The expert shares mental hacks to improve your luck on Friday the 13th

Cue the doom: Friday the 13th is upon us.

If you’re used to being an unlucky person today, you’re probably right — but that doesn’t mean it might not all be in your head.

According to a behavioral health doctor, much of what we perceive as bad luck comes from our mindset, and changing the way you approach the day could be the key to making it a lucky year this year.

Friday the 13th has long haunted the cultural imagination. The fear of this date is as deep as its history; There are even two terms to describe the phobia: namely paraskavedekatriaphobia and friggatriskaidekaphobia.

But does that belief lead to bad luck?

Dr. Anna Costakis, a New York-based behavioral health physician with Northwell Health, thinks so.

“Our mindset is powerful. When we are told that the full moon causes ‘crazy things’, we begin to notice them because we are expecting it. The same goes for Friday the 13th,” she told The Post.

Costakis notes that superstitions are rooted in confirmation bias, the human tendency to interpret evidence as confirmation of existing beliefs.

“People interpret things through the lens of what they’re looking for. Going into Friday the 13th, you’re looking for things that have gone wrong as confirmation of what you’re already assuming will happen that day, which then only reinforces the negative mood you’re exhibiting there.

“It pushes us into an anxious, negative place of waiting for the negative to happen and asking for the negative to happen as opposed to actively turning that into a positive.”

Too superstitious? Think like Taylor Swift

Research on superstitious belief has suggested that people rely on superstition in stressful situations to gain an illusion of control over outcomes.

While superstition and confirmation bias can easily skew toward the negative and anxious, Costakis maintains that a positive bias can lead to a sunny Friday the 13th outlook and experience.

“We’re able to change the way we think about something like Friday the 13th, really working that confirmation bias in our favor, believing, ‘this is going to be a great day,'” she said. .

Approaching the day with a rose colored lens and Costakis assures you that everything you encounter can amplify the good vibes.

Costakis credits Taylor Swift, who turns 35 this Friday the 13th and counts 13 as her favorite number, with renaming bad luck. By often painting the number 13 on her arm and speaking openly about its role in her success, Swift has influenced her die-hard fan base and a new generation of superstitious people to view Friday the 13th as a good omen.

“This shift in perception highlights how our mindset can lean toward the positive, identifying the good things and making the day ‘lucky,'” Costakis said.

Recently, psychiatrist Dr. Daniel Amen said that repeating this eight-word affirmation in the morning can promote feelings of peace and overcome negative thinking.

To put luck in your sights and bad juju in hindsight, Costakis suggests taking positive affirmations one step further.

“I think anticipating positive things instead of all the doom and gloom surrounding the superstition of Friday the 13th is one way to make your own luck. Your vision of your reality is very much what manifests because you’re looking for it,” she said.

But what about the whole unlucky Friday the 13th story?

Historically speaking, Friday the 13th has been host to all kinds of ugly, including but not limited to the arrest and subsequent massacre of the Knights Templar in 1307, the bombing of Buckingham Palace in 1940, the murder of New Yorker Kitty Genovese in 1964, and the death of rapper Tupac Shakur in 1996.

Costakis says these events are random and their clustering is another example of negative confirmation bias.

“You can pick any other random day and then look at all of history, across all the decades, and find negative things that happened on that day as well. It’s the lens we’re looking at and we can find anything to justify it,” she noted.

Costakis explained that some are more prone to fear and superstition than others.

“Anything can cause a phobia or obsessive, anxious thoughts that someone gets stuck on. When the general culture is already anxious about something, and then you instill it in someone who is already anxious enough to begin with, it can bring them down.

How to make Friday the 13th lucky

For those looking to withdraw from said advantage, Costakis has some advice.

“For anyone who has trouble doing the things they would normally do on Friday the 13th, there are things that can turn their luck around and make them less anxious,” she said.

It suggests the easily sad tendency in positive bias and grounding distraction techniques.

“Whatever it is that helps get them out of their heads. Go to training. Go hang out with friends. Do what you have to do to pull yourself out of the swirling thoughts of anxiety.”

Costakis added that she has patients who can’t fathom committing to anything on Friday the 13th for fear that something will go horribly wrong. For these people, facing the fear is the only way out.

“My recommendation is exposure therapy. The more you can tap into that anxiety, the more you can give yourself evidence of the opposite of all those negative thoughts you’re piling up in your head.”