If you turn on the news right now, you'll be hit with a sea of negativity, and it can convince you the world is falling apart. It isn't. I sit down with two guests to explain why our minds are literally built to outweigh the bad, and how you can bias yourself back toward the positive.
First, meditation teacher Cara Lai offers a tip to instantly disarm anxiety: ask yourself "what if what's happening right now is exactly what's supposed to be happening?" She also shares what a year alone in the woods battling Lyme disease taught her about suffering. Then Roy Baumeister, one of the most cited psychologists alive and author of the landmark paper "Bad Is Stronger Than Good" joins to discuss the negativity bias. Why does one criticism drown out a sea of compliments? Why do bad days carry over while good days don't? He explains the 5-to-1 ratio of positive experiences to negative experiences that predicts whether a relationship lasts, plus the evolutionary reason we're wired this way. And finally, the Boston Marathon study that will change how you watch the news for good.