3 MINUTE MONDAY

Hi friend,

See me at my London Live Show on Thursday 28th November at the Eventim Apollo - General Tickets still available! https://chriswilliamson.live/london​

3 weeks until Australia! Brisbane 6th, Melbourne 8th & Sydney 9th November - General Tickets still available! https://chriswilliamson.live/australia​

I recently learned about The Fading Affect Bias.

The goodness and badness of memories fade over time, but the badness fades faster.

Some bad memories even become good memories, while good memories rarely become bad memories.

It makes sense that both joy and pain fade with time—stuff just feels less intense when it's farther away—but why does pain fade faster?

It’s because when bad stuff happens to us, our psychological immune systems turn on.

We start to rationalise (“Why would I want to be with someone who doesn’t want to be with me?”), downplay (“Breakups happen all the time in high school, it’s no big deal”), distance (“I never liked her that much anyway!”) and distract (“I’m gonna go play video games”).

These mental processes function like emotional antibodies, taking the sting out of bad memories.

We don’t use them on good memories, so good memories keep their lustre longer.

Everything is temporary, bad stuff especially.

“Tragedy + time = comedy" is the closest thing psychology has to a chemical equation.

— Adam Mastroianni

So even when things are going badly, know that in future you’ll probably be able to laugh about this.

Discomfort in the present can be very painful, don’t make it worse by fearing how you’ll feel about it in the future, you’ll be fine.

MODERN WISDOM

I do a podcast where I pretend to have a British accent. You should subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
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This week’s upcoming episodes:

Monday.
Chris Bumstead - fresh off a 6th Olympia win, the greatest bodybuilder on the planet talks confidence, fear, fatherhood, discipline and more. Outrageously good. Video also on Spotify for this one.

Thursday.
Dan Jones - a super in-depth medieval history breakdown of England’s greatest king Henry V. Eerily similar to this year’s election and Dan is an unbelievable story teller, enjoy.

Saturday.
Dr Andrew Thomas - what does the most recent data about inches teach us about why young men get radicalised, why they’re struggling and what can be done to help their mental health.

THINGS I'VE LEARNED

1.
​500,000 more American men than women have taken their lives over the last 25 years.

“If male suicide in America had happened at the same rate as female suicide, half a million fewer men would have died since 1999.” — Richard Reeves

2.
​Conspiracy theorists have worse relationships, unless it’s with another conspiracy theorist.

New research presents causal evidence that conspiracy beliefs can damage relationships.

The study found that when one person expresses conspiracy beliefs, relationship satisfaction decreases, offering proof that the endorsement of conspiracy theories can impact the quality of interpersonal connections.

Participants reported significantly lower relationship satisfaction with the person they perceived to hold conspiracy beliefs, compared to the non-believer.

Additionally, participants felt less attitudinal and relational closeness with the conspiracy believer, suggesting that differences in attitudes, especially related to conspiracy theories, might strain relationships.

An important finding was that the degree of this effect depended on the participants’ own conspiracy beliefs: the effect is mitigated if both individuals hold similar beliefs.

— h/t Journal of Applied Social Psychology

3.
​It’s the lows, not the highs that make or break a relationship.

“Painful lesson over the past ~20 years of relationships: in the medium run it’s exciting to feel hype about people who seem to relate strongly in specific ways, but in long run it’s really how you handle misunderstandings, conflict, confusion, disagreement that go the distance” — Visakan Veerasamy

LIFE HACK

Choose window seats on busy flights.

I’ve war-gamed this a lot over the summer while sat on planes and have come up with a definitive answer.

Having the window seat provides two clear advantages.

Not being disturbed by other passengers getting up to go to the bathroom.

Control over the window blind (sometimes blindS if you get lucky).

Both are crucial for sleep and general peace.

Now you do lose arm-width on the side closest to the window, but you also lose that in the middle seat, and the benefits outweigh the costs.
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Big love,
Chris x

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PS
So many kind messages after the Q&A. Thank you.