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People who constantly complain are harmful to your health
Moans, groans, and gripes release stress hormones in the brain.
Could you give up complaining for a whole month? That's the crux of this interesting piece by Jessica Hullinger over at Fast Company. Hullinger explores the reasons why humans are so predisposed to griping and why, despite these predispositions, we should all try to complain less. As for no complaining for a month, that was the goal for people enrolled in the Complaint Restraint project.
Participants sought to go the entirety of February without so much as a moan, groan, or bellyache.
The most obvious reason for striving to complain less is that griping is bad for you: "When we complain, our brains release stress hormones that harm neural connections in areas used for problem solving and other cognitive functions. This also happens when we listen to someone else moan and groan."
Hullinger quotes Jon Gordon, author of the 2008 book The No Complaining Rule, as saying the harms of complaining are comparable to secondhand smoke. Being a Negative Nancy in the office is not unlike chain smoking at your desk. For Gordon, both are unacceptable. He doesn't want the other members of his office to have to breathe in the offensive fumes of an employee's gripes.
At the end of Hullinger's piece are several tips for moving away from constant complaining and rethinking the impulses that lead to such discontent. The best advice is to separate yourself from chronic complainers who can only make themselves happy by bringing down other people with their dissatisfaction.
Read more at Fast Company.
- Top 10 reasons why constant complaining is so toxic in the workplace ›
- How to Deal with Chronic Complainers ›
3D printing might save your life one day. It's transforming medicine and health care.
What can 3D printing do for medicine? The "sky is the limit," says Northwell Health researcher Dr. Todd Goldstein.
- Medical professionals are currently using 3D printers to create prosthetics and patient-specific organ models that doctors can use to prepare for surgery.
- Eventually, scientists hope to print patient-specific organs that can be transplanted safely into the human body.
- Northwell Health, New York State's largest health care provider, is pioneering 3D printing in medicine in three key ways.
Lama Rod Owens – the price of the ticket to freedom
An ordained Lama in a Tibetan Buddhist lineage, Lama Rod grew up a queer, black male within the black Christian church in the American south. Navigating all of these intersecting, evolving identities has led him to a life's work based on compassion for self and others.
- "What I'm interested in is deep, systematic change. What I understand now is that real change doesn't happen until change on the inside begins to happen."
- "Masculinity is not inherently toxic. Patriarchy is toxic. We have to let that energy go so we can stop forcing other people to do emotional labor for us."
For most of history, humans got smarter. That's now reversing.
We were gaining three IQ points per decade for many, many years. Now, that's going backward. Could this explain some of our choices lately?
There's a new study out of Norway that indicates our—well, technically, their—IQs are shrinking, to the tune of about seven IQ points per generation.
Lateral thinking: The reason you’ve heard of Nintendo and Marvel
Here's why generalists triumph over specialists in the new era of innovation.
- Since the explosion of the knowledge economy in the 1990s, generalist inventors have been making larger and more important contributions than specialists.
- One theory is that the rise of rapid communication technologies allowed the information created by specialists to be rapidly disseminated, meaning generalists can combine information across disciplines to invent something new.
- Here, David Epstein explains how Nintendo's Game Boy was a case of "lateral thinking with withered technology." He also relays the findings of a fascinating study that found the common factor of success among comic book authors.
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