I was reading an article about complaining by Travis Bradberry and I didn’t realize how incredibly bad it is for our brain and for our overall health. One seemingly innocuous complaining rant, and our body is off to the races—and not in a good way. In a nutshell, it creates neural pathways for complaining to become easier next time, it shrinks the hippocampus which is the area critical to problem solving and intelligent thought, and finally, our body releases the stress hormone, cortisol, to help with our fight or flight response which ultimately causes inflammation. AND, this also happens if we’re simply listening to someone else complain!

Did you know all of this was going on internally when you complain? Me, either! Bradberry suggests one of two things to help us stop complaining. First, we can start being more grateful—this reduces the stress hormone cortisol by 23%. Second, we can engage in solution-oriented complaining. This process starts and ends with something positive, and along the way we are trying to solve the current problem by focusing on an outcome that will end the need to complain in the first place. I like it!

If you have the propensity to complain—and we all do—now’s the time to stop. There will be multiple opportunities EVERY DAY to complain, but we will have an equal amount of opportunities to refrain from complaining, to be grateful, and to find a solution that removes the desire to complain at all. Complaining is the easiest and most unproductive way to use our brain—let’s choose a better way. Catch yourself and others as complaining begins, and choose something healthier for your brain and your heart. It’s important!

Let’s GO WE GOT THIS!

Beth