My friend Lindsay and I were having a coffee. She ran the Bamfield General Store at the time and I was leaving shortly for a trip to Port Alberni. The logging road between the two places is gravel and often full of terrible potholes. I mentioned casually that I was worried about getting a flat. She queried me, “Really, why worry about that? You’ll either get a flat or you won’t get a flat. Worrying about it doesn’t make any sense.”

Her logic was sound and her comment, made almost thirty years ago now, remained with me. It has helped alleviate some of my tendency toward worry, but not all.

Barry, my housemate, says that mornings are the most difficult time for him. He can clearly articulate the things that he’s worrying about, and I joke that when they are resolved there will be others to take their place.

Rick Hanson, psychologist and author, acknowledges this tendency. He says that “our brains are like Velcro for the negative and Teflon for the positive.”  Ten things can happen in a day, nine good and one bad. What do we focus on? The one bad thing. This was helpful when we were still living in caves and needed to focus on staying alive, but unfortunately we’re still wired that way.

I wonder if it’s more than wiring. Maybe it’s got something to do with the fact that we often struggle not to think about negative things. Could it be partly our unwillingness to look at the darkness we habitually deny (death, illness, etc.) that has many of us sliding toward the negative? If we made a point of embracing the darkness periodically, would that open up more room for joy?

Viktor Frankl, Austrian psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor, coined the term “symptom prescription”. This article from The Guardian on Reverse Psychology explains how focusing our attention on more of what’s causing the problem, rather than trying to avoid it, can have beneficial results. For example, compulsive handwashers forced to wash their hands repeatedly actually learned to reduce the behaviour.

This sometimes happens inadvertently with my writing practice. I’ll find myself going down a painful road, remembering things from my earlier life that I wasn’t able to fully process at the time. Revisiting events in this often visceral way seems to settle something deep inside me and after that I can focus more clearly on what I want more of in my life.

Another way is by using our brain’s inherent ability to change. Hanson says we can shift our negative bias over time by using positive neural plasticity. One way to do this is by developing a consistent practice of looking for good facts or situations and turning them into good experiences. These positive events are often minor—getting an email off, drinking a good cup of coffee, getting a smile from a stranger—but the key is recognizing them as ‘good’ and really letting them in, ideally for ten, twenty, or even thirty seconds.

There is no question that shifting our bias towards negativity requires awareness and consistency. I think it’s worth the effort though. Worry in itself is not helpful medicine, to me or to the people I worry about. Taking action in some form is a better strategy. My mantra this week is I am porous to the positive. BTTP for short!

What kind of action works for you, when worry overtakes you? Let me know, I’d love to hear!