Everyone knows at least one habitual complainer, someone who
seems upset no matter what is going on in their life, no matter how good things
seem to be going for them. This is the
kind of person who always has a sob story to tell about how the world is out to
get them and, coincidentally, is often the person who most people go out of
their way to avoid.
It turns out there’s a reason why people avoid complainers,
according to Trevor Blake, author of Three
Simple Steps: A Map to Success in Business and Life neuroscientists have
found that listening to someone complaining actually affects the brain in ways
that can only be explained as unhealthy.
Some of it is that the brain seems to imitate the patterns
it’s experiencing, leading to the listener reciprocating the negativity
themselves. Essentially, people who
force others to listen to their complaining are actually bringing the mood of
everyone else down along with them.
But that’s not the only effect that listening to too much
complaining can do. Research shows that
listening to 30 minutes or more of complaining or other negativity can actually
destroy neurons in the hippocampus, the part of the brain that most people use
for problem solving. Listening to too
much complaining can actually make you stupider.
Given that scientists determined that even viewing negative behavior
on TV can lead to the same effects, it’s interesting to speculate on what effects
things like talk shows or reality TV are having on their audiences.
Now, this effect isn’t seen by people who simply bring up
bad things, to be classified as a complainer a person has to be bringing up
something negative without actually desiring a solution, they just want to be
outraged and have other people outraged with them.
