What Positive Thinking Can Do for our Brain

In this debut episode, we take a look at the ways in which Trait Optimism (thinking positively and having positive expectations about your world and your future) can actually enhance the areas of our brains known to help us deal with anxiety and, ultimately, become more resilient.  Turns out, that in as little as one session of learning to think positively, we can begin to have structural brain effects.  This has huge implications for our long term happiness!  It would appear that if we develop the habit of thinking positively, there is very good evidence that our brains will respond by developing in ways that will further reinforce our happiness and resilience.  How about that?! 

By the way, this is our very first episode and it is hosted and edited by yours truly, so you'll know what I mean by: Good Help is hard to find!  So, please forgive any editing or atmosphere errors.  I am learning as I go and I am thinking positively that we'll get better and better as we go along:).  As an old boss of mine once said in response to my nervous questioning on whether he thought his restaurant was truly ready to open:  "Mike, sometimes, you just gotta (language edited for all audiences--you're welcome:) open." 

In that spirit, here is our very first episode:  What Positive Thinking Can Do for our Brain.

This article is based on original research done by:

Dolcos, S., Hu, Y., Iordan, A. D., Moore, M., & Dolcos, F. (2016). Optimism and the brain: trait optimism mediates the protective role of the orbitofrontal cortex gray matter volume against anxiety. Social cognitive and affective neuroscience, 11(2), 263–271. https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsv106

Special Thanks to Maxie Walsh for the original artwork!!!

