What is a negative spiral, and how do you get out of one?

You’re probably familiar with the phrase “spiraling.” Chances are you’ve even been caught in a cycle more than once. No matter how hard you try, somehow you just keep sinking deeper and deeper into an deeper hole of rumination, anxiety or fear.

While it can be hard to detect when you’re in the middle of it, understanding the feedback loop that happens when you’re in a negative spiral can help you pause and redirect the process.

Let’s break it down.

How Emotions Work: 101

First, in addition to a cognitive labels we often give our feelings (i.e. “happy” or “sad”), it’s important to understand that emotions are also part of the body’s physiological response. For example, in the same way your brain sends a signal to remove your hand from a hot stove before you even register “hot stove,” your emotional reactions can supersede conscious awareness. Things like rapid heart rate, tears, or a pit in the bottom of your stomach are just some of the many ways emotions manifest themselves physically.

Now, in addition to perceiving and interpreting the original situation, the mind also begins to perceive and interpret your body’s physiological response, making a cognitive assessment about how it makes you feel and adding the label of “happy,” “sad,” “excited,” or “anxious” to our experience. From which, of course, the body now continues to respond in kind.

In this way, the process becomes a feedback loop.

Here’s an example: You may work in a job in which the idea of “fire drills” are common - something urgent, such as a bug or client email, comes up and needs to take precedence over whatever else you were working on. Ideally you’re able to switch gears, take care of the issue, and then return to the rest of your day.

However, when people attach the words like “fire drill,” or needing to “put out a fire,” it’s not uncommon for some people to switch into fight or flight, and even after the original “fire” is resolved, the sense of rush, panic, or urgency continues to carry over into other day-to-day tasks. The body is in urgent mode, signaling to the brain that the next task is also urgent, and the anxiety does not naturally come back down without conscious intervention.

Let’s try another: Perhaps you’ve had the experience of not wanting to get out of bed when you’re feeling low-energy. Because you feel lethargic in the moment, you may choose not to get up and go to the gym, to see friends, or doing any of the activities that might normally boost your mood, so you end up feeling worse. And when you feel worse, you may continue to make choices such as eating more junk food, depriving yourself of the nutrients that might make you feel better, and so the cycle continues. People with depression can be very familiar with this cycle, and it makes sense that we use language such as “pulling yourself out” of a hole.

In essence, a spiral is nothing more than a feedback loop, whether it’s in the cognitive assessments you create about your experience, or the decisions and behaviors that follow.

Positive Interventions to Break the Cycle

So, now that we know our brains are prone to cyclically malfunctioning 😉, what can we do when we find ourselves being dragged down?

While it might sound obvious, the first step is simply to recognize that you’re in the middle of a spiral or a physiological response cycle. Mindfulness and meditation help us take a step back from being wholly absorbed in this experience and strengthen our ability to recognize the space between our automatic and unconscious reactions. Once we have a beat between stimulus and response, we get the opportunity to make a more conscious decision about what we do next - whether we continue down the current path, or take a different action (often referred to as “opposite action”) to turn it around.

Then, there are two ways you can attempt to stop and even redirect the cycle. The first, called “top-down,” is by using your cognitive resources to change your thoughts, which then has the potential to change the physiological response. Cognitive-behavioral therapy often uses this approach by helping to identify and challenge thoughts, and effectively change the associated emotional response.

The second, called “bottom-up,” directly targets the physiological response first. Slow, deep breaths, physical tapping, or mindful movement like yoga, send a signal to the brain that you’re safe. When you’re triggered, this can sometimes be more effective than attempting to talk yourself out of it.

Each approach may work better for some people and some specific instances, so it can be helpful to have tools for both.

The Upward Spiral Theory: Can a Spiral Be Good?

Yes! Just like a negative spiral can drag you deeper and deeper into a rut, social psychologist Barbara Fredrickson studies how positive emotions can actually create what she calls an “upward spiral,” propelling you toward higher well-being. Under her “broaden-and-build” theory, Frederickson shows that positive emotions broaden our thinking, which eventually helps us to build enduring resources that serve us throughout our lives.

