How to Turn Bad Days into Good Days.
Photo: Liam Ellicott
Ever had a bad day?
(Rhetorical question)
Considering recent extreme weather events in Canada and around the globe, it's understandable if you’ve personally had a rough couple of days, or at least felt for the people going through the turmoil. We just faced horrific forest fires in Kelowna, BC, which continue to burn. The rest of BC is in a state of emergency, the Northwest Territories evacuated their capital city—Yellowknife, Hawaii's fires, California's floods, the news is scary right now… And these events don't factor in our routine daily ups and downs. In both cases (tragic or trivial), we all experience stress, anxiety, and worry.
How about this:
Have you ever had trouble falling asleep at night because you just couldn't shake the stress from your day? You had a difficult conversation with a coworker, an argument with your spouse, your boss gave you blunt feedback, or maybe you let someone down?
Our minds race as we replay the scenarios over and over again, wondering what we could have done (or said) differently. The pressure makes it downright impossible to sleep, and there are social, personal, and health-related consequences when you hold onto too much stress, worry, and anxiety.
What's actually happening in your brain and body when you feel stress?
There is a neural mechanism that makes us feel these genuine human emotions. When we perceive harm or threats (real or imagined), we experience physiological changes known as the stress response (or just stress). Physical or psychological stressors induce the same general stress response (Pinel & Barnes, 2020). In fact, some psychological stressors function exactly like physical stressors—like losing a job, taking a final exam, or ending a relationship.
Stressors stimulate action in our Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal axis. The Hypothalamus (in our brain) produces corticotropic-releasing hormones, which travel to our anterior pituitary gland (just below our brain), which then triggers a release of adrenocorticotropic hormones (ACTH) into our bloodstream. The ACTH reaches the adrenal glands (on top of our kidneys) and stimulates the adrenal cortex to produce cortisol and epinephrine (adrenaline). Cortisol is commonly referred to as the stress hormone, and it plays a vital role in regulating our body's physiological response to stress. Epinephrine prepares the body for immediate action. We experience increased heart rate, dilated airways, and blood surges in our muscles, priming us for action (Pinel & Barnes, 2020). Parts of our brain deactivate (our logical, rational mind) so we can benefit from increased sensory alertness and energy—good luck falling asleep!
In simple terms: when humans are stressed, adrenaline and cortisol put our bodies in a state of fight or flight.
It's an all-to-common and problematic pattern that unfolds regularly in daily lives because of the stressors we face in our work, relationships, and social lives—and that's not including what we feel when we watch or read the news. The stress can feel relentless, even when all you want to do is forget about your "bad day."
What if I told you that you can turn every day—even your bad days—into good days? What if you could release stress, overcome your negativity bias, and drift off to sleep? Rest, restore, and feel recharged when you wake up?
That would be pretty awesome.
Our negativity bias causes us to pay more attention to adverse events in our day-to-day lives. It’s human nature to weigh the negative more heavily than the positive. It feels worse to lose $100 than it proportionately feels good to make $100. We're hard-wired to pay attention to losses and stressful events because those threats raise our defenses—our stress response. No one is immune.
Can we beat the negativity bias if our brains are wired with this defense mechanism? Is it even worth trying?
The short answer is yes, but it involves consistency and practice like any notable achievement. One of the vital ways we must learn to override our stress response and negativity bias involves a simple gratitude practice.
Finishing every day with gratitude is one of the most effective (and easy) practices to integrate into your daily life. All you need to do is finish the day with what I call a gratitude audit. When you're lying in bed, ask yourself, what happened today that I can feel thankful for? What were your wins?
So often, our "bad days" are only bad for one or two interactions that didn't go our way or one tough conversation that replays in our minds once our head hits the pillow. If we can beat those negative thoughts, wouldn't that be great? Of course!
Consider this:
Try thinking about all that went well in your day. A quick audit of the wins in your "bad day" to see what you have to feel thankful for will help you realize that even our bad days weigh much more heavily in the positive. In most cases, the positive parts of the day stack up much higher than the negative things that happened. However, because of the negativity bias, our default mind frame is to replay those scenarios repeatedly, asking ourselves what we could have said differently or thinking, "I wish I said this or that…" This harmful cycle builds stress and makes it nearly impossible to sleep.
The good news: you can beat the negativity bias
You can't feel stressed when feeling thankful. Feeling authentically grateful for all the good things that happened in your day can override the stress hormones released when you contemplate the negative stimulus from your day. Feeling grateful produces two incredible neuro-transmitting hormones: oxytocin and serotonin. They regulate the effects of cortisol and adrenaline, putting you at ease. You feel the “warm and fuzzies,” and guess what? You drift off to sleep.
By completing this simple gratitude practice at night, you won't only sleep better, you'll prime your brain to filter out additional opportunities to feel thankful the following day. You're resetting your default pattern to filter the good vs fixating on the bad. You've primed your reticular activating system to find more reasons to feel thankful. You're beating your negativity bias.
Some days are just awful…
I'm aware that not all bad days can be cured with a simple gratitude audit. Some days are awful, and you must feel the pain and frustration. There's no point in suppressing those emotions, or you'll never be rid of them. However, we can start moving the needle by creating a more resilient mindset where we default to positivity and appreciation. By doing so, we are preparing ourselves for future challenges. In the face of adversity, we sometimes rise to the occasion, but most times fall to the level of our preparation.
Practice doesn't make perfect, but it prepares us to perform when it gets tough.
It's easy to feel thankful when things are going to plan and you're riding a wave of wins—we all do. When the going gets tough, gratitude becomes your secret weapon for grit and mental toughness. You'll default to positivity, a gracious perspective, and seeing silver linings in situations that weren't evident. Gratitude helps you frame setbacks in the grand scheme of things, realizing it's not so bad and finding the motivation to take significant steps forward in the face of adversity.
Reference:
Pinel, J., & Barnes, S. (2018). Biopsychology (10th ed.). Pearson Education.
