Lowering the Impact of Negative Memories as they Resurface

As everyone deals with negative memories from time to time, a recent study investigates the behavioral and neural mechanisms during the recollection of these issues that could potentially lower their emotional impact. Findings show that as these memories resurface, thinking about the context of the issues instead of the feeling is a relatively easy way to alleviate their troublesome effects.

"Sometimes we dwell on how sad, embarrassed, or hurt we felt during an event, and that makes us feel worse and worse. This is what happens in clinical depression-ruminating on the negative aspects of a memory," said psychology professor Florin Dolcos of the Cognitive Neuroscience Group, via a press release. "But we found that instead of thinking about your emotions during a negative memory, looking away from the worst emotions and thinking about the context, like a friend who was there, what the weather was like, or anything else non-emotional that was part of the memory, will rather effortlessly take your mind away from the unwanted emotions associated with that memory. Once you immerse yourself in other details, your mind will wander to something else entirely, and you won't be focused on the negative emotions as much."

Study findings showed that the simplest strategy to alleviate these issues can be suppression or reappraisal.

"Suppression is bottling up your emotions, trying to put them away in a box. This is a strategy that can be effective in the short term, but in the long run, it increases anxiety and depression," explained Sanda Dolcos, co-author on the study and postdoctoral research associate at the Beckman Institute and in the Department of Psychology, via the release.  "Another otherwise effective emotion regulation strategy, reappraisal, or looking at the situation differently to see the glass half full, can be cognitively demanding. The strategy of focusing on non-emotional contextual details of a memory, on the other hand, is as simple as shifting the focus in the mental movie of your memories and then letting your mind wander."

More information regarding the findings can be seen via the Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience.