Evoking Positive Memories Is a Powerful Resource

“Evoking positive memories is enormously powerful because, when we are in the throes of mental distress, such memories are the first things to disappear and we get a skewed sense of our world, where everything is suddenly grey; nothing brings joy; nothing matters but whatever unhealthy preoccupation is swamping us. Much research backs this up. It is well known that people with depression recall only negative memories easily. One study showed that working with depressed people to generate a number of vivid and precious autobiographical memories and then, crucially, teaching them how to recall them at will when feeling low, had positive effects on mood.

There is brain science to all this. Reminiscing about positive memories increases activity in the corticostriatal regions of the brain, which are involved in the processing of reward, as well as in the brain regions that get suppressed during stress – the prefrontal regions, which are concerned both with regulating emotion and with cognitive control. In effect, we can use mental pleasure to recover from physical and emotional pain; to help us keep emotionally grounded and think clearly. We don’t even have to urge ourselves to be resilient, remind ourselves of our strengths, or expect the best. All we have to do is remember. Our ability to evoke a positive memory is a huge, ever-readily available mental-health resource, free to all of us. No waiting lists. No training is required. Just reliving the good things that have gone before can help power us up again.”

Read the whole article at Psychology Today

#Positivity #Memories #MentalHealth

💬 What is your favorite memory?