How to train your brain to see possibility instead of doom

19 Apr, 11:00. UK edition

Illustration of a surfer riding a huge curling wave

Our minds evolved to minimise unpredictability. But if we learn to live with doubt, a world of opportunities opens up

It can feel as though the world is tilting towards chaos: political shocks, economic instability, technological upheaval and a constant stream of bad news. Faced with so much uncertainty, many of us default to a sense of impending doom. But is that reaction hardwired – or can we train ourselves to keep a more open mind?

A useful starting point is humility. Every generation, it seems, believes it inhabits uniquely turbulent times, as literary epics down the ages testify. Uncertainty has always been part of the human condition, and none of us can really know what tomorrow holds.

Yet recognising this does not make it easy to bear. In fact, our brains are exquisitely sensitive to uncertainty. From a neuroscientific perspective, unpredictability is costly. The brain is an energy-hungry organ that relies on following patterns and habits in order to conserve effort. When faced with ambiguity, it must work harder – analysing, predicting, recalibrating. This extra effort is not just tiring; it can feel actively unpleasant.

Research suggests uncertainty can be more distressing than negative certainty. In one study, people were calmer when they knew they would receive an electric shock than when there was only a 50% chance of one. The ambiguity, not the pain, proved harder to tolerate. Similarly, long-term evidence suggests that the threat of losing a job can be more harmful to health than unemployment itself.

This tells us something important: the brain is wired not just to avoid harm, but to avoid not knowing. From an evolutionary standpoint, that makes sense. Our ancestors survived by making rapid judgments with limited information. If a rustle in the bushes might be a predator, it was always safer to assume the worst. This negativity bias keeps us alive – but in modern life it can lead us to overestimate threat and underestimate opportunity.

The result is a cognitive trap. Faced with uncertainty, we tend to narrow our thinking, rush to conclusions and cling to simple explanations. In extreme cases, this can manifest as anxiety, rigid beliefs or even susceptibility to conspiracy theories – frameworks that impose order on a confusing world.

But there is another way. The poet John Keats described “negative capability”: the ability to remain “in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason”. Modern neuroscience increasingly supports this strategy. The capacity to tolerate ambiguity – to sit with not knowing – appears central to flexible, creative and resilient thinking.

At the level of perception, this flexibility is already at work. Our brains do not passively receive reality; they construct it. We are bombarded with vast amounts of sensory data, yet consciously process only a tiny fraction. The rest is filled in through best guesses, shaped by past experience.

You may have come across that ambiguous drawing that can be seen as either a duck or a rabbit. When you look at it, your brain will settle on one interpretation to resolve the uncertainty. But with practice, you can learn to switch between the two perspectives. This ability to hold multiple interpretations in mind is closely linked to creativity and problem solving. In other words, perception itself is trainable.

So how might we shift from a mindset of doom to something more open? The first step is curiosity. When we’re suddenly unsure about what might happen next, our instinct may be to withdraw or rush to judgment. A more adaptive response is to ask: what do I not yet know?

High-performing teams in fields such as Formula One racing operate this way. As the Formula One executive Mark Gallagher puts it: “We go into a race knowing there are some things we can control but far more that we cannot – and we have to adapt to those things as and when they happen.” Thriving in uncertainty, in other words, is less about prediction than about adaptability.

In everyday life, this means seeking out different perspectives and resisting the pull of easy answers. It also means being selective about information. In an era of misinformation, the brain’s urge to resolve questions as soon as possible can lead us towards flawed conclusions unless we actively engage our critical thinking.

Emotional regulation is equally important. Uncertainty triggers stress responses that impair judgment and narrow attention. Techniques such as controlled breathing, mindfulness and physical exercise can help stabilise these responses.

Importantly, this is not about blind optimism. Our brains are prone to both negativity bias and optimism bias – the tendency to be sensitive to threat while also overestimating positive outcomes for ourselves. Navigating uncertainty well means balancing these tendencies, avoiding catastrophising at one end, and wishful thinking at the other.

Social context plays a role as well. Emotions are contagious both in person and online. Spending time with people who are open-minded and reflective can shape how we respond to uncertainty, just as environments dominated by fear can amplify it.

None of this makes uncertainty easy. It remains uncomfortable, sometimes deeply so. Nor should we suppress negative emotions such as fear or anger; they carry useful information. The challenge is to respond to them intelligently, using them as signals rather than allowing them to dictate our behaviour.

Ultimately, the question is not whether we can eliminate uncertainty, but how we relate to it. We can treat it as a threat, clinging to false certainties and narrowing our perspective. Or we can treat it as an inevitable – and potentially generative – feature of life, one that invites exploration, learning and change. The difference lies not in what life throws at us, but in the habits of mind we cultivate.

In a rapidly changing world, the ability to tolerate uncertainty may be one of our most important cognitive skills. It protects against both paralysis and delusion, avoids kneejerk reactions, and underpins sound decision-making. Perhaps most importantly of all, it opens the door to possibility.

• Hannah Critchlow is a neuroscientist and author of The 21st Century Brain (Torva)

Further reading