Omneya El-Hussainy
Insomnia, fixing our mistakes, self-abasement, blaming others and overthinking are all becoming daily routines for most adults these days.
Spending all night thinking about the bad news and the negative comments that others have said rather than being happy with small good achievements is also becoming a daily habit.
Definitely, these events have a negative impact on our lives and can affect our behaviour, decisions, relationships and social life. It is called the negative bias.
Negative bias refers to focusing on negative information more than positive information. It is an asymmetry in how we process negative and positive events to understand our world.
As humans, we tend to:
Think about insults more than compliments.
Dwell on unpleasant or traumatic events more than pleasant ones.
React more strongly to negative stimuli.
Remember traumatic experiences.
Pay much more attention to the bad things that happened, making them seem much more important than they really are.
Effect of negative bias on our life:
Negative bias can affect our thoughts about others in making decisions as well as in trusting others.
It can affect our relationships in many ways as:
Assuming the worst about people we don’t know, which will affect our behavior towards them later.
Retreating from our reactions due to thinking that they will have negative thoughts about us.
Making pessimistic assumptions about how another person will react.
Also, negative bias is a risk factor for depression and anxiety, some of its effects are:
Increasing heart rate in response to normal situations.
Thinking of a normal situation as a stressful event.
Preferring being alone and getting away from social events.
How can we overcome negative bias?
Taking a step to overcome negative bias can have a positive effect on our mental health.
Here are some tips to overcome it:
Pay attention to the types of your thoughts after the events and stop the negative self talk as “I shouldn't have done that".
Instead of focusing on your mistakes, think about what you have already learnt.
Look for an uplifting activity to pull yourself out of this negative mindset like walking, reading, listening to music or exercise.
Reframe the situation to be more positive and give fair weight to good events.
When you experience a positive moment, take a little longer to enjoy it. You can take photos or write about it.
Know that no one is perfect and we all make mistakes.
Finally, we all face ignorance, rejection, sadness and periods of losing passion and not all people will accept us as who we are.
The most important thing is to give the desired feeling for each situation and not overestimate the sadness and negative thinking.
Accept yourself and seek to be a good version of you.
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