Complaining is Bad for Your Health: “Eat it the Way It Is!”
Back in graduate school I had a course in behavior modification design. The first assignment was to set up a plan to alter a self-destructive behavior of our own.
Of course, the instructor did not recognize that, just possibly, one of his students was already perfect. While I was stumped, my spouse pounced with a short list of suggestions starting with what he judged to be an over-abundance of complaining behavior. He had the audacity to point out that every time someone asked how I was doing (or, for that matter, if it was raining) I responded by saying how very over-busy I was– along with a self-pitying sigh indicating my state of tiredness and my absolute importance in the workings of the world.
The nerve. But, I went along with his delusion of my guilt. The first day I counted the number of whiny transgressions. Sheesh. The man had a point. The second day I slipped a rubber band on my wrist and gave myself a pop with each whiny response. More aware of my response I was able, at least for a while, to reduce my complaining behavior.
While I recognized that my spouse was probably right when he suggested that my habitual whining was (is) annoying, only recently did I learn that complaining is actually bad for your health. A new National Institute of Mental Health study showed that every time person complains, his or her body fires off as the same level of unwanted stress hormones as if he or she had taken a puff from a cigarette. Now that’s a fine image to keep in mind next time you point out the flaws of your take-out taco or the fact that other people drive the way they drive. Just picture that cig hanging from your lip.
One Memorable Example
One of my favorite examples of complaining constructive criticism gone bad was shared some years ago by Charley, a short, thin buddy who spent a couple of weeks with lumberjacks in the Pacific Northwest to collect data for an environmental project. One the first evening, Charley sat down to supper with the men. Large men. With gigantic arms and massive hairy heads, missing fingers, and not into small talk with him, the skinny ‘researcher’ stuffed between two human tanks at the end of the table. At the head of the u-shaped picnic table stood “Cookie” ladling stew into giant mixing bowls which were passed down the rows.
At first Charley was too intimidated to say much or even eat. But, as we humans are prone to do when anxious and uncomfortable, he quickly diverted his attention away from his unpleasant anxiety and focused instead on faults he noticed with the meal and the people around him. He calmed down as he picked out potentially undercooked vegetables and reminded himself that his usual dining compadres provided much better conversation than the lumberjacks around him. Not that he had the nerve to start a conversation.
Also, his inspection of his surroundings made him aware that the supper arrangement was not only unappetizing, it was also unfair. Because of Cookie’s slap-happy dipping and pouring some people had plenty of meat and some people, including Charley, had almost none.
Once Charley had enough complaints to stave off his anxiety behind a wall of imaginary superiority, he risked a spoonful of the soup. While those around him seemed to not notice (because they were less sophisticated, of course), Charley recognized that the stew was a bit flat.
He stuck his hand in the air as if he were asking for permission to go to the restroom. Charley flapped his arm back and forth.
Cookie, who resembled an upended, shuddering deep freeze splattered with the blood of many carcasses, heaved forward.
Cookie: “What?”
Charley, under the faulty impression he could change his situation, said: “I was wondering…(coughs, clears his throat)… if I could have some salt?”
Turns out, Cookie wasn’t appreciative of Charley’s sophisticated opinion. He slammed his fists knuckles-down on the table. His eyes bulged fire. With the roar that shook the room, he growled:
“Eat it the way it is!”
When could you the motto “Eat it the way it is!” help you and your stress response system?
When you are in traffic and fuming as if the fact that lots of other cars are on the road is a complete surprise?
How about when you’re feeling snarly after a visit and are grabbed by that always-bad-idea urge to point out little ways you have been poorly treated by friends and family?
And what happens to your over-worked adrenal glands when, in a moment of weakness, you check out the ‘news?’
Remember, “Eat it the way it is!” is a motto for things you cannot change. And ranting to people on the screen doesn’t change anyone. Except… think again about the cigarette hanging off your lip and those disease-promoting hormones . . . Imagine what happens when you actually inhale with all your might? Maybe even over and over.
