Joy Journal

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Pay Attention to Your Reactions…or Over-Reactions

The Sneaky Side of Negativity

Have you ever thought about how you react when you receive unexpected or surprising information?

Do you use a negative expletive? “Oh, [blank]!”

Do you criticize the sender? “What the [blank] are they thinking?!”

Or do you take it in stride and seek more information? “Hmm, I wonder what may be behind this? Let me ask.”

Your reaction is yours, but I highlight it as an area of caution. If you regularly react immediately and skeptically, you might be fueling your negativity bias. Our brains can gather 11 million bits of information per second, but we can only process 40 of those bits at a time. If you choose to focus on the bits that are negative, you can greatly impact your happiness.

And these reactions create a chain-reaction for negativity. You continue to focus on the negative, whether criticality is really warranted or needed.

So, this is just a friendly PSA to notice your reactions and see if they might be getting the better of your positivity.

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