Life is chock full of reinforcing loops. Like most things, this is neither inherently good nor bad. The real trick comes in learning what these cycles are in our lives and trying to nudge ourselves towards the positive reinforcing loops and away from the negative ones. As with many things, there is a good deal of symmetry in these forces…. what can one day be a negative process with a few tweaks can transform into a positive process.
The most obvious, powerful, and easily understood of these cycles in my own life involves physical health, exercise, and mental health. When I am physically healthy I am able to exercise: running, swimming, biking, hiking, and yoga. When I am able to exercise my body gets a much needed daily shot of endorphins, this helps elevate my mood. When I am feeling mentally healthy I am able to stay physically healthy via a properly functioning immune system. When all these forces are lined up and functioning as they should I have weeks of depression/anxiety relief and I am able to build muscle tissue and move towards healthy systems body-wide. But, when one of these cogs is unable to function normally I can rapidly trip into a downward spiral of not being able to exercise, not feeling mentally/emotionally healthy, and ultimately weakening my immune system resulting in physical illness.
There are numerous other examples of positive or negative feedback loops all around us. When people have jobs they have money. When they have money they spend it, stimulating the economy. When businesses see increased demand (spending) they expand their businesses, hiring more people. As more people get jobs the level of spending expands further and even more people are hired…..a virtuous cycle. Unfortunately, all that it can take turn this positive feedback into negative feedback is for enough people to get scared that the good times might be coming to an end. The job losses don’t even have to start….just the perception that job/wage losses are in the offing can be enough for people to cut back on spending which contracts the economy resulting in businesses reducing staffing levels. This in turn reduces aggregate demand resulting in…… Note how this all switched from spiraling to the heavens to plummeting to Earth when a sufficient number of people simply feared that it might happen.
Another example is getting positive feedback in school (sports, relationships, whatever) resulting in higher self-esteem and the resulting improvements in school performance (or sports, relationships, or whatever). But just as positive feedback can drive this cycle up; negative feedback can drive the cycle down! Things don’t occur in a vacuum in the real world. Most things don’t play out in obvious linear fashion either. Further, few things remain constant….they are either getting better or bigger or faster or they are contracting with equal zest. By learning what the important parameters are in our own life we can focus our attention on supporting those really vital linkages….like getting exercise (for me).
