There has been a great deal of research into how the brain works in regards to memory. What sort of things that we encounter carry more weight than others. It is understood that we humans have a “negative bias.” The thought is that this propensity to remember negative things with more memory weight than positive things evolved to help us survive. If a person remembered that there was a terrible predator over that tree-covered hill, you could avoid it and not get eaten while knowing that the meadow over the other hill covered in beautiful flowers is lovely. It wouldn’t keep us alive. Because of this bias, it is challenging to stay positive, joy, happy things in the forefront of our memories.

Anyone that has been handed an album of photos knows that the photos themselves. Looking at them has a neurological effect of pulling the memory of the event in the picture to the front of your mind. We want to remember happy times and using photos to assist in the retrieval from our memory archives of those memories has become a critical neurological tool. It is shown that we need 5x more positive experiences than negative ones to be at a neutral playing field with our innate negativity bias. We need to experience five times as many happy things to counteract one negative one.

This sounds insurmountable to tip the scales onto the positive side. Not necessarily, positivity can be small. Looking at photos to remind ourselves of positive/happy times is a tool marriage counselors use to tip those scales for couples. Writing words of affirmation and gratitude, again reminding us and putting the positivity in the front of our memories works too. We also need to be reminded often of the small joys of life. Taking photos of things that bring you joy, and then looking at them will bring that joy back to you. With the advent of phones that are also cameras, we have this capability in our own pockets. When waiting for an appointment, we sit, get out our phone, and review our photos. We are trying to level the bias! Print some of the best ones into photo albums, write the stories down to go with them. These joys can then be passed down to future generations. You can feel joy, share joy, and pass it to future generations!