Positive Spiraling/”The Upward Spiral”

Carolyn Steber, Bustle, reports that “positive spiraling” is not only a currently viral concept but a needed provider of hope and relief for many. “Instead of swirling down the whirlpool of anxiety and despair, you spiral upward into positivity and gratitude.”

Among various researchers and writers associated with positive spiraling is psychologist Barbara Frederickson, whose 2009 Positivity: Top-Notch Research Reveals the Upward Spiral That Will Change Your Life, came out of groundbreaking work in the 1990’s that led to the Broaden-and-Build Theory of Positive Emotions. Basically, “…while negative emotions narrow thought-action repertoires, positive emotions broaden these repertoires” (PositivePsychology.com).

Neuroscientist Alex Korb, PhD, created his own path to positive spiraling, which he details in The Upward Spiral: Using Neuroscience to Reverse the Course of Depression, One Small Change at a Time, first published in 2015 and now being reissued as a second edition with updated info on the effects of social media and smart phones. 

A powerful and timely political analogy by Korb involves each of our brain’s electrical pulses being akin to “a vote on what the next neuron should do. The whole pattern of activity is like a presidential election. Everyone votes on who the president should be, and depending on those votes, the country veers off in one direction or another. If you can change the number of votes in a few key swing states by only a few percentage points, you can dramatically change the course of the country. The same is true of the brain. By changing the firing rate of neurons in a few key regions, you can influence the pattern of activity in the entire brain.”

Additional Selected Quotes from The Upward Spiral

Everything is interconnected. Gratitude improves sleep. Sleep reduces pain. Reduced pain improves your mood. Improved mood reduces anxiety, which improves focus and planning. Focus and planning help with decision making. Decision making further reduces anxiety and improves enjoyment. Enjoyment gives you more to be grateful for, which keeps that loop of the upward spiral going. Enjoyment also makes it more likely you’ll exercise and be social, which, in turn, will make you happier.

..(E)xpressing gratitude activates serotonin production, which improves your mood and allows you to overcome bad habits, giving you more to be grateful for.

Shift your focus to what’s occurring right now. This is why Buddhist monks and yogis practice nonjudgmental awareness—the process of being aware of the present, without attaching emotional reactivity to it. This mindfulness practice cuts off worry and anxiety at the source.

Pay attention to the things that are happening now, and don’t pay attention to the things that aren’t happening now. Focusing on the present helps reduce anxiety and worry, because it decreases emotional, self-focused processing in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. 

My life has been full of terrible misfortunes, most of which never happened.