Why You Should Stop Complaining Today, Backed by Neuroscience

quote:

---

Something bad happens, to you or around you. You vent. Something else bad happens to or around you. You complain. Something else bad happens; you vent to one person, and later, when you find a new audience, you complain.

Pretty soon you're really good at complaining because while practice may not make perfect, it does make myelin, a microscopic neural substance that adds considerable speed and accuracy to thoughts and movement. Myelin is kind of like a muscle, except instead of strengthening your body, it strengthens neural pathways related to a particular skill.

Problem is, your neural pathways aren't equipped to make value judgments. Do something positive over and over again, and you'll gain a useful skill and habit. Do something negative over and over again, and you'll build a destructive skill and habit.

Either way, you've altered your brain.

Neural networks are built on synapses, small gaps at the end of neurons that allow electrical or chemical signals to pass from one neuron to the next. That's how nerve cells connect. Every time a charge is triggered, the synapses move microscopically closer together to decrease the distance and therefore the lag time. In really simple terms, think muscle memory.

That adaptation helps build patterns of thought and behavior. The result is a virtuous cycle if you're trying to learn a helpful new skill, and a vicious cycle if you regularly do something less positive.

---

quote:

---

Like complaining. Think of it as a bizarre version of the law of attraction: Complaining will cause you to "attract" more experiences you can complain about (except in this case the phenomenon is based on science, not philosophy).

Complain, and over time it's easier to be negative than positive. Complain often enough, and for some complaining becomes a default behavior. Oh, they'll say they're perfectionists. Or they'll say they have extremely high standards.

But really, they've just learned to complain -- and trained their neural pathways to be really good at complaining.

---

quote:

---

I know what you're thinking: when you're mad, upset, frustrated, etc., releasing those negative feelings helps you feel better.

Nope. Science says venting, whining, or complaining about a problem makes a bad situation worse. According to a study published in the European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, the more participants vented, the worse they felt their day had gone -- and the longer those negative feelings last.

---