - Negativity vs. Positivity Bias: Why Are We Hardwired to Be Negative?

Episode Date: February 10, 2025

Why do we tend to be so much more focused on the negative aspects of life than the positive? What happens in our brain when our minds are predisposed to negativity. In this episode of the podcast, the Amens discuss negativity bias, and why we should be active in transforming our own mindset. 00:00 Intro 01:02 About Negativity 04:34 Negativity vs Positivity Bias 06:53 Chronic Negativity and Cortisol 08:00 Negativity Positivity Bias Questionnaire 09:46 Negativity Effects on the Brain 14:49 Some Negativity is Important 16:21 Sponsor 17:36 Accurate Thinking 19:39 Positivity Bias Training 28:28 Mindset Hacks 31:28 Wrap Up

So negativity bias is the tendency to prioritize negative input over positive ones. It influences everything, including how we perceive things, our memory, attention, emotional regulation, leading to emotional instability when it's too high, and even the cognitive impairments. In a study of over 7,500 patients, we found that negativity, as it increased, activity in the prefrontal cortex decreased, and negativity was associated

with many psychiatric disorders, especially anxiety and depression. Every day you are making your brain better or you are making it worse. Stay with us to learn how you can change your brain for the better every day. Well today we're're gonna tackle negativity, an evolutionary quirk with a profound effect on our physical and mental health. Stay with us to learn how you can train your brain

to be more positive when appropriate and resilient. My favorite topic. Hi, everyone. So have you ever noticed how negativity tends to stick with you longer than positivity? Well, today we're going to take a deep dive into why that happens. And more importantly, how you can flip the script for a healthier, happier brain, especially if you tend to, let's just say, be more biased towards the negative like I can be.

Some anxiety and negativity is essential. People with low levels of anxiety die early from accidents and preventable illnesses. Too much, obviously bad for your brain. The only people who should be masterful at predicting the worst are your contract lawyers. But chronic negativity is bad for the brain. Research shows that just seeing the word no or other negative words for less than a second disrupts brain function and performance. Negativity, as we've seen in our research here at Amon Clinics, decreases cerebellar function and it makes you less coordinated. Have you ever wondered about

athletic slumps? That if you think you're going to miss the free throw, you miss the free throw. And just being around negative people makes you more negative. It's sort of like secondhand smoke. And Robert Sapolsky from Stanford talked about studies have shown that after listening to 30 minutes of negative speech, neurons in the hippocampus, the major memory structure of the brain begin dying. And this includes negative self-talk. Interesting. You talked about contract lawyers, but what about people in other...

So I can see where, you know, they have this tendency to focus on the negative, but I was a trauma nurse and there are a lot of other people, you know, police officers and like we just naturally tend to see a lot of awful things. And so I think our brains tend to go to the negative. Well, and I think before nursing school, so you grew up in trauma, right? We already did a whole thing on a scores adverse childhood experiences, if you grow up with chronic stress as you did, your brain was trained as a survival mechanism to look for what's wrong. Oh, for sure.

So, I mean, I still, you know, and if you've ever been assaulted or you've ever had anything like that happen, which I did when I was 15, you're always looking around because it's your, it's a protective instinct. But it can wear out your partner. And it's something we actually talk about a lot. Now here at Amon Clinics, we actually study negativity bias. We have a big paper coming out on 7,500 people. So at Amon Clinics, every all of our

new patients take a neuropsychological assessment called total brain that measures emotional and cognitive functions such as mood, anxiety, stress, memory, focus, processing speed, and more. But one of the tests I love, and I find it so helpful, is negativity versus positivity bias. And people who score high on negativity bias, meaning that they're more negative than positive, have an increased risk of virtually every psychiatric symptom. So people fill out a checklist

of about 300 psychiatric symptoms and people who have a high negativity bias, it's increased in like 75% of the symptoms. Imagine you're driving a car and you keep looking at everyone possible, like every possible obstacle, which I do. I tend to like look 15 cars ahead. After being a trauma nurse, you just tend to do that. I'm always looking everywhere.

