As I sit here typing this, it’s hard to know quite what to say.
In the past week I’ve hosted my first virtual happy hour, run my first virtual book group, and for the first time since college, considered the very real possibility that I may use coffee filters as toilet paper before this whole thing is over….
We are faced with the monumental task of adjusting to and making sense of a new, albeit temporary, external reality. And because we don’t have any previous experience in our databank, adapting and adjusting to this situation might feel harder than other challenges we’ve had.
But here’s the thing, our interpretation of our reality changes our experience of our reality.
Which is one of the reasons I’ve been shifting my focus on happiness. At the gym, we’re reading Shawn Achor’s “The Happiness Advantage,” and I’m also reading Achor’s “Before Happiness.” Between those two books, I have a couple of points I’ve found especially helpful in the past 10 days.
Though before I get to those points, here’s an excellent reminder on our natural penchant to see the negative. Our brains are wired to naturally seek and find negatives. As humans we do this naturally because way back in the day our primitive brains had to respond to threats quickly.
So being a Negative Nancy was important to actually keeping you alive. To a point. But if you want to train your brain to see more of the positives, here are a few strategies to get you going.
1. Get your sleep
Research confirms that our ability to see positive details can be heavily impaired by fatigue. According to a study referenced in “Before Happiness,” if you memorize sets of positive, neutral and negative words, then sleep for seven to eight hours, you will remember around 80% of all three lists. If you miss a night of sleep, you will remember most of the negative and neutral words, but you remember 59% fewer positive words.
Our brains interpret a lack of sleep as a threat to the central nervous system. – because back in the day we needed to be on high alert for threats – like tigers waiting to snack on us. It’s not our fault that we focus on the negatives – recognizing those negatives was the difference between surviving and not.
For many of us, heightened anxiety makes sleep more difficult right now. But I guess if I could drive home one message, it would be this - do not feel guilty for sleeping in if you can, or going to bed earlier than normal (unless you’re sleeping all day long, then that is another conversation altogether).
2. Ramp up the positivity ratio
Hell is a positivity ratio? Well, according to research from a few University of North Carolina researchers, people need to have more positive interactions than negative interactions – by a 3:1 ratio. In the work place, teams that had below a 3:1 ratio of positivity had higher turnovers and engagement plummeted.
In the personal realm, people who have a 3:1 ration in favor of positivity are more optimistic, happier, and feel more fulfilled (Frederickson and Losada).
So try to balance every piece of bad news with three pieces of good news. This is more important now than ever – at work and at home. There are a lot of negative things going on – and an incredible amount of stress on all of us. It’s going to be really easy to snap at our co-workers, our employees, our spouse. Everything feels harder right now.
Uncertainty and fear are rampant for all of us and the unknown can have all of us on edge.
But If we don’t find ways to counter those negative interactions by a significant ratio, all of those people are going to come out on the other side of this thing remembering the negative interactions.
A 1:1 ratio isn’t good enough. Buying flowers for your wife because you snapped at her isn’t enough. It has to be more than that, especially right now.
Take a minute, right now, and look around for at least three positives - I know that can be tough, if you’ve been laid off, if your learning how to home school your kids - it can be tough. But give it a try.
And be extra kind to yourself right now.