How to Rewire Your Brain for Happiness

If you spend even a minute reading the day’s news, you may start to see the world as an increasingly hostile place.

Unfortunately, when you surround yourself with negative things, you brain can make you start to see everything in a negative-light.

Our brains actually developed this skill over thousands of years in order to help us make decisons quickly.

For example, when you’re in a dangerous situation, it’s important that your body is able to sense this danger and react quickly before your mind even has time to register what’s actually going on.

However, in daily life, the negativity bias can make you feel depressed, inadequate, lonely, and irritated.

But you don’t have to get stuck in a world of negativity. Let’s discuss how to rewire your brain for happiness!

Hardwiring Happiness

We all could use a little more happiness and positivity in our lives.

In Rick Hansen’s book “Hardwiring Happiness” he discusses how the brain’s negativity bias makes it like Velcro for more negative experiences and Teflon for positive ones.

Think about the two fabrics.

When you’re in a negative state, negative experiences are more likely to stick to you like Velcro does to a sweater. And at the same time, it can keep positive experience and emotions from sticking.

In a reverse fashion, spending time every day focusing on positive experiences can actually do the opposite. And overtime, positive experiences can then start to stick, creating more of a positivity bias.

While it doesn’t make sense to be a Pollyanna all of the time, you can be realistic and focus on happiness and positive events.

When you do this, not only do you register positive things as they come, but you may also start to seek out more positive experiences.

In short, focusing on positive experiences can make you a happier person over time.   

Happiness exercise

Rick Hansen uses a practice called the One Minute for Good exercise. To do this, take one minute sometime during the day to do the following:

1. Find a comfortable place to sit. For 1-3 full breathes, be aware of what is happening in your mind and body without trying to change it. Tune in to how your body feels.
2. Start to relax and deepen your breath. Try to disengage from anxiety or stress. Try to let go of any tension. Notice that you are in the now and relax into that peace.
3. Think about one or more things that you are grateful for or happy about. Think about things that make you feel happy or content. Rest for a moment while feeling content.
4. Think about a person or pet who cares for you. Let yourself feel appreciated and loved. Bring your awareness to how much you care and appreciate others. Rest for a moment while feeling loved.
5. Think about the peace, contentment, and love that you are feeling in this moment. Rest for a moment and feel the sense of wholeness and responsiveness. What would your day be like if you went through the day feeling like this? Take a few more deep breathes here.

How do you feel?

Rick Hansen also recommends that you take small pauses in the day when good things happen to absorb the good thing.

We often rush through the day and only pause for bad things. Yet, when good things happen, we often continue on our day without a second thought.

This is because, for every one thing that goes wrong, a million things in the day go right. We just don’t notice the effects of them as strongly.

For example, every day you likely get in your car and go about your business without so much as a second thought about your car. You only think about the car when there is a problem that disrupts your usual business.

So, the next time you are in the car, take a moment to experience gratitude for your car and for that mode of transportation, which makes life infinitely more accessible.

Additional ways to rewrite your brain for happiness

Journaling and practicing gratitude can help improve our satisfaction.

In fact, practicing gratitude actually increases our brain’s levels of dopamine and serotonin, which literally increases our happiness.

It’s also important to reflect on your accomplishments or good things going on in your life.

Take some time to journal about these things or talk about them with a loved one. When you think about positive accomplishments, your brain will release more serotonin and can train your brain to be more positive in the future.

I encourage you to try to incorporate one of these practices in your life and to practice it regularly. Over time, you will hopefully be seeing more and more positively.

Why does this all matter?

When you are more hopeful and optimistic, you are more likely to engage in positive health behaviors.

Positive people work to listen to their body’s needs and make decisions to promote their health by eating in a balanced way and engaging in exercise and stress relief.

They also are more regular with their preventive medical care and avoid harmful behaviors such as smoking.

The Bottom Line

The brain’s cognitive distortion can make everything feel more negative when surrounded by negative events and vice versa.

The negativity bias is like Velcro for more negative experiences and Teflon for positive ones.

Conversely, when you focus more on positive experiences, your brains will act as Velcro for more positive experiences.

You can do this by meditating on positive experiences, taking daily pauses, practicing gratitude journaling, and thinking about your accomplishments.