Why Positive Thinking Doesn’t Work | Anat Peri | TEDxWesternU

Core Argument - The central idea revolves around the importance of fully experiencing emotions rather than suppressing them, suggesting that emotional granularity is key to emotional health [7] - The report challenges the conventional advice of "thinking positive" and advocates for allowing oneself to feel emotions fully for a short period, around 90 seconds, to process them effectively [6][8] Emotional Processing - Suppressing emotions can trigger the nervous system's threat response, leading to reactions like fighting, fleeing, freezing, or people-pleasing [5] - Allowing oneself to fully feel an emotion without resistance enables the body to process it in approximately 90 seconds, as suggested by neuroscientist Dr Jill Bolt Taylor [8] - A study in the Journal of Personality highlights that emotional granularity, the ability to accurately label emotions, is crucial for emotional well-being [7] Practical Application - The report introduces a three-step process for working with emotions: identifying specific emotions using tools like Yale University's mood meter, observing physical sensations associated with the emotion, and allowing the emotion to take center stage for 90 seconds [19][20][21][22] - By engaging the logical part of the brain and shifting focus to the physical presence of emotions, individuals can move from reactivity to calm, signaling safety to the nervous system [21] - The process aims to train the nervous system to become more familiar with emotions, reducing the likelihood of perceiving them as threats in the future [22][23]