Suppressing negative thoughts may be good for mental health after all

I suppose it wouldn&#x27;t be that surprising. Mindfulness for instance teaches you to &quot;let go&quot; of thoughts - which is really just a gentle form of suppression. CBT encourages you to redirect existing negative thoughts in a positive&#x2F;constructive direction - ultimately steering you away from or undermining the original negative thought - but does not encourage you to do a deep dive on it. Not to mention that Freud was a quack who was more prone to speculation than to science, so if traditional psychotherapy is based on his work then it is likely built on sand.<p>Taken to the opposite extreme, I think it&#x27;s in some sense obvious that <i>some</i> degree of suppression is actually good for you, precisely because ruminating for long periods of time is clearly bad for you.<p>From a neurological point of view, why should we see reiterating negative thoughts as any different from reinforcement learning? If we revisit these negative topics, are we not strengthening their presence in our minds?<p>That said this study does not sound like it proves that suppressing negative thoughts works over a long period of time. The original theory posits that these suppressed thoughts might cause problems even years later when the latest this was followed up was a period of three months. So grains of salt etc.

For a few years after the death of my baby daughter, I’d relive the events of that day pretty regularly, looking for some kind of meaning, pattern, lesson to be learned maybe. I’d also continually wonder what she’d be like now she was 3, 4 years old, etc.<p>This was making me incredibly sad. Eventually, I just had to forget that day, forget her, stop thinking about what her life would have been like, and get on with enjoying the here and now, with my other children.<p>Even though it would be her 10th birthday next week, I haven’t thought much about her in the run up to this.<p>Dwelling on past trauma didn’t work for me. YMMV.

<i>For ethical reasons, no participant was given a negative event to imagine, but only positive or neutral ones.</i><p>120 people and three months and during COVID.<p>Just because it&#x27;s from Cambridge don&#x27;t assume credibility.

This has been known among psychologist for awhile now. In fact someone who is too honest, someone who see&#x27;s the truth of the world is more likely to be clinically depressed.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;radiolab.org&#x2F;podcast&#x2F;91618-lying-to-ourselves" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;radiolab.org&#x2F;podcast&#x2F;91618-lying-to-ourselves</a><p>This podcast from radiolab really changed my perspective on the concept. Pretty much if you&#x27;re not depressed, most likely some aspect of you is delusional.<p>I would say people on HN are especially prone to lying to themselves. They lie to themselves about how intelligent they are. Programming is tied to intelligence and people need to think they&#x27;re smart in order to maintain pride.<p>Religion is easy to laugh off as irrational for HNers because religion isn&#x27;t a big part of their lives. Intelligence and programming is a big part of their lives and that&#x27;s where all the lies live, in something you take pride in.<p>Additionally people on HN think they&#x27;re more rational then normal... they think they don&#x27;t fall into the trap of lying to themselves. I hate to tell you this, but that&#x27;s just another lie you all tell yourselves.

I wonder if using the technique people succeeded in suppressing &quot;negative&quot; emotions but also in suppressing &quot;positive&quot; emotions. In other words, did they just feel less overall? More numb? Or did they somehow feel less &quot;negative&quot; emotions and the same or more &quot;positive&quot; emotions?<p>I would hypothesize that it made people feel less overall, more numb, or more indifferent, and for someone feeling a lot of anxiety or fear, I think feeling less overall might feel good.<p>If that&#x27;s the mechanism, I don&#x27;t know how adaptive that is in the medium- to long-term.

Why are we still talking about Freud?<p>Some researchers studied how to be happy. Unsurprisingly they also found no support for Freudian ideas that were popular 30 years ago.<p>The Cambridge University PR office still leads by stating Freudian ideas as the &quot;accepted narrative&quot;. Maybe they are? But this is the least novel result of the study, and yet it&#x27;s in the headline.<p>Obviously we shouldn&#x27;t shoot the messenger: science writers are just going for clicks like most of the internet. But wow, Freud dug us quite a deep hole to climb out of.

&gt; “What we found runs counter to the accepted narrative,” said Professor Anderson. “Although more work will be needed to confirm the findings, it seems like it is possible and could even be potentially beneficial to actively suppress our fearful thoughts.”<p>I don&#x27;t know if this study convinces me, but my own experience sure does. I&#x27;ve lived both ways, there&#x27;s no question in my mind what works better for me. The jokey, modern trope is the guy who ignores his feelings and then blows up later. I found instead that negative feelings tend to go away if you focus on other things, but if you focus on bad thoughts, they just last longer and sometimes grow into fixations.

