By Jane Gordon Julien
February 21, 2023
Within the last several months, I have had occasion to work with a professional who complained all the time.
All The Time.
He was, in the favored parlance of my family of origin, a crank.
After some weeks listening to this guy and finding myself complaining about his complaining, I began to wonder: how bad is complaining for my health?
Here’s what I found.
Researchers from Stanford University found that constant complaining shrinks the hippocampus. The hippocampus is an incredibly important part of the brain (granted, we want to keep all parts of our brain happy). The hippocampus processes what is happening in the moment. It weaves even the incomprehensible into logical concepts and memory, and it builds that information into a narrative of our life that we can understand. It is an area of the brain critical to problem solving, to critical thought, to figuring out the puzzle of life and remembering the pieces of that puzzle.
Complaining explodes all of that. A fury of cortisol is let out of its cage. The fight-or-flight response triggers, and the brain diverts blood, oxygen and energy to the body’s most stressed areas. Depression increases. Your stomach stops efficiently processing foods. Your blood pressure climbs. You struggle to sleep through the night.
I read one study that said, on average, human beings complain anywhere from 15 to 30 times a day. In the case of my complaining professional, he complained about 15 to 30 times in one sitting. Keep in mind, he wasn’t simply injuring himself. He was injuring his listeners. Hearing him complain for more than 30 minutes damaged my hippocampus.
Here’s how this works, and skip this paragraph if science is Greek to you: constant complaining triggers an electrical charge in the brain. When that happens, the synapses grow closer to shorten the distance the electrical charge has to jump. In other words, the brain rewires its circuits to make it simpler for the synapses to share the chemical link and then spark like a spark plug. The brain is acting like a housekeeper: making life simpler. In this case, that means helping the negative thought trigger even more easily. Once you have a negative thought, it’s easier for you to have that thought again. (A study in the Archives of General Psychiatry found that optimists live longer than pessimists.
To get us all started, I stole a few suggestions from psychologists and psychologists. Here they are:
1. Step back and assess from afar. How much will this matter to you down the road?
2. Look within yourself. Is this smaller matter triggering something larger? Identify the larger aspect of your distress. Figure out why the issue is upsetting you.
3. Wear a rubber band around your wrist. Every time you complain, switch the rubber band to the other wrist. Try to go a week without switching. Then try a month.
4. Choose the right avenue for privately addressing your issue. Social media is never the right or private channel.
5. Air your concern calmly and kindly, without accusation. It becomes feedback then, not criticism.
6. Every day, say aloud at least one aspect of your life for which you are grateful.
After I stopped meeting regularly with the constantly complaining professional, I started to articulate my gratitude for all I take for granted. A roof over my head. A warm house. Good food. A kind husband who cooks. Loving children who keep in touch. Good, funny, thoughtful friends. A hippocampus that is not maiming its neurons, and that is making new ones regularly.
Lent starts Wednesday. Spring arrives next month, Passover and Easter are close behind. A new year and all that it offers is as good a time as any to add and subtract.
Add gratitude. Subtract complaining.
Begin again.