My friend Gene said something which has forever stayed with me:
“Nothing is ever as good or as bad as it first appears.”
I love this quote – although at the time it was tough for me to believe that things weren’t as bad as they seemed.
I later learned that this was due to something which brain researchers call “resonance.”
Chances are you’ve witnessed “resonance” with guitars. If you pluck the G string on one guitar, the G string on any nearby guitar will have “sympathetic resonance” and start to vibrate as well! If you haven’t experienced this, check it out! It’s very cool.
Ditto with sad thoughts sharing a common “resonance.”
When you think happy thoughts the brain then naturally attracts the memories of other happy thoughts – which are all vibrating at the same happy “resonance.”
Ditto on sad thoughts attracting similarly resonating sad thoughts.
Basically, your thoughts and memories are “tuned in” at specific frequencies, based on the information they’re encoded with.
For example, a thought might be encoded as: “This is high-level happy stuff” or “This is low-level miserable stuff.”
Whatever “resonance” your present thoughts and memories are vibrating at (“high-level happy” or “low-level miserable”), they’ll attract thoughts and memories of similar information.
When you’re happy, a stream of positive thoughts ensues. When you’re sad it’s a stream of negative thoughts.
Over time, negative brain resonances eventually simmer back down to their normal, daily, even-keeled mid-level set zones.
When they do, that’s when the feeling of “rebounding” kicks in.
Plus, studies have even shown that you can wind up bouncing back to an even higher happier zone – because after bad stuff happens you wind up appreciating all your good stuff even more.
He focused on a wide range of people: from folks who won huge amounts of money to those who experienced debilitating injuries.
His research showed all people initially reacted strongly to the good or bad in their lives. However, eventually nearly everyone returned to their former general happiness level.
His studies showed that post-distressing times, many people actually reported rebounding to a higher-than-usual good mood. He attributes this bounce-back-higher effect to people appreciating the good in their life after suffering the bad.
Your renewed focus on appreciating all the good things in your life retrieves even more simmering positive thought memories . . . and upward your mood does go!
Create a journal where you write down things you’re grateful about. Plus, I created a special journal called INSTANT HAPPY JOURNAL to help you focus on the good in every day and the gain in every pain! It’s been an Amazon #1 seller! Click for info!
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Hi I’m Karen Salmansohn, founder of NotSalmon. My mission is to offer you easy-to-understand insights and tools to empower you to bloom into your happiest, highest potential self. I use playful analogies, feisty humor, and stylish graphics to distill big ideas – going as far back as ancient wisdom from Aristotle, Buddhism and Darwin to the latest research studies from Cognitive Therapy, Neuro Linquistic Programming, Neuroscience, Positive Psychology, Quantum Physics, Nutritional Studies – and then some.
