How Past Experiences Influence our Present: Understanding the Impact

You wouldn’t be the person you are today if it wasn’t for the past experiences you have faced. Our past experiences determine our lives, including positive and negative events. They also play an important role in our happiness and well-being. It’s important to acknowledge and understand how our actions and responses to negativity affect our present and future joy to live a fulfilled life. A study from Kendra Cherry, an educational consultant, suggests that traumatic events can have long-lasting effects.

We are more likely to remember, think about, and respond to traumatic experiences. “Research has shown that negative bias can have a wide variety of effects on how people think, respond, and feel. Some of the everyday areas where you might feel the results of this bias include your relationships, decision-making, and the way you perceive people.”

This is known as negativity bias, and it has a powerful role in how our brains operate. Although our past holds positive memories, the damaging effects outweigh them. Such evaluation leads me to my question: How do traumatic past experiences affect our present happiness? Overall, an analysis through the scientific, psychological, and futuristic perspectives would help to better understand the effects and resolutions. The resolution begins by being aware of how you face negativity and taking the right actions to get through it. This could involve different activities, including a church, Therapy, support groups, exercise, meditation, and the list goes on. For those teenagers who don’t realize how impactful their past Trauma has been, the best solution includes a mandatory course in the high school they attend. The course would be on the subject of Trauma and how to heal from it. Investing their time into learning how serious past Trauma could be and finding potential solutions to heal from it is the key to seeking happiness.

The Psychological Effects of Traumatic Events

You may be wondering why negativity impacts the brain more than positivity. From a psychological standpoint, This has to do with the brain’s cerebral cortex, which processes information while actions are taking place and reflect on it. When negativity takes place, a higher percent of electrical activity is activated, causing us to be more heavily influenced by the bad compared to the good, as Kendra explained. A study done by John Cacioppo, a psychologist, involved showing neutral, negative, and positive pictures to participants.” Negative images produced a much stronger response in the cerebral cortex than did positive or neutral images.” This is the reason why the news likes to present dangerous and terrifying events going on rather than positive because it holds a much bigger impact on our brains.

The way the brain takes in information leads to changes in behavior and attitude. It stems from evolutionary roots; it is part of survival to protect yourself from danger. This is also why almost everyone tends to remember negative things in more detail. Professor Nass states, “Negative emotions generally involve more thinking. And the information is processed more thoroughly than the positive ones.” (Alina Tugend) Many people can agree that they have been through some type of Trauma in their life, whether it was a car accident, domestic violence, natural disaster, child abuse, or sexual assault. Those are just a few examples. A traumatic event is an emotional response to a terrible event. They have a major effect on the brain and body. It’s important for people, specifically teens, to be educated on these changes because they can destroy and affect our happiness. Moving on to a deeper understanding of these changes.

The Science on How Trauma Affects the Brain

Do you ever wonder what exactly is going on in our brains when experiencing a traumatic event? Using the Triune Brain model, you can understand these specific changes. The three main parts of the brain that are affected include the reptilian, the mammalian, and the neomammalian, as Paul D. Maclean states. Paul is a neuroscientist who explains that the reptilian, known as the brain stem, takes responsibility for “survival instincts and autonomic body processes.” Also that the mammalian, identified as the midbrain, is responsible for dealing with emotions and conveying sensory relays. Last, the forebrain, called the neomammalian, is part of the brain responsible for “cognitive processing, decision making, learning memory, and inhibitory functions .” 

When somebody is going through a traumatic event, these three parts of the brain take over and immediately change the mode of the body to reactive. This causes a shutdown of the brainstem, which is the survival mode. An increase in stress hormones takes action leading the body to flee, freeze, or flight mode. After this happens, the person can struggle in having PTSD because the brain structure maintains a constant reactive state, including a part of the brain known as the amygdala being affected, causing you to see everything as a threat. Post-traumatic stress disorder includes having flashbacks of past Trauma, whether it’s nightmares, thoughts, or behavior. It can be short-term or, in other cases, long-lasting, leading to a chronic illness. Unwanted memories, mood changes, exaggerated responses, and avoidance are the four categories of symptoms of PTSD. These symptoms can be very confusing to those who don’t even understand them, leading to them having no control of their minds and bodies. It can become so out of control that the person needs to seek help in order to heal from it. Scientific research proves that the brain, after a traumatic event, goes through these biological changes. Although these brain changes may seem permanent, they can be undone.

