What predicts a happy life or a successful marriage? Researchers suggest that on balance, to be content in life or marriage, positive experiences and interactions need to be more frequent than negative ones. Ya think? It sounds obvious. But here’s what’s not so obvious. We not only need more positive experiences, we need a lot more. The numbers vary, but renowned marriage researcher John Gottman has suggested that the ratio of positive to negative exchanges — even in the midst of conflict — needs to be five to one.

Yes: five to one.

As suggested in an earlier post, part of the reason for this is because of our built-in negativity bias: we pay more attention to what threatens us and we are affected by it longer. If you’re upset over something your spouse said did, you’ll stay upset longer than you would stay happy over something nice they did. In a sense, a negative interaction carries more weight on the emotional scale, and therefore takes several positive ones to balance it out.

The important takeaway: if you want your marriage (or really, any other important relationship) to succeed, you can’t just hope to avoid negativity. You have to intentionally build positivity.

Remember Gottman’s concept of negative sentiment override (NSO)? That’s when our perception of someone else becomes so skewed toward negativity that we explain away or even fail to notice what they do right. But NSO has its counterpart in PSO: positive sentiment override. The more you notice and appreciate what your partner does right, the better you are able to give them the benefit of the doubt when they do something wrong. Or indeed, the less likely you are to perceive it as “wrong” in the first place.

In other words, it’s not just about avoiding fights. It’s not just about how to fight. It’s about the quality of your relationship when you’re not fighting.

Do you take the relationship for granted? Or do you work to keep your connection strong?

In a similar vein, we can appreciate Paul’s pastoral wisdom as he counsels the anxious Philippians. In Part One of this post, I suggested that in Philippians 4:4-9, Paul gives believers four directives to follow as they pray about their troubles:

1. Bring everything to God in prayer;
2. Do so with thanksgiving;
3. Notice and think about that which is good and godly;
4. Imitate godly examples.

But how do you pray with real gratitude when you’re anxious? This, I think, is where #3 and #4 come in. Notice that in the text, “thanksgiving” (#2) is directly tied to prayer (#1), but #3 and #4 are not. The latter two are more like a lifestyle, a general orientation that goes beyond moments of anxious prayer.

For example, do we actually have a habit of noticing what’s good and admirable in life? You can’t rely on your news feeds for this. They will keep pushing bad news at you, because they know that whatever tweaks our negativity bias is what will get your attention. But there are still good things in life to be noticed and appreciated, whether it’s the beauty of creation or a random act of kindness by a stranger. Even in a relationship with someone you dislike, you can probably find something to like if you calm down long enough to look.

And who are the godly examples in your life? Whose life do you look at and think, “When I grow up, I want to be like that”? What kind of attitude do they have toward life, toward trouble? How do they handle conflict?

Here’s the point. When we are anxious and reach out to God in prayer, it will be difficult to be anything more than only superficially grateful unless we already have a habit of noticing and appreciating the good when we’re not anxious.

Is there anyone in your life for whom you are grateful? Tell them. Do you notice someone doing good? Show your appreciation. Do you see anything praiseworthy in life? Praise God for it. Pay attention to how godly people in your life deal with problems; take them out to coffee and talk to them about it.

Make all this a habit, a way of living. Don’t wait until there’s trouble on the horizon. Build the confidence of knowing that a good and gracious God is still sovereign over this fractured and fractious world, because you can still see the glimmers of what is worthy of praise.

Then, when you have to pray in the midst of your anxiety, you’ll be better equipped to bring that praise to God. And the more you are able to bring honest praise, the more you will know the peace of God.