You see every danger on the road and imagine many that aren't there, but you're constantly thinking about how you might crash, get lost, break down. So how does that drive? So I know for you it's very stressful. For me, I think of it as like it's important to survive. But this is what happens when your mind is filled with continuous negativity. It's like driving through life, always expecting the worst. But that is what it's like for a lot of people

who grow up in chronic stress or first responders who see chronic negativity all the time. And just like that stressful drive, focusing on the negative or negative bias can have significant, you know, it's an impact on your brain and it causes physical and emotional pain. And just because you maybe have been stuck there doesn't, we want you to know that you

can retrain your brain. You don't have to stay there. Dr. John B. Reilly And then the chronic negativity also elevates cortisol. And cortisol is the fight or flight or stress hormone that you need. I was just talking to one of my patients who was involved in the fires in Los Angeles. And you need to be in fight or flight, right? At the right moment.

But if it becomes chronic, it shrinks cells in your hippocampus. It gives you memory problems. If it becomes chronic, can put fat on your belly. It decreases the effectiveness of your immune system and it's not good for you. Well, and it's the truth is, is you can't unsee certain things you've seen.

You can't unexperience certain things you've experienced. So I know for me, when I stay in that place of being grounded, of praying, of meditating, of doing my daily practices, I'm so much better. But I can, I mean, I otherwise my natural place is to always see and expect and look for the problems that can potentially be there so I can try and avoid them. And that's just where I stay stuck. So in my new book, Change Your Rain, Change Your Pain, that's coming out next year, I have a positivity versus negativity bias questionnaire. So I'm going to read the ones on the left. You read the ones on the right. And those of you that are listening, do you relate more to the statements I say or the more to the ones Tana says? So one, anticipate the best possible outcome in uncertain situations. I expect things to turn out well. I tend to notice what I

like more than what I don't like. I have a positive outlook on life. I feel confident that I can handle whatever challenges come my way. So, do you relate to that or? Negative experiences affect me more deeply than positive ones. I focus on the negative details of a situation more than the positive ones. I especially focus on anticipating

what could go wrong and trying to avoid it. That's more what I do. I worry about bad things happening even when there's no specific reason. I'm a prepper. So I dwell on past mistakes or failures. I don't do that one as much, but I used to. I think I'm getting better at that one,

but that is a common one that people do. I frequently think about what might go wrong in the future. I'm a prepper. Dr. Justin Marchegiani You are. And I used to get upset with you. Dr. Patrick Sawhill You can never do that again. Dr. Justin Marchegiani When you were spending all this money before the pandemic. Dr. Patrick Sawhill I had toilet paper. Dr. Justin Marchegiani And the pandemic completely like I can't say anything. Dr. Patrick Sawhill I had a freezer full of organic food and I had toilet paper.

We actually did a study on positivity versus negativity. Noelle Nelson and I, she was writing a book called The Power of Appreciation. And so I scanned her when she was appreciating her life and her brain was very healthy. And then I'm like, well, then I need to scan you when you're thinking about what you hate about your life. And she goes, oh, I don't wanna do that. Make me sad. I'm like, come on, you have to suffer for science.

And when she focused on what she didn't like, and the problem with focusing on what you don't like is it links to other things you don't like because the brain works through association. And at the time, her dog was sick. And so she's like, okay, I'm gonna focus on, my dog is sick and that's really upsetting to me. And so I have to stay home, I can't go to work. And if I don't go to work,

then I'll be fired. And if I'm fired, well, I live in Malibu and I won't be able to afford the rent in Malibu. And then my dog will die and I'll become homeless. So, this is what negativity does. It finds negative friends. It's like a sweater unraveling. It's like a sweater that's unraveling. And it dropped her frontal lobes, so focus and impulse control. It dropped her left temporal lobes, so more dark, sometimes even violent thoughts. And it just completely dropped her cerebellum, which means she's less coordinated physically, but also mentally because the cerebellum's involved in both physical and cognitive or thought coordination.

