The Desire to Complain

Complaining. such an overused concept in modern society.

“Express dissatisfaction or annoyance about a state of affairs or an event”

Ring a bell?

It seems we find it pretty annoying to be near someone who complains the whole time, yet if  a close look is taken – we all complain! Some of us more, some less but lets be frank boys & girls – Shouldn’t we admit to ourselves, for just a tiny moment that we do. Complain. A lot?

Well lemme rest a sure –  you’re not alone.

You can blame it on society, capitalism, modern life, nutrition, his parents, her mum, stress, lack of sleep and as far as I concern you can blame it on the weather-man… But  it all still comes down to the fact that we. complain. A LOT.

Should we relate to it as a “modern-society-syndrome”?

perhaps… But first lets get down to understanding what complaining does to us. Generally and specifically. Ok?

Doing my daily web search  I bumped into stuff that provided a serious “food for thought”:

“We complain about brands an astonishing 879 million times a year on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media networks. A full 10 percent of us find something to be angry about publicly every single day”  (article on web)

And that was just social media ladies & gents.  Imagine just how this number increase once we add up our complaints to friends, parents, boyfriend-girlfriend, husband-wife, children, neighbour and the list goes on and on.

Shocked? no reason to be… Just bear with me on this.

Reading some more provided additional info in regards what it actually does to our brains. It seems that “A half hour of complaining every day physically damages a person’s brain” , stress hormone being released every time we complain and researches mentioned we tend to complain on same matter to between 8-16 people that aside from listening to us can’t do much – so loads of complaining… little solving.

Digging a bit further more down the Rabbit hole I found negativity that comes with complaining and its effect on our brains…

How does a negative thought effect our brains?

our brain is a collection of Synapses, surrounded by empty space that is called the synapses cleft.  thoughts in our brains create chemical reaction from one synapse over to another, which builds a bridge of sorts between the two synapses where the electrical charge crosses, and carry with it all the information involved in this one thought. Each time this electrical charge is “triggered” by the thought, the synapses involved move closer together so there is less distance for the charge to travel, what eventually leads to the brain “approving” those two synapses to spark together-that leads to thought coming more easily, repetitively and quickly and by complaining a lot this very negative thought created in our brain will come more frequently and there you go, a non positive pattern creating a non positive persona.

In a nut shell, we are being automated to same pattern of thought(s) – an Automatic negative of how miserable we are, or how come this disaster occur to us of all people, how lame this boss is or this friends are, how we can’t loss weight or not worthy of love etc.

So what DO WE DO then? How do we break this vicious circle ?

As always, there isn’t a magic spell for rehabilitation. It’s a process but with the magic wand of awareness we can break that circle and create our most welcome reality of optimism. Few phases recommended:

a. Positive thinking – every time a negative thought comes up-replace it with any other positive one. Call it “thought for thought”.

b. Stimulates our blood stream AKA Sport-activity (but please only type you love).

c. Suitable Nutrition – “We are what we eat” so we better get the food that makes us strongest & happiest.

d. Practice Yoga – there are so many yoga streams. find what ticks you and do it at least once a week.

e. Smiling – know “fake it till ya make it”? it WORKS. I swear.

f. Visit my blog in the future to see how to get started with all of the above.

Indeed complaining easily becomes a habit, especially in our stressed competitive modern life and society. Hell it’s an addiction alright? but with the right set of will and understanding that work isn’t just something we do for salary – we can turn this addictionary-habit upside down and create our own misery into self gratitude that is present, pleasant and very much realistic.

 

“Some people grumble that roses have thorns; I am grateful that thorns have roses”