How Complainers Damage Your Brain

August 15, 2012

Interview with Trevor Blake, author of the book Three Simple Steps: A Map to Success in Business and Life

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Mike Carruthers:
If there’s a complainer or other negative person in your life be careful.

Trevor Blake:
The latest neuro-scientific data shows that the brain works more like a muscle than we’ve previously thought so the more you repeat a behavior the more you become that behavior. So if you surround yourself with a bunch of complainers the more likely you are to become a complainer yourself.
 

Trevor Blake, author of the book Three Simple Steps...

Studies out of Stanford show that if you expose yourself to 30 minutes of complaining everyday it does physical damage to the brain. It actually peels back the neurons in the part of the brain we need for cognitive functioning, problem solving and adapting to changing circumstances. Well people previously know this if they’re around a complainer they feel their energy seeping out from them well we now know why that is the case complaining is doing physical damage.

It can work the other way you can get complainers to stop and he gives the example of his mother in law who came to visit.

And the first words out of her mouth are complaints about the food on the plane or the fact that I drove too fast from the airport or the weather has not been nice. And my wife and I have learned over the years to just completely ignore that don’t respond to it, don’t try and change the way she is and 2 weeks into her visit it’s like an alien came in and replaced her with everybody’s favorite granny and this is now somebody who has incredible energy – more energy even than I have and just sees the good around her all the time. So the transformation is remarkable but it happens because the brain hardwires into whatever stimulus it’s getting.