This topic has been playing on my mind after visiting my terminally ill friend who was diagnosed with a tumour over a year ago and is now going through her final life stages.
This week whilst she was struggling to find her own words and to get comfortable lying in her bed she said to me “never complain about anything”.
So I started thinking about how much we complain. It’s estimated that we complain up to 30 times a day. We complain about the weather, our weight, food and even sometimes to start a conversation with someone as an ice breaker. Research shows that most people complain once a minute during a typical conversation.
Guilty of this myself, sometimes even internally I will catch the tail-end of a subconscious complaint. Complaining holds strong negative energy and compounds. Your brain loves efficiency and doesn’t like to work any harder than it has to. When you repeat a behaviour, such as complaining, your neurons fire together and wire together, making it far easier to continue picking fault with the world than think differently.
What is complaining all about?
Complaining is the expression of dissatisfaction or annoyance about something and always centres around our expectations not being met. Expectations are based on our core beliefs that form from experiences. We distort and generalise how we expect our lives and the world to unfold. Becoming habitual complainers negatively affects the way we see ourselves and the world.
Mo Gawdat the international best-selling author of ‘Solve For Happy’ has a scientifically proven methodology for happiness. The Happiness Equation is: your happiness is equal to or greater than the difference between the events of your life and your expectations of what ‘should’ be.
Research from Stanford University has also found that complaining reduces the size of our hippocampus, which, is responsible for memory and problem-solving. The study found that engaging in complaining or simply hearing someone complain for more than 30 minutes could physically damage our brains. It literally peels away your neurons! It’s not too late however, brain imaging has shown just how malleable our grey matter can be when we get back in the driving seat and change the way we think.
Re-write the script
We need to change the things we tell ourselves about the world. Life isn’t fair, it’s not going to be sunny every day and not everyone will share our values, language and customs. That’s ok and part of the richness of life that there are challenges to overcome and differences to enjoy. If there were no obstacles and every person and day were predictable, we would soon lose interest and cease to strive to learn and develop.
Getting rid of negative thoughts is all about reframing. The same stimulus could be interpreted completely differently by two people based on their internal beliefs. A bee could present a wonderful sign of spring to one person, yet incite fear in someone else who is scared of being stung and disgust in another who’s concerned about the bacteria they may be carrying. When we become aware of these narratives we can change our perception and physiological response.
The key: flicking the switch on gratitude
For example ‘gosh it’s freezing out today’ can be reframed as ‘what a perfect opportunity to wear that glamorous new coat I love so much’. ‘The food isn’t great here’ when gratitude is introduced sounds like ‘I’m surrounded by great people who love me very much and have my health to enjoy their company’.
It’s far harder to introduce new ways of thinking and perceiving than to continue complaining so here are some prompts for when you’re stuck in a cycle or conversation:
- Do I have any control over this situation? If not, remember you will always have control over your thoughts.
- Is there something (literally, anything) that I can be grateful for right now? This could be as simple as feeling the wind, breathing or having a roof over your head.
- What would happen if I accepted the way things are?
If you were living with an attitude of gratitude, how would you carry yourself? What kinds of conversations would you have? What would your day look like?
Go out and start being that person today.