Weirdly, the exact opposite works for me. As someone recently dealing with a measure of anxiety, I found that a 3 step process has helped remove the worst of it.<p>1. Examine the feeling - Pay attention to the thoughts causing the anxiety. What exactly about it is disturbing? What outcomes are you afraid is going to happen. Think about it like an interesting topic you are hearing about. What questions would you ask?<p>2. Explore the feeling - Articulate how it makes you feel. Where in your body are you experiencing this feeling? Is your mind racing, your chest tightening, stomach churning? Notice each feeling and where it is happening.<p>3. Exaggerate the feeling - Take the anxiety causing thought and turn it up to 11. If you are feeling anxious about your job, imagine you not only get fired but the company takes out an ad in the NY times letting everyone in the industry know not to hire you again. If you&#x27;re anxious about not saving enough, imagine you go bankrupt and have to live in a cardboard box by the street. Don&#x27;t just imagine the worst case scenario, imagine the nuclear + ebola scenario.<p>After making a habit of this, I found that my reaction to these thoughts is not as emotionally severe. I don&#x27;t know exactly why it works but my guess is that when your mental response to stress is disproportionate to the stimuli, the process of examining the thoughts acts as a way of desensitizing the mind to the stimulus whilst keeping some emotional distance from them. The act of exaggeration adds some comic relief to the process and, I find, actually makes me (slightly) look forward to the anxious thoughts (&quot;Ooh, I wonder what crazy scenario I am going to come up with for this one&quot;) and replaces the negative feeling (fear, churning) with a positive one (curiosity, excitement).

I think it&#x27;s really important to separate and discern &quot;light&quot; and &quot;darkness&quot; in your mind and actions, word and deed.<p>I think mental health, negative thoughts is driven by your understanding of truth<p>If you think the truth is dark then you are looking at darkness and attributing it to truth or the light, which is a mistaken identity. Calling light (the truth) the darkness is an error. Calling darkness the truth is an error. I believe the truth is good. You should pick the right &quot;duality&quot; as your foundational truth, since it&#x27;s your foundations of whether or not you&#x27;re in darkness or light.<p>If it&#x27;s not good, it&#x27;s not true reality but a manifestation of darkness. Don&#x27;t look at darkness and call it the truth. Truth is light, truth is a good thing. Separate the light from the darkness. Bad things going on is a manifestation of darkness, not the truth of what is the foundation nature of everything (which I think is light, good). Ground yourself in light, for that&#x27;s what the universe is powered by. (Why would you pick the worse option if light is the truth why would you pick otherwise?)<p>For people who believe in a God of love and arbiter of what is true<i>, the truth is light and positive.<p></i> The mechanism of the universe, love, kindness, compassion, mercy, grace, gravity, words, law, legality, mathematics, quantum effects, physics, the mysteries and who decides upon their workings.<p>Good vs Evil. Light vs darkness. True vs False<p>It&#x27;s like being blamed for something you didn&#x27;t do. Truth cannot be sullied by darkness.<p>If you keep &quot;the truth is good&quot; as your hope and faith = &quot;light&#x2F;good is what is is and are&quot;, then the darkness cannot touch you.

Where does suppressing negative thoughts end, and reality denial begin? There are many unpleasant realities that we must learn to cope with that cannot just be ignored or forgotten.<p>Credit card debt is a source of negative thoughts for many - and not just low-level grumbles, but genuinely distressing anxiety. People kill themselves over their financial difficulties. But having a debt is definitely not something we should encourage people to suppress, because it gets worse if left unattended.<p>It’s not just mundane realities like debt that are potentially dangerous if ignored. Should you try to suppress negative thoughts about pain, or worries about a growth on your skin, instead of seeking medical treatment?<p>What should we do with delusional or criminal people who believe something about themselves that is plainly wrong? Should a kleptomaniac seek to affirm their behavior, or should they confront themselves?<p>How can we tell the difference between the thoughts that are safe and healthy to ignore, and those upon which light should be shone?

Working through multiple traumata for a few years now. I&#x27;ve found that if you work through a negative thought long enough, it will eventually reveal its purpose. I&#x27;ve started journaling in 2016 or so, so it takes a long time, since I didn&#x27;t have coaching or anything. Internal dialog goes like this:<p>- feeling numb and like dieing ~ what&#x27;s the issue? - I don&#x27;t work, feeling guilty over not working, I&#x27;d wish they&#x27;d fire me over that ~ That true? - I want to get fired so my destiny comes true again, ima fckup, looser ~ you&#x27;re not though (examples of achievements) - reality fcks with my belief... (some silence, processing, giving it time) ... so, I&#x27;m not a fckup? ~ No - That feels ... hopeful? (haven&#x27;t felt that in a very long time) ~ weird, hm? - why do I believe this? (ima fckup) ~ Feels safer that way, others can&#x27;t hurt you if you do it first and harder. Nobody can hurt you like you do... (mix of loving feelings follows)<p>I&#x27;ve done byron katie&#x27;s work for a while, and some of her voice was internalized (listened to her youtube dialogues for 2-3 weeks), that might be, where the nice questioning voice must have come from.