Transcript

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Hello and welcome to the very first episode of the positive pod. This weekly show will explore the positive in our world whether it's positive aspects of today's news tips and tricks to help you live, your best and most fulfilled life will have it here this episode. We're gonna take a look at why the positive pod. We're gonna take a look at sort of some of the background going to share with you some of my perspectives. My name is Mike Walsh. I'll be your host each week as we explore some of these positive aspects of the world you may be asking yourself is, Well, why this? Why now, Take a little bit about me and I'll tell you how the show got. Got conceptualized. It got started. I am a licensed professional counselor and a professional counselor. Educator. Got my masters in rehabilitation counseling from the University of South Carolina School of Medicine at my PhD in counselor education and supervision with a focus on rehabilitation counseling education back in 2009. I've been a licensed professional counselor and therapist in private practice since 2005 and ah, practicing counselor, educator since about that as well. And one thing that I've learned in the course of about 15 years in in this field. And of course, before that I was in the the corporate world in some areas and ran hotels and resorts and did a bunch of different things. And basically, if it if it paid money, I did it for a living at some point. One thing that was consistent in each and every part of my life is when I was presented the choice with sort of a positive way of looking at things or negative way of looking at things I don't always choose the positive way. But when I did choose the positive way, it almost always worked out better. And if it didn't, I saw ways that it could have. And when I chose the negative way, which I did plenty in my life, it never worked out as well. So, um, as I've gone along of sort of picked up things here and there I am by no means of an expert in human happiness. Um, uh, I don't know, do many people who are, but I've listened to a lot of people stories over 15 years I've experienced kind of live my own story. As the great philosopher Jimmy Buffett once said, I've read dozens of books about heroes and crooks, and I've learned much from both of their styles. And I think when we're open toe learning about what the world has to offer us in a better place. So the idea behind the positive pod Waas to begin to take things that are positive in the world and highlight them. We get a lot of information. We drink from a fire hose every day of information with with the Internet and 24 hour news cycle and everything else, it's really difficult sometimes to sort of isolate some of those something more positive aspects of what's out there. I've really appreciated the work that's gone on. There's some good news show, incredible work, that kind of thing, I think has a place in our world, and, um, I wanted to just add a little bit more. I want to add one more voice, so I'm not. I'm not the definitive expert, certainly, but I hope to bring each week, bring you something that you can walk away with and think, uh, wonder whether that fits for May, so kind of a little bit more about me. Philosophically, I'm sort of humanistic at heart. What that means to me is that I think people have their own answers, and I think it's just about helping some somebody to find those answers. That's certainly the approach I take is a therapist, but a CZ. I think about moving through the world. That's kind of the approach I take in most cases and looking at the whole person on what they have to offer. And they're that truly what makes them them, because we're we're complex human beings and were never just one aspect of our identity there. So many things that make up who we are and finding those things could be really helpful. And so kind of looking at the whole person is an important is an important part of moving forward. So the show is based on three basic ideas. First, humans have their own answers, and they're capable of incredible things. If we give him the space, help them to find their resource is and give him some encouragement. People do better when they're encouraged. At any given time. I believe people doing the best they can, even when that's not so great. That perspective alone has really changed the way I see a number of things, and it's changed the way I perceive other people. And then finally, optimism is a learned behavior. And part of what we're gonna look at this week, as a matter of fact, is some of the research behind that. Some of the science behind that that further ado, Let's let's take a look at that is there is our first episode in 2016. Researchers took a look at what they called trait optimism, trade optimism. It's the disposition, all tendency for people to hold a generalized favorable expectation or expectancy about their future trade optimism has been acknowledged in the professional literature, the professional behavioral literature. The neuro science literature has been acknowledged to promote psychological well being. The work that I'm that I'm looking at here, and I'll put a link to it in the description below. This particular work is by Dull Coast who I Orden Maur and Delle Cose, and it's from 2016 from the Journal of Social, Cognitive and Effective Neuroscience, and it's called optimism in the brain trade optimism mediates the protective role of the orbitofrontal cortex gray matter volume against anxiety. What's all that mean? Well, at the end of the day, it means that folks that showed riel trait optimism. In other words, the folks that were optimistic about their world showed structural changes in their brain, and those structural changes in their brain were also associate ID with reduced anxiety. So, as I mentioned, the fundamentally the show's based on these three principles, and the 3rd 1 is really important, and optimism is a learned trait. It's a learned thing we can learn toe look at the world differently. It's the old story of the wolf, right? We all have to wolves that live within this one is the negative wolf, and one is the positive wolf and which one will live. It's the one we feed, and it would appear that the brain science backs that up the brain. Science suggests to us that if we feed the positive wolf, if if we consistently and relentlessly look for the positive in our world than our brains will structure themselves accordingly. The same is true in reverse, and that has also been demonstrated real clearly in the in the north of psychological in the neuroscience literature. What's interesting about this is that once you begin to practice optimism, in other words, once you begin to look for the positives in your world, you're gonna find them. There's an old saying that you get what you fish for, and my students get real tired of hearing me say it. Um, but it's but it's true. You get what you fish for. If you're fishing for the positive in your world, you're gonna find it. You're fishing for the negative in the world. You're gonna find it. The question is, which is gonna be more helpful to you, which is gonna be more useful to you when I would suggest to you about that, is that the data suggests that we are more resilient and we are more capable when we're looking for the optimism and so that orbital frontal cortex is of where we process on the left side of our brain. It's where we process what's going on around us and what we want to do about that, and the more we can reinforce that area with optimistic thinking that air the gray matter in that area will will multiply, and that multiplication is associated with reduced anxiety and also associated with increased resilience. So, again, there's one example from from the literature and and this is not a standalone study. This has been this. This research has been echoed in lots of other places. Again, I'll provide a link to this thing, this actual study. The point to bringing this particular study to your attention is at the end of the day, we're all human beings. And at the end of the day we have choice. We can look for the positive in our world, we can look for the negative in our world. What the science and the literature is beginning to suggest to us is, if we look for those positives in the world, it actually has some very specific benefits in terms of our ability to deal with anxiety in terms, in terms of our ability to respond to challenges, our ability to respond to the to the ups and downs in our life in our lives. The one thing that's consistent is if we're looking for the positives, we tend to find them. The one thing that I've sort of come to understand about people over the period of my life is that the folks that are truly sort of attractive to be around, the folks that are often times the best at what they do are the folks that can look around in their world, whether things are going well or not well, and find the collaborations, find the connections and find the solutions. And that seems to me to be a habit of thinking. So this podcast is really about helping, too rediscover the positive in our world, helping us begin to associate the positive with our every day and helping us begin to sort of spot maybe the positive gem in something we're experiencing on any given day. So that's a little bit about the positive cast. I'm looking forward to being with you again. My name is Mike Walsh. I really want to thank you for joining us today. I'll post ah linked to the article in the bottom. Each week we'll take a look at the positive one positive aspect of our world. It could be a piece of the scientific literature like this. It could be a positive piece of news. It could be a story that's inspiring. Either way, we'll have some interviews, a cz well, with other folks. And we'll try to get you as involved as we can. If you enjoyed this podcast, please click on the subscribe button Would love to have you be a part of. It will be doing this each and every week. So thanks. Once again, everybody and we look forward to touching base with you on the next edition of the positive pod. Have a great week, everybody take care.