I love you, rice! Positivity Experiment

We may not always notice it, but the words we say, and the thoughts we think, tend to influence us in some way or another. They can affect our mood, how we treat others, and how our day goes - whether for the better, or for the worse, it's up to us.

We wanted to find out if we would be able to visibly see the power of positive versus negative words, so we decided to recreate Dr. Emoto's famous rice experiment for ourselves and see what would happen.

The basic premise of the experiment is this: that the words we say and the thoughts we think have an energy that can physically manifest over time. In Dr. Emoto's original experiment, he found that the rice that he spoke kind words to remained mostly white, while the rice that he spoke negatively to, turned moldy, providing physical evidence of the power of positivity. 

Here's how we set up our experiment:

First, we cooked up some plain white rice. 

Next, we put an equal amount of cooked plain rice into two separate jars. 

We labeled one jar with the word "love", and the other with the word "hate". Then we put the two jars in close proximity to each other so they would have the same conditions, but not right next to each other. 

We started our experiment on February 1st, and for the whole month of February, every time we walked by the jars we would say kind, positive and uplifting words to the "love" jar and negative words to the "hate" jar. 

We wanted to see the rice experiment would work for us, so we put it to the test. At the end of the month, on February 28th, this was our result:

By the end of our experiment, the amount of mold on both the "love" and the "hate" rice ended up being about the same. There was no significant difference to indicate to us that the experiment had actually worked as we hoped it might. But we're still glad that we put it to the test.

This experiment was a reminder for us to be mindful about the words we say to ourselves and to others. It often felt a little silly to compliment a jar of rice, or to tell it that we loved it. But in contrast, it felt pretty bad to tell a jar of rice that we hated it, or to call it names, or degrade it.

And yet, how often do we do this to ourselves? Or how often do we speak negatively about other people or things going on in our lives? There is a place for negative feelings - they are a normal part of life. But this experiment reminded us how helpful it can be to be mindful and pay attention to how much negativity we allow in our lives. 

The experiment may not have turned out exactly how we hoped, or expected, but we still believe in the power of positivity and good vibes. Because of that we say, be nice to your rice, be nice to the people in your life, and above all, be nice to yourself!

 

Much love,

The Rice Love Team