Have you ever been out walking and come across a hill?

You feel it straight away. Your pace slows. Legs burn. Breathing deepens. Every step takes effort. Then finally you reach the top. The ground levels out. You feel a burst of relief. Maybe even a moment of joy. For a few steps it is like flying.

But soon you are just walking again.

The climb remembered. The flat is forgotten.

Psychologists Shai Davidai and Thomas Gilovich explored this idea in a 2016 paper on what they called the headwinds/tailwinds asymmetry — a bias where we notice our struggles far more than the advantages that support us. Their research helps explain why, in healthcare and beyond, progress often feels invisible and effort feels endless.

“By their very nature, headwinds are more salient than tailwinds.” - Davidai & Gilovich, 2016

That one quote explains so much of how we experience pressure and progress in modern life, especially in the NHS.

Built to survive, wired to notice pain

It is not our fault. We are wired this way.

Our evolutionary past taught us to remember pain. To survive, we had to notice threats. A wrong turn in the wild could kill. Struggles needed to stick so they could be avoided next time. Our brains became experts at tracking hardship.

“Because we have to attend to the barriers we face to overcome them, they tend to stand out more than those things that give us a boost.”— Davidai & Gilovich, 2016

This survival wiring is still within us. We carry it into our work, our relationships, our institutions and our health service.

NHS headwinds

We have had a hard time getting to where we are.

We have climbed barriers. Navigated cuts. Covered gaps. Picked up the slack.

“We” becomes the dominant story. What we had to push through. What we endured. It becomes easy to forget the things that helped.

This is amplified in modern life. Constant information beams global suffering into our pockets. Challenges we have no control over still feel like headwinds we are somehow expected to lean into.

Meanwhile, we barely notice the quiet forces that support us.

A stable peaceful society. Free healthcare at the point of use. Loyal teams who keep showing up day after day.

“Benefits and resources can often be simply enjoyed and largely ignored.”— Davidai & Gilovich, 2016

The disappearing tailwind

At our practice we made a major change.

We cut phone response times dramatically. From hours of waiting to around one minute. A huge shift. The team felt it. Patients felt it. There was a moment, brief, where you could sense the tailwind.

And then it faded.

The feeling passed. The next problem emerged. The next headwind made the climb difficult. The tailwind we created was quickly forgotten.

“There is considerable relief when [a headwind] is at one’s back… but it is a relief that is short lived. One quickly adapts to the change and soon no longer notices that there is any tailwind at all.” — Davidai & Gilovich, 2016

Patients adjusted too. The baseline shifted. Now they only see the new headwinds. And round we go again.

Headwinds drain, tailwinds restore

This relentless focus on headwinds, both real and perceived, is exhausting. It drains morale. It skews perspective. It builds resentment.

“The greater salience of a person’s headwinds can lead people to believe they have been treated unfairly.” — Davidai & Gilovich, 2016

Without balance, we miss the opportunity to feel gratitude.

“Feeling grateful makes people happier, healthier, more appreciative of their romantic partners, and kinder to others.” — Davidai & Gilovich, 2016

Yet even with all these powerful benefits, the paper notes, it remains surprisingly difficult to maintain this connection — especially when our minds are busy tracking every headwind instead.

“An understanding of how easy it is for people to get in touch with their headwinds and how hard it is to fully appreciate their tailwinds can help explain why a consistent connection to gratitude can be so elusive.” — Davidai & Gilovich, 2016

A new discipline

I do not want to forget the hills. We need to remember the climbs. They teach us. Shape us. Sometimes they protect us. They help justify the boundaries we set when things feel overwhelming.

But we must stop acting like there is only the climb.

There are tailwinds too. Quiet ones. Hidden ones. Powerful in their own way.

We are not just surviving on grit alone. We are carried — by colleagues who stay late, by systems that still function, by values that hold. By public goodwill. By a moment of kindness. By the simple fact that, today, the NHS is still here.

We need to practise noticing these things. To name them. To sit with them. To let them restore us, even briefly. Not out of denial, but out of balance. Out of fairness. Because recognising tailwinds does not erase the headwinds — it gives us the energy to keep facing them.

Do not get me wrong. The hills that currently feel like mountains will keep coming. But remembering the wind at our backs might just make them a little easier to climb.

Note

All quotes in this piece are from: Davidai & Gilovich (2016), “The headwinds/tailwinds asymmetry: An availability bias in assessments of barriers and blessings,” published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

The Hills We Climb and the Winds We Forget

Headwinds, tailwinds and why progress rarely feels like progress in the NHS and in life.

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