So when people get more negative, they can become more confused. So our research on negativity bias. So negativity bias is the tendency to prioritize negative input over positive ones. It influences everything, including how we perceive things, our memory, attention, emotional regulation, leading to emotional instability when it's too high, and even the cognitive impairments. In a study of over 7,500 patients, we found that negativity,

as it increased, activity in the prefrontal cortex decreased and negativity was associated with many psychiatric disorders, especially anxiety and depression. Patients with higher negativity bias displayed reduced emotional control, reduced stress management, problems with memory and resilience as measured by our total brain. It exacerbates symptoms, depression, anxiety, as I talked about. So, negativity goes with lower activity in the prefrontal cortex. Early on,

when I was studying brain-spectrometry with ADHD, I found people have ADD or ADHD have decreased activity in the prefrontal cortex. And they often play this game. If you read my book, Healing ADD, there's a whole chapter in it called The Games ADD People Play. And the first game they play is Let's Have a Problem. And they focus on what's wrong because that's a stimulant. Well, I wonder if that can go back to like people

who grew up in chronic trauma and chronic stress, you know, it changes brain development and it turns on that cortisol and it turns on that fight or fight and they do have a tendency, it changes that brain development over time and they tend to have lower frontal lobe activity. So I wonder if there's that connection to people having higher incidence of ADHD and more negativity. Well, and people who have ADD because of their impulse control issues, they often create more chaos.

So when you and I first met, you're like, oh, ADD, I don't believe in that. I thought it was complete nonsense. Excuse to fail. And then as I described it, you saw some tendencies in yourself, but you saw almost all of them in your mother. Oh yeah. Oh, for sure. And would you say her impulsivity created some of the chaos you grew up in?

For sure. For sure. Yeah. It actually had helped me have more empathy because I had some resentment for some of that stuff growing up. Yeah. And when I first saw her, I'm like, oh, I should put you on the poster. Yeah.

The decision making was not great. So let's agree that some negativity is important, right? Because it helps you prepare for disaster. So this is where I actually am glad we're talking about this because I think for someone who does, has this need to sort of make sure things are safe, who has a need, you know, who's grown up in chronic stress, trauma, chaos, or who let's say trauma nurse, police officers,

people that see, you know, I've heard so many times, oh, that's a one in a million type thing that would ever happen. Really? Cause I saw it like dozens of times a day, every day for years in the hospital. So because I worked in a level A trauma center. So you can't negate that. You can't repossess those things you've seen. So when you live with someone and you're on one end of the spectrum and you live with someone who's on

the other end of the spectrum, that can be very stressful to you when someone has a very Pollyanna attitude and doesn't see it at all. And so it's very important, I think, to have balance, especially when you've got one extreme and the other extreme living together. I think it's really important to try and balance those things because being too positive, like we said in the beginning, is also not necessarily healthy. You don't notice the things that are potential problems.

You don't notice the things that are real threats, that are real issues. So I think it's really important to know the difference and not over focus on things that are a waste of your energy and are a problem in your life because they're overly negative, but also not, you know, be able to balance that with seeing things that are real issues. Every thought, every decision, every success is created by your brain. And the one thing I've learned from looking at over 250,000 brain scans over the last 30 years is that you are not stuck with the brain you have.

You can make it better and I can prove it. This is why I created BrainFit Life 5.0 to help you assess your brain and then help you optimize it by knowing your brain type and giving you access to the tools you need to have a better brain and a better life. It includes a 30-day happiness challenge, brain and mental health trackers, hypnosis audios, brain enhancing music and tools to conquer stress and anxiety. You can feel better, think sharper, and live happier. Go to the App Store and download BrainFit Life 5.0 today. So I talk to all of my patients and I say, you know, I'm not a fan of unbridled positive thinking. Unbridled positive thinking leads to early death.

Right. But I am a fan of accurate thinking with a positive spin. And in my new book, in fact, when I was doing research for it, I remember you and I were actually in the car and I was talking about it, that with chronic pain, and I was talking about it, that with chronic pain, it's often due to repressed rage. Oh, for sure. And my favorite movie of all time is Pollyanna. And I make the kids watch it. I make the grandkids watch it. If I have to see it one more time. Because I love Pollyanna because she teaches people to play the glad game in

whatever situation you're in. Well, what is there to be glad about in this situation? And there's a lot of mental strength in that. But I realized for people who really have rage inside that not dealing with the rage can come out in chronic pain. And so I remember we're in the parking lot. I don't remember where it is at the store. And I'm like, Oh no, Pollyanna has to meet Hannibal Lecter. They have to like figure out how to coexist. Do you know what my favorite movies are? Yes, I know. They're vengeance movies. Law abiding citizen and take it. Yeah. So, I would argue that Pollyanna has to meet law abiding citizen. And so, someone bad needs to die.