The Impact Of Positive Thoughts

Although negativity is more impactful than positivity, our positive thoughts have a lot of power in maintaining our happiness. All thoughts release brain chemicals, including positive ones. “Thinking positive, happy, hopeful, optimistic, joyful thoughts decrees cortisol and produces serotonin, which creates a sense of well-being.” (Susan Reynolds) When you think positively, this promotes brain growth and can influence your actions for the better. The prefrontal cortex(PFC) is known as the part of the brain that controls “cognitive, emotional, and behavioral functioning.” It gives us the ability to be able to set our full focus on something and realize our thinking process. This ability can help to accomplish goals and grow. The happier you are, the healthier you most likely are. Optimistic people are more likely to be more successful and have better lives compared to those who aren’t. With the classes, teens can be educated on this motivating them to want to attempt to deal with their problems. If the classes turn out to be a success, they will result in much happier teens, which would lead them to live a better life. Part of a resolution to traumatic past events includes training the mind to let go of negative thoughts. How? By thinking back to the positive thoughts or creating new positive memories. You control your body and your actions, do things that make you happy!

The Key to Happiness

Many of you may be wondering how you can think positively when you aren’t happy. The first step is to allow yourself to heal from your past Trauma. You must allow yourself to feel your emotions but don’t allow them to become who you are. You must overcome them, forgive, and move forward. This isn’t as easy as said; it requires reprogramming the body and brain. As the Dalai Lama states in “Have You Renounced Pleasure?”, “We must develop this deeper level of joy through training the mind. This kind of joy or happiness comes from within.” This could be done in various ways, including a church, Therapy, support group, exercise, and meditation. Everyone is different; what may work for you may not be the solution for others. You must be willing to try different treatments to see what works best for you and then commit to it. In order for teens to seek help must understand the Trauma they are struggling to overcome and how it’s affecting them. Many don’t seek the help they need because they don’t realize how seriously their past has affected them. The best solution to this issue would be to force high schools to include a course on the subject of Trauma for one term out of all four. It would include information on the effects past Trauma can have on their mind and body, including ways to overcome it.

The class would also help teens learn how to manage their emotions and accept their feelings. Why specifically target teens? We can all agree that the teenage years are very difficult to control. During the teen years, many changes take place, including emotional changes, physical changes, and life changes. Many teens do not know how to deal with these changes that have a major effect on them and their happiness. Kathy Hardie-Williams, a licensed professional counselor, expresses, “During the teen years, the brain develops at such a rapid pace that it puts the limbic system into the fight, flight, or freeze mode.” She goes on to explain that when the brain is activated to this mode, it causes a decrease in the ability for the following functions, including the ability to make good judgment, logic, and reason. It’s very important to keep in mind that the stressful years of being a teen can lead to anxiety, depression, and Trauma. With this class, teenagers can learn how to manage self-control and find a healing solution to their problems. The knowledge they gain from the class will also benefit them in their adulthood and future.

Works Cited

1. Alesevich, Matt. “8 Ways to Prevent Negative Experiences from Getting You Down.” 8 Ways Prevent Negative Experiences From Getting You Down, Happify.com, www.happify.com/hd/8-ways-to-prevent-negative-experiences-from-getting-you-down/
2. Caren, Allie. “Why We Often Remember the Bad Better than the Good.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 1 Nov. 2018, www.washingtonpost.com/science/2018/11/01/why-we-often-remember-bad-better-than-good/.
3. Cherry, Kendra. “What Is the Negativity, Bias.” Negative Bias: Why We’re Hardwired for Negativity, Verywell Mind, 11 Apr. 2019, www.verywellmind.com/negative-bias-4589618.
4. Marano, Hara Estroff. “Our Brain’s Negative Bias.” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, 20 June 2003, www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/200306/our-brains-negative-bias.
5. Reynolds, Susan. “Happy Brain, Happy Life.” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, 2 Aug. 2011,www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/prime-your-gray-cells/201108/happy-brain-happy-life.
6. Rosenthal, Michele. “The Science Behind PTSD Symptoms: How Trauma Changes The Brain.” World of Psychology, PsychCentral, 27 June 2019, https://psychcentral.com/blog/the-science-behind-ptsd-symptoms-how-trauma-changes-the-brain
7. Tugend, Alina. “Praise Is Fleeting, but Brickbats We Recall.” Why People Remember Negative Events More Than Positive, The New York Times, 23 Mar. 2012, www.nytimes.com/2012/03/24/your-money/why-people-remember-negative-events-more-than-positive-ones.html.
8. Williams, Kathy Hardie. “How to Help Teens Manage Their Emotions and Accept Their Feelings.” Good Therapy, 7 July 2017, www.goodtherapy.org/blog/how-to-help-teens-manage-their-emotions-and-accept-their-feelings-0705175.
9. Zhao, Yitong, et al. “Valuing Happiness Predicts Higher Well-Being: The Moderate Role of Acceptance.” Psych Journal, February 2020, web.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail/detail?vid=9&sid=206f77b4-d108-4fb1-a33c-ba4c4e3da98a%40sessionmgr4006&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#AN=141527664&db=asn

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