Hardwiring Happiness: The Practical Science of Reshaping Your Brain—and Your Life

to help our ancestors survive, the brain evolved a negativity bias that makes it like Velcro for bad experiences but Teflon for good ones.

positive experiences use standard-issue memory systems, in which new information must be held in short-term buffers long enough for it to transfer to long-term storage. “Long enough” depends on the experience and the person, but loosely speaking it’s at least a few seconds, and the longer the better.

Because they lived in small bands, it was uncommon for them to meet people they didn’t know, and often dangerous when they did. While some bands interacted peacefully with each other, on average about one in eight men died in conflicts between bands, compared to one in a hundred men who died due to warfare in the twentieth century.

what you pay attention to—what you rest your mind on—is the primary shaper of your brain.

intense, prolonged, or repeated mental/neural activity—especially if it is conscious—will leave an enduring imprint in neural structure,

the brain takes its shape from what the mind rests upon.

If you fail to get a carrot today, you’ll have another chance to get one tomorrow, but if you fail to avoid a stick today—whap!—no more carrots forever.

Inner strengths are the supplies you’ve got in your pack as you make your way down the twisting and often hard road of life. They include a positive mood, common sense, integrity, inner peace, determination, and a warm heart.

each person has the power to change his or her brain for the better—what Jeffrey Schwartz has called self-directed neuroplasticity.