1: Life is busy. Yes, it is.
“It can feel like there simply isn’t enough time while we manage all the other things we need to do,” Rachel Barr writes in How to Make Your Brain Your Best Friend: A Neuroscientist’s Guide to a Healthier, Happier Life.
“Who has the time to pause and watch a squirrel execute an elaborate heist on a bird feeder or enjoy the simple pleasure of a wandering late-night conversation?” Rachel asks.
We’re simply too busy and over-scheduled.
“And yet,” Rachel notes, “in overlooking the importance of delight, we deprive ourselves of the very thing that could help defend against the ravages of stress and strain.”
2: When we pay attention to what is delightful, we escape our brain’s natural inclination towards negativity.
“We are all programmed to notice, remember, and be influenced by negative experiences much more than positive,” she writes, “a feature known in psychology as the negativity bias.”
This tendency was hard-wired into our psyche by our ancestors, who had to stay alert to danger and doom.
“It’s the negativity bias that keeps us stewing over a mistake at work,” Rachel explains, “even after a string of triumphs and glass-clinking moments of celebration. . .
“Or for replaying an awkward moment from a party two years ago, even though we’ve forgotten the rest of the event.
“Or thinking about a PhD interview we fumbled eight years ago, despite the miles and years that separate you from it.
“Well, I might be projecting a tad with that last one,” she adds.
Our minds can’t help but focus on “whatever doom and gloom is bubbling up around us,” Rachel writes. “It casts a shadow that can meaningfully affect our appraisal of ourselves and the lives we lead.”
Being intentional about finding and appreciating what is delightful is an effective strategy to combat our negativity bias.
“From a neurobiological standpoint,” she notes, “the active choice to seek out moments of delight stands as a shield against chronic stress.
“Under normal physiological conditions,” Rachel writes, “stress is reined in by receptors in the hippocampus that react to the stress hormone, cortisol. Their job is to recognize when our stress response has fulfilled its duty and then disarm it, ushering your brain and body back to a state of calm.”
These neurological receptors are like the brakes in our car. They allow us to slow down when we’re driving too fast.
“Just as brake pads can wear down from overuse, these receptors can become overwhelmed by chronic stress,” she notes.
“Enough erosion, and we could find ourselves stuck in a relentless, cortisol-fueled merry-go-round, where stress leaves us more vulnerable to stress.”
Fortunately, we no longer have to fend off saber-toothed tigers. But “running for our lives, Rachel observes, “would at least have the handy side effect of fending off all that extra cortisol.”
3: Today, however, it’s rare we need to “fight” or take “flight.”
“Instead,” she notes, “modern-day stress triggers are things like scheduling a doctor’s appointment with a particularly curmudgeonly receptionist, or dealing with a boss who thinks every client email is an SOS flare.”
So, we “resolve instead to sit at our desks with shoulders hunched to our ears, hoping the hippocampus will roll up its sleeves and say: “Hey, adrenal glands, chill with the cortisol, wouldya?”
But when our stress receptors are overtaxed, our hippocampus can’t perform its role.
“Left in this state long enough,” Rachel writes, our “risk of physical and mental health problems can skyrocket.”
So, it’s up to us to stop the car manually.
“That means interrupting cycles of nonstop stress with something not stressful,” Rachel writes. We “have to persuade our bodies to stop pumping out cortisol by letting it know we’re no longer in danger.”
The answer? “Microdose delight wherever and whenever we need to,” she suggests, “simply by giving it the few seconds it needs to burst into existence. . .
“Choosing delight means choosing ourselves,” Rachel writes. “It’s a way to fortify our spirits.”
More tomorrow.
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Reflection: In the rush and strain of daily life, am I letting my brain’s negativity bias rule my mood—or am I making time to notice the small things that bring delight?
Action: Intentionally “microdose” delight by pausing, even briefly, to savor something good—a kind interaction, a vivid sunset, or a moment of laughter—especially on the busiest days.