Research shows that suppressing negative thoughts is actually better for your mental health.
``It's not good to try to suppress negative feelings,'' is often given advice to people who are depressed. However, when we actually conducted an experiment to suppress negative images, we found that mental health actually improved.
Improving mental health by training the suppression of unwanted thoughts | Science Advances
Suppressing negative thoughts may be good for mental health after all | University of Cambridge
https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/suppressing-negative-thoughts-good-for-mental-health
Suppressing an Onrush of Toxic Thoughts Might Improve Your Mental Health | Scientific American
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/suppressing-an-onrush-of-toxic-thoughts-might-improve-your-mental-health/
Training Your Attention on Unwanted Thoughts to Remove Them
https://www.cogneurosociety.org/training-attention-unwanted-thoughts/
'Ever since Sigmund Freud proposed that ``if you suppress your emotions and thoughts, those thoughts will remain in your unconscious and have a negative impact on people's behavior and health.'' Suppressing thoughts has not been effective and has actually led to It has come to be thought that it strengthens our thinking, which is why people have long said, `` Don't think about pink elephants. '''' Mr. Michael Anderson.
When the new coronavirus infection (COVID-19) raged in 2020, Anderson wanted to use his research to help those suffering from the pandemic.
Also, Zulqaida Mamat, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of Cambridge, has Uyghur roots who are subject to severe oppression in China, and based on the stories of people who had horrific experiences in concentration camps, He said he began to want to find a way to relieve his mental pain.
Therefore, Anderson and Mamat recruited 120 participants from 16 countries to conduct a study to examine the occurrence of so-called 'cynic increase,' a phenomenon in which suppressing negative thoughts actually increases the occurrence of frightening memories and emotions. I did it.
Participants were divided into an experimental group of 61 and a control group of 59. The experimental group was shown words associated with 'horrible worries' that could happen to them within the next two years, and were asked to think about the event. I received a session to suppress.
For example, in the case of a frightening event, ``My parents were hospitalized due to COVID-19,'' the associated word would be ``hospital,'' and if I was shown the word ``hospital'' and the image of my parents being hospitalized came to mind, I would immediately push it out of my mind. is. A control group of 59 people, on the other hand, was asked to do the same with a neutral event that was neither negative nor positive, such as going to the optician.
In the experiment, each group was further divided into two groups, and one group had a session in which they had to imagine images of positive hope, whereas the other group had to imagine neutral images. These sessions were held 12 times a day for three days via the video calling app Zoom.
When the researchers aggregated the results of a survey examining participants' mental health, they found that the group that suppressed negative thoughts was more mentally ill than the other group, both immediately after the experiment ended and three months after the experiment. I found that my health was improving. On the other hand, imagining positive events did not improve mental health.
In addition, suppressing thoughts rarely caused images to become clearer, and many people responded that their images became less vivid and they thought about such things less often. Some of the participants may have suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) during the pandemic, but these people were particularly effective at suppressing it.
Commenting on the results, Anderson said: ``Our findings run counter to the widely held narrative that negative thoughts should not be suppressed.Further research is needed to confirm this finding, but fear 'This study shows that actively suppressing thoughts is not impossible, and may even be potentially beneficial.'
Also, according to Mr. Mamat, when he contacted the participants three months after the experiment, 80% of the participants continued the session voluntarily even though they were not instructed. Some people were so impressed by the effects of the sessions that they even taught their own family members how to use them. 'The next step in the research is to replicate this study in groups of people who suffer from intrusive thoughts , such as people who suffer from PTSD, obsessive-compulsive disorder, or depression, where thoughts enter your head even when you don't want to,' Mamat said. That's what I do.''
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