Research shows that most people complain about once every minute of a daily interaction. It’s tempting to complain because it makes you feel good, but like many other pleasurable things—like smoking or eating a pound of bacon for breakfast—complaining doesn’t do you any good.
Why Are There Complaints?
Your brain likes efficiency and doesn’t like working too hard. When you repeat a behavior, such as complaining, your neurons branch into each other to ease the flow of information. This makes it much easier to repeat the behavior in the future—so easy that you may not even realize you’re doing it.
You can’t blame your brain. Who would want to build a temporary bridge every time they want to cross a river? It makes more sense to build a permanent bridge. So, your neurons become closer and the connections between them become more durable. Scientists like to describe this process as: “Neurons that fire together, wire together.”
Repeated complaining rewires your brain to make you more likely to complain in the future. Over time, you will find that it is easier to be negative than positive, no matter what is going on around you. Complaining becomes your default behavior, which changes how people view you.
What’s more: Complaining can also damage other areas of your brain. Research from Stanford University shows that complaining shrinks the hippocampus—a region of the brain critical for problem-solving and intelligent thinking. Damage to the hippocampus is frightening, especially when you consider that it is one of the main brain regions damaged by Alzheimer’s disease.
Complaining Is Not Good for Your Health Either
It’s not an exaggeration to say that complaining can cause brain damage, and it doesn’t stop there. When you complain, your body releases the stress hormone cortisol. Cortisol puts you into “fight or flight” mode, raising your blood pressure and blood sugar in preparation for flight or self-defense.
The extra cortisol released by frequent complaining can damage the immune system, making a person more susceptible to high cholesterol, diabetes, heart disease, and obesity. It even makes the brain more susceptible to stroke.
Not Just You
Because humans are naturally social, our brains naturally and unconsciously mimic the emotions of those around us, especially those we spend a lot of time with. This process is called neuronal mirroring and is the basis of our ability to empathize. However, on the other hand, it makes complaining feel like smoking – you don’t have to do it yourself to suffer the ill effects. You need to be careful with people who complain about everything. Complainers want people to join their pity party so they can feel better about themselves. Think of it this way: If a person were smoking, would you sit there all afternoon inhaling secondhand smoke? You will stay away from him, and you will do the same with complainers.
What If You Want to Complain?
When you feel the need to complain, there are two things you can do. One is to cultivate an attitude of gratitude. That is, when you feel like complaining, shift your focus to the things you’re grateful for. Spending time thinking about the things you’re grateful for can also lower the stress hormone cortisol by 23 percent. A study conducted at the University of California, Davis, found that people who made a daily effort to cultivate an attitude of gratitude experienced improved mood and energy and significantly less anxiety due to lower cortisol levels. Any time you experience pessimistic thoughts, use this as an opportunity to change your mindset and think about something positive. Over time, a positive attitude becomes a way of life.
The second thing you can do—only if you have something truly worth complaining about—is solution-oriented complaining. Think of it as complaining with a purpose. Solution-oriented complaints should do the following:
- Have a clear purpose. Before complaining, know what results you want. If you can’t clarify your purpose, then there’s a good chance you’re complaining just for the sake of complaining, which should be nipped in the bud.
- Start with the positive. It may seem counterintuitive to begin a complaint with a compliment, but starting on a positive note can help prevent the other person from becoming defensive. For example, before you start complaining about poor customer service, you could say something like, “I’ve been a regular customer of yours and have always been very satisfied with your service…”
- Be specific. While you’re complaining, it’s not a good time to bring up all the little annoyances of the past 20 years. Just be specific to the current situation and be as specific as possible. Instead of saying, “Your employee was rude to me,” describe specifically what the employee did that seemed rude.
- End on a positive note. If you end your complaint with “I’ll never shop here again,” the person listening to you will have no incentive to take action. In this case, you are just venting, or have no other purpose than complaining. Instead, restate your purpose and your desire to achieve the desired outcome, for example, “I want to resolve this issue so we can keep our business relationship intact.”