Humans come with a variety of different interests and skills. The brain can be shaped however you choose, but it does take a bit of time and work.
With the rapid development of brain imaging and neuroscience, we can now state with certainty that the human brain is capable of restructuring. Within this time period, it has even become possible to facilitate these changes.
Neuroplasticity is a fascinating theory. It shows that changes to your brain happen throughout your life and can be a positive thing!
We can make positive changes to our brain, so we won’t feel stuck anymore. We can improve our intelligence and learn new skills to turn things around. Brain damage can sometimes be reversed, which is good news. We can also learn how to become more emotionally intelligent by removing harmful behaviors, beliefs, and habits from our lives.
But there is another side to the story: we can make the wrong changes and redesign our brains for the worse. Fortunately, we can undo these changes and get back on track again!
Both Good and Bad Beliefs Change The Brain
“Your experiences, behaviors, thinking, habits, thought patterns, and ways of reacting to the world are inseparable from how your brain wires itself.”
Habits can affect your brain, making them either worse or better. That's why it's important to have habits that are positive for you.
Neuroplasticity and Illness
Depression does not affect the brain itself, but rather the way it is tuned. This in turn causes the sufferer to experience depression. It is because of the brain's complex system for dealing with stress, planning, habits, and tens of other things. And once a pattern starts to form, it ends up causing dozens of tiny changes throughout the brain, which in turn create a downward spiral.
Complaining and Brain Changes
Let’s now go into more detail about how negative behaviour can affect the structure of your brain. Often, this is the result of something as simple as complaining too much. Negative people are often discontented and like to vent their frustrations. They can be hard to deal with as they seem unwilling to talk about anything other than their problems.
It can't be easy for other people to take complaints from these types of people all the time. However, it's important not to chastise them for this, but try to understand where they are coming from.
Complainers generally fall into one of three groups:
Attention-seeking Complainers.
These people want attention and complain about how they’ve got it worse than everyone else. They tend to get ignored by other people, but still, continue whining even though no one cares.
Chronic Complainers.
Some people seem to be in a perpetual state of complaining. When they’re not being mindful of their negativity, they’re probably thinking about it. Rumination seems to cause a direct link between depressive and anxious brains.
Low-E.Q. Complainers
'E.Q.' stands for emotional quotient, and people with a low E.Q. can often lack the emotional understanding to the same extent that people with a lower I.Q. might have in comparison to people with high I.Q.'s. These people appear unconcerned about your thoughts and feelings. They're more like a brick wall: they'll press and push until you're fed up and give in.
Why shouldn’t we complain quite as much?
When a person engages in dangerous behaviors such as excessive complaining, it may lead to altered thoughts and beliefs. This has the potential to change their behavior for the worse.
Humans are psychologically biased towards negativity. We focus more on negative events than good ones.
“Negative stimuli produce more neural activity than do equally intensive positive ones. They are also perceived more easily and quickly.”
It has been proven that we remember well what we often repeat. Complaining continuously triggers the neural receptors associated with negativity and makes us more and more sensitive to negative stimuli.
Here are some final thoughts on the mental habit of complaining.
It’s not always possible to be happy all the time - especially if it's temporary. It's crucial to process feelings as they come in. But it’s also useful to take concrete steps towards counteracting negative thinking.
It is indisputable that affirmations, meditation, and mindfulness help you combat negativity and stay focused.
Recent research on positive emotions has shown that people who meditate regularly will consistently show more of these emotions than those who do not.
Following a three-month experiment, Fredrickson’s from the University of Carolina found that “people who meditated daily continued to display increased levels of mindfulness, purpose in life, social support and decreased illness symptoms.”
It's important to have a schedule so you can meditate on a regular basis, for around 15-20 minutes at a time. It might seem daunting at first, but it will become second nature as time passes and your meditation becomes more comfortable. This is often the best way to reduce stress and allow calm. And, you’ll be better equipped to resist the temptation to complain.
About the author
David Faratian is the principal hypnotherapist at The Cumbria Hypnosis Mindfulness Clinic. He founded Cumbria Hypnosis in 2006 and since then it has consistently been one of the highest-rated and reputable hypnotherapy clinics across Cumbria, South Lakes, and The Northwest. David specializes in a full range of psychological issues and has a dedicated site devoted to each issue. Visit www.cumbria-hypnosis.com