Who really runs the show?

I recently went for my yearly mammogram and when the results came back, my eyes scanned past “normal” before getting to the line that read “lifetime risk of breast cancer 10.6%.” It stopped me in my tracks and my immediate thought was “holy shit, that’s a lot!”

A few minutes later, as I did some conscious breathing, I realized that according to this scientific scale my chances of NOT developing breast cancer are 89.4%.

Those are great odds.

We have been given an amazing evolutionary gift: our brains have developed to be excellent at spotting danger because it has allowed us to survive as a species. (After all, we do not descend from the people who went into the cave to examine where the growling noise was coming from!)

In addition, threats – real and imagined – are stored in our memory and held on a hair-trigger, ready for instant recall and virtually instantaneous. Neuroscientists estimate that it can take as little as a tenth of a second to notice a threat but many times longer to notice something pleasant. This “negativity bias” is why we simply do not notice the overwhelming number of pleasant things in our lives and why we tend to learn faster from pain than from pleasure.

The neuropsychologist Dr Rick Hanson describes the brain processing capacity as “Velcro for negative experiences and Teflon for good ones.”

If you’ve ever seen the 1994 movie Dumb and Dumber you might remember this scene in which one of the main characters, Floyd, is particularly excited about his chances of dating his love interest. While Floyd’s ability to think positively is a light-hearted moment, I am not advocating for a mis-guided sense of positivity or bypassing, which is in itself a reaction to not wanting to be with difficulty.

Here is a practice that can help you when you are in the middle of a negative experience, and one to start building up a habit of noticing the pleasant things in life.

PRACTICE ONE – when your stress hormones are running the show

The amygdala (a bean-sized structure located in the center of the brain) detects stressors – real or imagined – and signals the prefrontal cortex (a big region in the front of the brain) which in turn controls our emotional response to the stressors.

As a result, your body is flooded with stress hormones such as cortisol, adrenaline, and norepinephrine that have a powerful effect on the body.

If you are experiencing a response to a thought of future catastrophe, or imagined doom, here is something you can try.

It’s a good idea to familiarize yourself with this practice BEFORE you are in the middle of a reaction.

Step 1: become aware of your body and your experience in this moment. Close your eyes if you find this helpful.

Step 2: focus on your breath. Feel your belly or chest expand on the inhale and subside on the exhale. Do this for as long as you can, whether it is for a minute or for 10 minutes.

Step 3: expand your attention to feel your feet, your bottom, and your hands.

If you’re seated this means you feel your feet on the ground, your bottom on the chair and your hands by your side or in your lap.

Repeat as often as you need to.

PRACTICE TWO – building a habit of letting in the pleasant

Step 1: notice something pleasant in your environment. And there are ALWAYS pleasant things, no matter what environment you are in.

Step 2: Stay with it for at least 30 seconds. If your mind wanders (it loves to wander!), simply come back to this experience in this moment.

Step 3: Absorb the experience. Really allow it to sink in, you might even be able to recall the feeling this experience created for you later.

Repeat as often as possible.

I’d love to hear how you get on with this.