The notion of complaining is often viewed as unfavorable from an employer or boss’s point of view. It might make you feel better momentarily but ultimately leads to zero resolution and conflicts still arise. Next time, when your spiraling, out of control, inner voice goes off course, and try these brain taming strategies.
Find the good: Venting and complaining is the brain’s way of being overloaded and over processing information. Try to first catch yourself. The habitual worrying leads to unnecessary drama. Instead, recognize the negative self-chatter first, release it, and then refocus on anything “good” to shift your state of mind. Essentially, you are tricking or distracting the prefrontal cortex, which is the planning center for cognitive behavior, personality expression, decision-making, and moderating social behavior. Focus on your well-being, and that fact that you have a job, it’s a sunny day, or have a helpful neighbor.
Recognize the feelings: Once you have shifted your state of mind from bad to better, then you can recognize the feeling to better understand it. You cannot ignore or bypass how you feel. Now you are stimulating the cingulate gyrus section of the brain, the “fold/bulge”. Some theorize it is the part of the “pain matrix” and crucial for processing information. It is also a component of the limbic system, and it is involved in processing emotions and behavioral regulation. Thus, your feelings fuel the complaining and venting habits whether its grief, anger, sorrow, frustration, etc. You have to recognize the feeling, identify it, but don’t become it. Don’t let it consume you. Awareness is the first step, and also not easy. Many of us don’t want to sit with fear, the unknown, or we are angry from not getting the job, or getting a bad grade at school. Some do better in identifying thoughts during rigorous exercise, walking, hiking, yoga, or other self-reflective exercises. Regardless, the goal is to train your mind to better identify it, but become that emotion.
Practice and Repeat: Quieting the negative self-chatter, complaining, and venting doesn’t stop overnight. It requires practice, tweaking, and more practice. Give yourself some credit, and try not to be so hard on your own self. Research is highlighting a whole new understanding of how the brain’s amygdala shrinks during 8-weeks of mindfulness practice (a positive favorable effect). The functional connectivity to other areas of the brain light up and proves that happy, calm people take the bad with the good; yet process it better. Practice being compassionate, less aggressive, and easy on yourself.
Sources:
Brain – The Journal of Neurology, October 2018.
Mindfulness – Tame the Complaining Mind, June 2018, Elisha Goldstein, Ph.D.
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