I really disagree with this concept of &quot;thoughts&quot; being a free-floating occurence that springs on you like a burgular in the night.<p>Obviously thoughts exist and understanding why and how thoughts exist is yet to be known.<p>But <i>don&#x27;t we have centuries of philosophers</i> writing about what happens if you follow those thoughts...<p>IF I had a thought about the boringness of &quot;seeing the same damn thing again and again&quot;, that&#x27;s not an Event in my mind that needs a special verb attached to it.<p>I just know those thoughts occur and Schopenhauer knows better than I do, what life is like if you follow and grow that particular thought.<p>I really wonder how we&#x27;re supposed to survive the experiences of pleasure and pain, positive&#x2F;negative, happy&#x2F;sad, whatever... without a philosophy to validate our experiences.<p>People can think negatively (or positively) all they want, in my view, as long as it&#x27;s connected to their philosophy managing their experiences.<p>The problems occur when you let the experiences of feeings&#x2F;emotions reinforce arbitrary thoughts, and cloud&#x2F;submerge&#x2F;drown the ability to rationalize your way out of trouble.

Somehow relevant piece of art, .gif animation, from Portuguese artist André Carrilho. Title:<p><i>Bad memories</i><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;cdn.myportfolio.com&#x2F;453a92f80b154a9480bc9e2ebcb57c99&#x2F;7119fdb4-efbb-4e69-9c2d-d0d18f8757f2_rw_600.gif?h=0e08f0ebf978dadd2acb2c7f69ef3eeb" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;cdn.myportfolio.com&#x2F;453a92f80b154a9480bc9e2ebcb57c99...</a>

The WHO has a guide for &quot;unhooking from difficult thoughts and feelings&quot;. At one point it says &quot;You cannot stop these thoughts from arising. They are normal and natural. But it is not so helpful to get hooked by them.&quot; and then goes on to explain some simple practices to help unhook. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.who.int&#x2F;publications&#x2F;i&#x2F;item&#x2F;9789240003927" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.who.int&#x2F;publications&#x2F;i&#x2F;item&#x2F;9789240003927</a> Here&#x27;s more detail about how it was tested. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.psychologicalscience.org&#x2F;news&#x2F;releases&#x2F;2022-april-trauma-intervention-ukraine.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.psychologicalscience.org&#x2F;news&#x2F;releases&#x2F;2022-apri...</a>

Old school philosophy and religions are right once again!

It&#x27;s all about Recency and Frequency. Reliving terrible events to adjust to terrible events is just re traumatizing. Putting distance between your current self and a trauma just seems smart.

Serenity now

I heard a saying once, something like, &quot;thinking too much about the past causes depression and thinking too much about the future causes anxiety.&quot; In other words stay in the present as much as possible and fend off invasive thoughts with distractions, hobbies, and helping others.

When ever this notion comes up i cant help but wonder how good crashing and burning thanks to ignoring reality is for your mental health.<p>Just because stuff isnt nice doesnt mean its safe to ignore. Its worth mentioning that dealing with negative thoughts and experiences is part of how we grow as people. Its why Bambis mother got shot in a Disney movie. Because sooner or later, kids have to deal with harsh stuff. Unfortunately adults do too.<p>Their example, a parent with covid in a hospital, is a good one. This is serious stuff you need to come to terms with. If that seems overly harsh or depressing, i find Stanley Kubricks words about the indifference of the universe quite helpful. (Starting from &quot;If life is so purposeless, do you feel it’s worth living?&quot;) <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.themarginalian.org&#x2F;2012&#x2F;07&#x2F;26&#x2F;stanley-kubrick-playboy-interview&#x2F;" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.themarginalian.org&#x2F;2012&#x2F;07&#x2F;26&#x2F;stanley-kubrick-pl...</a><p>In the end all we can do is decide how we want to deal with reality. Unless we want to later deal with the consequences of not having done so.

Looking into the void is the only solution. If you aren&#x27;t fixed, look deeper. You will find it.

The idea of suppressed&#x2F;repressed thoughts and feelings came from psychoanalysis, it doesn&#x27;t surprise me that like most ideas of that pseudoscience, it&#x27;s a bad one. I think lithotherapy might be less toxic.

If you are present and highly aware you never need to suppress anything ever again. One needs to meditate. Learn to meditate. Stop relying in science for answers

The most important to learn is to vigilant about passing and automatic thoughts.<p>When you&#x27;re conscious about them, it helps a lot.

Dehumanizing people mentally instead of thinking negative thoughts about them goes further!

This is fine

Too much navel gazing being bad, is I think almost obvious enough to not require study.<p>I just wished more people practiced it.

See, daydreaming helps

Suppressing negative thoughts is a fool’s errand. You can notice them, and react differently to them, but you can’t literally control the thoughts that arise in your consciousness. You’ll work yourself to death trying.

&gt;“We’re all familiar with the Freudian idea that if we suppress our feelings or thoughts, then these thoughts remain in our unconscious, influencing our behaviour and wellbeing perniciously,”<p>The article conflates thoughts and feeling.<p>Thoughts and emotions are not the same.<p>Reducing negative thoughts is standard practice.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Automatic_negative_thoughts" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Automatic_negative_thoughts</a><p>I&#x27;m not aware of any professional who recommends suppressing negative emotions.