And I think that's true given the dragons from the past that hang around, especially the angry dragon. Right. Someone hurts a child. They have to die. Right. Yeah. So, let's talk about positivity bias training. I find this so helpful. So anybody who

ends up with a high score on negativity bias, I'm like, that's not good for you. In fact, if you're a pessimist, you're much more likely to get Alzheimer's disease than if you're an optimist. You're much more likely to get Alzheimer's disease than if you're an optimist. But let's like meet in the middle where it's not unbridled positivity, but it's also not unbridled negativity. It's positivity with an accurate spin. Well, and if you're like me, it requires discipline. It's a practice. And the practice I love is today is going to be a great day.

Start your day with today is gonna be a great day. And if you have children, say it at breakfast. Today is going to be a great day. Why is your day going to be a great day? And you remember during the pandemic and everybody's home all the time would make breakfast. Oh, the kids would get so mad when we would say that. Why is today going to be a great day for you?

But then their brain would shift into why it was going to be a great day? Well, and one of mine is, it's such a simple thing. It takes me like a minute, but if I sit still and I, I usually do this at the end of my prayer and my meditation, but it's such a simple thing. It's a grounding technique that I do. And for me, faith is a big thing and not for everybody

that their faith isn't like mine. You can use whatever it is that's important to you, but I literally will just feel just sort of the Holy Spirit fill me and I like feel it ground me and I'll feel it fill me with empathy and fill me with awareness and wisdom. And it's a one-minute exercise, but I'll feel that just like filling me. And that changes how I feel about things. I see things through a different lens when I do that. It's a one minute thing that I do. Dr. John B. Reilly Well, you know, it's actually a commandment that the apostle Paul gives in the epistle to the Ephesians, no, to the Philippians, Philippians 4, 8. Think, so it's commandment. Think on whatever is true, right, lovely, good, worthy of praise. Let your mind dwell on these things.

And you notice a big difference in me when I do that versus not doing it. So you will notice it. Yes. And as we said, if you get negative, well, people are contagious, right? And you feel it and it sort of leaks all over the people you love. If you're positive, that leaks in a good way and if you're negative, that leaks maybe not so good. The second technique, the one I love, the one I put myself to bed with every night is what went well today. And it's grown for me. So I read about this,

comes out of Marty Seligman's work at the University of Pennsylvania on positive psychology. So people who did that for just three weeks had an increase in their level of happiness. So there's a five minute journal. It's really, you can buy it on Amazon, but they actually have that in there. And so you actually write out your intention for the day. It's very simple. Literally it's less than five minutes. But at the end of the day, you go back and you actually notice, did you meet your goals and what went well for the day? So I like that because that actually forces you to notice like, did you, you know, how much of what you wanted to happen, your intention for the day happened, but what went well? So what I do is I say a prayer and tend to say the same prayer over and over again. I love the

prayer of St. Francis, even though he may not have written it, but I love it. You know, Lord make me an instrument of your peace. And then I go, well, it went well. And I do it in a very structured way. I start at the beginning of the day. And almost always I wake up with you. And so it's just, you know, putting my hand on your shoulder. It's just such a great memory, right? And then I go hour by hour looking for what I liked about the day.

And if something bad shows up and it will, I'm like, oh no, now's not the time for you. So imagine a big broom and sweep it away. I'm going to deal with you tomorrow. And hour by hour, and I'm usually asleep by the time I get to noon. And I remember, so the worst day of my adult life, second worst day of my adult life, the first worst day was when my grandfather died. The second worst day is when my dad died. And you were there, it was an awful day. And when I went to bed that night, about five years ago, I went, went well today.

And the supervising voice, Hermi, for me, right, give your mind a name, goes really, we're going to do that today. But I did, you know why I did it? Because it's a habit. It's what my brain is used to doing. And I thought about what went well today. And my mind immediately went to my mom and the police officer's interaction, which was hysterical because he said, Mrs. Amon, you know, because he died at home, we have to do an investigation. And she looked at him and she said, do you think I killed him?