Let’s look at a couple more examples. Have you ever been so angry with someone you can hardly remember any positive qualities you ever saw in them? Or perhaps you’ve been so frustrated that you become caught up in the minutiae of a task before you, only later realizing you missed the bigger picture?

These are examples of narrow thinking. From an evolutionary perspective, more negatively charged emotions such as fear were adaptive because they helped us narrow our focus and make quick decisions at moments that often meant the difference between life and death. You were already running before you had the chance to reflect on the appropriate course of action.

Now let’s look at the other side: Fredrickson’s studies have shown that when induced with positive emotion, people focus less on the details and more on the big picture. They produce more flexible, inclusive and creative thinking, and studies have even shown that those who experience positive emotion are less racially biased in face perception and worse at perceiving physical differences between races than those in the control. Positive emotions encourage people to do everything from interacting with others, to seeking out new experiences, taking up creative challenges, and helping others. All of these experiences tend to, in turn, boost our sense of happiness and increase our positive emotions, and so the loop continues in the other direction.

Finally, with a more open mindset, we behave in ways that increase the resources that also help promote more positive experiences for us in the future. For example, emotions like joy produce the urge to play, and nudge us to create more social bonds that provide social support. Interest produces the urge to explore, which builds on knowledge, experience and ultimate resilience.

How You Can Prompt an Upward Spiral

Sometimes it takes just a small positive influence to snowball into much greater lifestyle changes. Here are just a couple places to start:

Be intentional about your environment

While often overlooked, much of your mood is affected by your immediate surroundings. This includes everything from colors and temperature to sounds, and smells. Try cleaning your desk, lighting a candle, or even adding a warm paint color to your room. Find the environmental factors that boost your mood and integrate them into your space.

Get out in nature

Did you know that today people spend an average of 93% of their time indoors? Quite a lot for a species that evolved outside! Whether it’s a walking meeting or a day at the beach, spending time outside can offer an immediate mood boost, as well as boost broad, open-minded thinking.

Sleep, diet & exercise.

Regular mental health hygiene is easy to take for granted because of its simplicity. Get your eight hours, break a sweat, and when you’re feeling crummy, consider the last thing you put in your body.

Spend time with people.

The relationship between social connection and happiness is bi-directional. People who have more social connection are happier, and happier people attract better and more intimate relationships.

Think good thinks.

While the “power of positive thinking” will not solve all of your problems, it is pretty amazing to acknowledge that just thinking about something can invoke a physiological response in kind. Try it: Think about your last heartbreak, your biggest fear, or someone you love. Notice if you feel it in your body, and then take a moment to recognize just how powerful your thoughts can be. Shifting your thoughts to things like what you’re grateful for or the ideas that are bigger than you can quite literally change your body’s chemistry. Find and reinforce the ones that will lift and open you up.

Honoring All Emotions

While we want to bolster positive emotions to the extent that they help us grow, adapt, and lead meaningful and fulfilling lives, it is equally important to remember that all our emotions are important and ultimately serve a purpose. Grief, for example, is an essential part of processing any loss. The freedom to express rather than suppress our emotions when we are sad or angry is healthy and often necessary. And simply having a crummy day is a normal part of being human, and sometimes feeling into it is the best thing you can do. You will still experience the full spectrum of emotions even when, or even more, when you are “flourishing” in your life.

Our emotions are also constantly in flux. What’s important to remember is that - for better or worse - no feeling is permanent. When you’re at a low, understand that within a matter of time you’ll likely be in a different state. This practice is not about eradicating the negative emotions that might arise throughout our lives. It’s about noticing them, understanding them, and not getting stuck or swept up in a whirlpool.

But if your can harness the power of your emotional feedback loops to your advantage, and optimize toward some of your more positive emotions, experiences and goals, you just might be surprised by where you find yourself spiraling!