“You immediately see their face change,” says Stewart, a clinical psychologist in Los Angeles. She follows up with another hypothetical: Would it really matter, she might ask, if their coworker microwaved fish at noon? If their boss scheduled pointless 4:30 meetings? “You can literally see the cognitive transformation,” she says. “They start thinking, ‘Well, actually, it’s not that terrible.’”
Here's what to know about mental subtraction—and how to do it yourself in about a minute.
Mental subtraction works by interrupting a long-documented psychological process called hedonic adaptation, says study author Minkyung Koo, an assistant professor of marketing at the University of New Mexico's James & Gail Ellis School of Business Leadership. "We naturally get used to life events, whether they’re good or bad.” That adaptation is useful after bad experiences—the sting fades over time. “The downside is that positive events also become familiar and no longer bring us as much happiness as they once did,” she says.
How mental subtraction is different from gratitude journaling
So isn't this just the mental version of gratitude journaling? Not quite. “Most people think of gratitude as listing things they're thankful for,” says Suzie White, who teaches a science-based well-being course called Happiness in Action at the University of Cincinnati. “Mental subtraction takes a different approach.” And that difference matters, because the same adaptation that dulls our good experiences can dull a gratitude practice, too. Roxy Zarrabi, a clinical psychologist in Chicago, says some of her clients get so used to writing gratitude lists that the exercise loses its punch. They "feel like they're struggling with connecting to the feeling of gratitude, and they might feel frustrated instead,” she says. Mental subtraction, on the other hand, "counteracts that tendency.” While a gratitude list reminds you that you value something, subtracting it makes you imagine what its absence would cost “without actually having to go through it in real life.”
The moment you're most annoyed is when mental subtraction is most useful. Those flashes of frustration, Zarrabi says, are exactly the cue to try it, “because sometimes in those spaces it's hard to recognize how quickly things can change.”
There's a bonus effect, too. When the exercise reminds people what a relationship is worth, they tend to act on it by giving a compliment, a thank-you, or some other small gesture. The other person often responds in kind, which makes you more likely to keep up the gratitude. "It can be a domino effect," Zarrabi says.
How to do it in 60 seconds
The easiest entry point is a gripe you're already having: the partner who never does the dishes, the boss who's always late, the dog that chewed through yet another pair of shoes. Or simply choose one person, relationship, or stroke of luck that matters to you. Stewart once worked with a man who couldn't stand his job, so she had him picture losing it: not just the paycheck, but the free underground parking (a rarity in Los Angeles), the deep breath he took before his daily Starbucks run, the catered lunch every Friday. "You watch them have the transformation of, 'I hate my job, I hate it,' to, 'All right, it doesn't suck,'" she says.
Subtract it
Stewart often nudges clients toward the version where the choice isn't yours—the boss hands you a termination letter, your less-than-ideal apartment lease doesn't get renewed—because losing something on your own terms and having it taken away instigate very different feelings.
Return your attention to what's actually in front of you. The circumstances haven't changed, but your perspective might have. White recommends anchoring the whole exercise to a daily habit so it sticks: pair it with brushing your teeth, making coffee, or your morning commute. "Attaching it to an existing habit makes it easier to remember," she says.
Act on it
The point, Stewart says, is perspective. We tell ourselves we're in control—that we could quit the job, end the relationship, move out tomorrow. But that's very different from having those things taken away from us. "If your partner breaks up with you tomorrow, your boss fires you, your pet runs away, your car breaks down, your landlord kicks you out, you'll drastically change your perspective," she says. Mental subtraction just lets you get there first, before anything's actually gone.
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