And then she goes, do you think I have a boyfriend? It was so funny. And then I went, my brain went to the, all the texts I got from my friends and his friends and how much he was loved. And then I went to you and I holding his hand before the mortuary took him away and his hand was so soft. And then I went to sleep. And it didn't mean I wasn't sad. And it didn't mean I didn't grieve. I still grieve, right? Every Sunday we used to work out together. Sunday when I'm working out, I always think of him. But you see, it's this habit that helps keep your mind stable even in the middle of the

worst times. Yeah. Of the worst times. Yeah. I like that. And then another habit is look for the little things. I call them the micro moments of happiness. And there's so many, whether it's a hummingbird or a butterfly or make you brain healthy hot

chocolate every night. It's that first taste. Yeah, no, I love that. And I actually have a lot of those from when my mom was passing. So it's still a very hard thing for me I actually have a lot of those from when my mom was passing. So, it's still a very hard thing for me, but lots of those micro moments from when she was passing, even funny things. But you have to just grab those moments and try and grab onto them because that's what will help you, you know. And then the last thing is notice what you like

about other people more than what you don't, right? If you have a high negativity bias, it leaks and you begin to, this is wrong, that is wrong, this is wrong, you could do this better. And I find that that stresses relationships. So, one funny thing, so, because I have this tendency to, you know, especially with the kids and well with everybody, but especially with the kids, because of the things I've seen, I tend to worry and I tend to be like, you know, you need to do this and you have to do that. And everybody asked me on life three 16, you have to check in and you know, I have this

like list that I worry about them. And so one of my favorite things is, you know, Chloe did not grow up how I grew up. She grew up in a very, you know, lovely house, like safe household, you know, she didn't grow up that way. So she looked at me, I think what was she like 12? And she looked at me and she goes, Mom, I love you so much. Please don't put your trauma on me. It's time for you to go to therapy. I was like, what? I was like, it was a little like someone throwing cold water on me, but I went, it was wake up call because I went, hmm, maybe I am putting my, maybe I'm actually secondhand putting trauma on her.

Do you know? And it was, so it was very impactful for me to hear that from a 12 year old. She's like, you're scaring me. I live, you know, I live in a safe place, but you're scaring me. So it was very interesting. Well, we hope you find this helpful. You found this helpful. I live with you.

Every day I hear this. When I was in college, it was so important. I had a death and dying class. You did too. I did too. It was one of my favorite classes. And we wrote our funerals. And I always live with the end in mind. And so I often say,

how important is this in relationship to death? I do that too. I do that a lot, especially I think going, when you lose someone really close to you, it also puts things in perspective, or in my case, I've been through cancer. It just, you have a tendency to do that a lot. For me, it's more about the people I love.

I get really anxious about the people I love. So then you have to be more positive to help me live longer. Another verse I use a lot with my patients is be transformed by the renewing of your mind. And everybody knows that part, but they don't know the second part of that verse. And then you can test to see if it fits God's good, perfect, and pleasing will. And if God is for you, then you might want to give up a little bit of the negativity bias, unless it's important, right?

Right, as we- Because some fear is real, some threats are real. One thing that really helps me too is knowing that fear is the opposite of love. Like God is love and fear is the opposite of that. And so when I feel too much fear, I'm like, oh, that's definitely not coming from a good place. That's not coming from, my anxiety is not coming

from that place of, you know place of love and from God. So I need to analyze that. I need to figure that out. So use the anxiety to be appropriately prepared. I think that's important and your intuition is important to remember once we were walking on the jetty and Corona Del Mar and you're like, let's turn around. And my brain is goal oriented. I'm like, let's go to the end and turn around. And then all of a sudden we're with our white shepherd. Two pit bulls came and attacked us. And so I could give you a list of 10 things 10 times that my intuition was spot on

that you didn't listen to me, but we won't do that. That's not this podcast. Positivity. We're going to leave you on a positive note. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. And listen to your wife's intuition. Sometimes. Take care of everybody. If you like this podcast, please subscribe, leave us a review. We're so grateful for you and we'll be back next week.