Negative?

May 1st, 2021| Topic: RaMbLeS | 0

Say you spill all your morning coffee, and it splatters everywhere, clothes, papers, keyboard, monitor, … Later a colleague comes by your desk to say hello and to exchange pleasantries. Do you greet her cheerfully, or does your coffee-spill frustration prompt you to give a grouchy, testy reply to someone who had nothing to do with it?

Well, such negative thinking has consequences, according to researchers from the Universities of Miami, Wisconsin-Madison, and Reading (UK): “Linking Amygdala Persistence to Real-World Emotional Experience and Psychological Well-Being,” in the Journal of Neuroscience.

Part of the brain, the amygdala, involved in subjective emotional experience and assessment, is the key to it all, specifically, “amygdala persistence,” or how long the emotional response to an adverse event continues. The longer the negative emotions linger, the worse it is for one’s mental health.

We provide an integrative model of affective functioning: less amygdala persistence following negative images predicts greater positive affect in daily life, which in turn predicts greater psychological well-being seven years later.”

Seven years later!

(“Don’t Worry, Be Happy,” may be more accurate than people think!)

Said first author, graduate student Nikki Puccetti:

One way to think about it is the longer your brain holds on to a negative event, or stimuli, the unhappier you report being. Basically, we found that the persistence of a person’s brain in holding on to a negative stimulus is what predicts more negative and less positive daily emotional experiences. That in turn predicts how well they think they’re doing in their life.”

Bottom line, if you want well-being in your life, even many years down the line, don’t let your amygdala do any persisting with negative emotions, any time!

Never have any negative emotions? Impossible. Hey, we’re human, and negative things affect us negatively, giving rise to negative emotions. Nope, the amygdala is going to persist.

But the Bible says there is a better way: Psalm 13 sublimates negative emotions for a positive one.

How long, Yahweh? Will You forget me perpetually?
How long will You hide Your face from me?
How long shall I take counsels in my soul,
[and have] sorrow in my heart all day?
How long will my enemy be exalted over me?
Psalm 13:1–2

The psalmist is in a dire situation indeed: seemingly “perpetually” forgotten and sorrowing “all day,” God’s face hidden and the enemy exalted. The pangs were deeply felt: “in my soul” and “in my heart’ (13:2ab).

But, the negative emotion of “how long?” moves into a claim made upon God: “Answer me, Yahweh, my God!”

Look! Answer me, Yahweh my God!
Enlighten my eyes, lest I sleep [in] death,
Lest my enemy say, “I have overcome him,”
[and] my adversaries shout with joy because I totter.
Psalm 13:3–4

Whereas in his complaint, the psalmist was convinced God had “hidden” his face from him (13:1b), here in his claim, he wants God to “look” at him (13:3b)—that God may turn his face unto him.

And, finally, that claim shifts to positive emotion—confidence in God:

But I—in Your lovingkindness I have trusted;
my heart will shout with joy in Your deliverance.
I will sing to Yahweh,
because He has rendered [good] to me.
Psalm 13:5–6

The “enemy,” present in 13:1–2 and 13:3–4, has disappeared in 13:5–6. And whereas “my heart” was in “sorrow” earlier (13:2b), it is that same organ, “my heart,” that is exulting for “joy” now. No wonder the psalmist can declare—and all who trust God can echo his resolve—“I will sing to Yahweh!”

SOURCES:
Journal of Neuroscience; Study Finds