Saying the opposite of what you mean psychology

OCD Opposite Thoughts: Understanding and Coping

Opposite thoughts are a type of intrusive thought or obsession that can come with OCD. Though stressful, you can learn to manage them.

Imagine the children’s game “red light, green light.” Now, imagine that even if you know that red means “stop” and green means “go,” your mind suddenly mixed these rules up and told you to go on red and stop on green. And, that if you didn’t obey, everyone else playing the game with you would get hurt.

Your mind might also tell you that it’s up to you to prevent mass chaos by doing the opposite of the game’s rules. You might want to obey the rules — but if you do, people could be injured, and it will be your fault.

If you have obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), this particular version of “red light, green light,” may be what your brain feels like every day.

Opposite thoughts — or doing the reverse of what you may know is right because your brain tells you that it’s wrong — can be common with OCD.

People with OCD often experience a fear that not giving into obsessions might cause harm, or worse, to themselves and the people around them. Doing the opposite can become a compulsion in and of itself.

Living with OCD opposite thoughts can cause immense stress on your body if left unaddressed. But with the right treatment plan and support, you can learn to cope with these thoughts.

People with OCD often respond to obsessions and compulsions by doing the opposite of what they feel they’re being compelled to do by intrusive thoughts. These behaviors are typically done compulsively in an attempt to stop or slow the anxiety and distress of obsessions.

Opposite thoughts are often an attempt to cope with OCD, not a symptom of OCD.

According to research from 2022, these thoughts may be linked to subsets of OCD in which a person experiences intrusive “unacceptable thoughts” or obsessions about:

sex
violence
religion
the idea of causing something bad to happen if certain compulsive rituals aren’t carried out

Ego-dystonic OCD vs.

pure obsessional OCD

Ego-dystonic OCD often involves “unacceptable thoughts” about sex, violence, or religion, and accompanying compulsions to act against these thoughts or prevent them in some way.

The term “ego-dystonic OCD” means that the thoughts tend to go against a person’s personal belief system.

Pure-obsessional OCD, which was once believed to be a variation of OCD without compulsions, often involves seeking reassurance that intrusive thoughts aren’t hurting anyone else. You may also mentally review or research a situation without physically trying to prevent it.

Obsessive thoughts about religion, in particular, may inspire more mental rituals and reassurance-seeking behaviors, according to a 2021 study.

Experiencing opposite thoughts with OCD is a form of intrusive thoughts. Some common signs of opposite thoughts can include:

They’re against your personal belief system. You might have intrusive thoughts about sex, violence, or religion.
You can’t tolerate them. Intrusive thoughts may be so unacceptable and intolerable to you, that you may feel like you need to “do something” to stop them.
A belief that something bad will happen. You might feel strongly that something bad will happen to you or others if you don’t give in to your intrusive thoughts.
They’re debilitating. Intrusive thoughts cause you so much distress and internal conflict that they become debilitating and disruptive to your life.

Related conditions

You may have a higher chance of experiencing opposite thoughts with OCD if you have other mental health conditions such as anxiety and depression.

The intensity and duration of opposite thoughts with OCD may wax and wane over time.

To be diagnosed with OCD, intrusive thoughts must consume more than an hour of your day and cause significant daily stress. Only a healthcare or mental health professional can formally diagnose OCD.

While opposite thoughts can be extremely distressing, you can learn to manage them. Here are two key strategies to consider.

Mindfulness

In a 2016 study, a mindfulness-based cognitive therapy program — which didn’t focus on exposure to any anxiety triggers behind participants’ obsessions and compulsions — reportedly reduced OCD symptoms in two-thirds of the participants over the course of 2 months.

It may be beneficial for people with OCD to engage in some form of mindfulness practice such as:

meditation
breathing exercises
yoga

These techniques can help you refocus your mind when intrusive or opposite thoughts become active.

Relaxation

While relaxing may sound counterintuitive when your anxieties seem to rule your life, focusing your mind less on the intrusive thoughts you may experience and more on the feelings they provoke can help divert some of those thoughts.

Over time you may find that relaxing helps you cope with intrusive or opposite thoughts related to OCD.

Managing OCD symptoms with the right treatment plan is often the best first step toward mitigating opposite thoughts.

Treatment for OCD often includes a combination of therapy and medication, though some mild cases may be treated through therapy alone, according to research from 2022.

A healthcare or mental health professional can review your symptoms and help you decide on a treatment plan. Like all mental health conditions, it may take time and effort to find what’s most effective for you.

Therapy

Behavioral and exposure therapy may be the most effective forms of psychotherapy for treating OCD.

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) can help you reframe mistaken beliefs around intrusive or opposite thoughts. It can also help you challenge compulsions by guiding you in thinking about how useful or necessary they actually are.

Exposure and response prevention (ERP) therapy is a first-line therapy for OCD. With ERP, a therapist can gently and safely help expose you to the underlying anxiety behind your obsessions without allowing you to perform the accompanying compulsion. You’ll also learn relaxation and coping techniques to help manage these thoughts.

Over time therapy can help restructure your mind to react differently to anxieties and triggers for obsessions and compulsions.

Medication

Certain medications may also be prescribed for OCD such as:

antidepressants, especially selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs)
D-cycloserine, including ketamine, though more research is currently needed
antipsychotics — such as aripiprazole (Abilify), risperidone (Risperdal), and haloperidol (Haldol) — may be prescribed for severe cases

Only a healthcare or mental health professional can prescribe medications. It’s important to follow your prescription’s guidelines when taking medication for OCD.

OCD is a common mental health condition, but symptoms can affect everyone differently.

Opposite thoughts are often linked to obsessions or intrusive thoughts in OCD that compel you to do or say things that counter your personal belief system. With opposite thoughts, you may also be convinced that you might hurt yourself or others if you don’t comply with your compulsions.

The stress of OCD on both your brain and body can be significant, and experiencing opposite thoughts can be extremely distressing and disruptive to your life.

You can learn how to cope with opposite thoughts. This often begins with treating OCD symptoms. Other approaches — such as mindfulness and relaxation techniques — can also be helpful for managing opposite thoughts.

Treatment for OCD typically involves a combination of therapy and medication. Talking with a healthcare or mental health professional is the first step in seeking help.

Treatment often varies from person to person. It may take time to find what works best, and you may have to try multiple strategies. Your case may not be the same as anyone else’s, but help is still available.

If you’re looking for additional help, you can check out Psych Central’s hub for finding mental health support.

OCD Opposite Thoughts: Understanding and Coping

Opposite thoughts are a type of intrusive thought or obsession that can come with OCD. Though stressful, you can learn to manage them.

If you have obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), this particular version of “red light, green light,” may be what your brain feels like every day.

Opposite thoughts — or doing the reverse of what you may know is right because your brain tells you that it’s wrong — can be common with OCD.

Living with OCD opposite thoughts can cause immense stress on your body if left unaddressed. But with the right treatment plan and support, you can learn to cope with these thoughts.

Opposite thoughts are often an attempt to cope with OCD, not a symptom of OCD.

According to research from 2022, these thoughts may be linked to subsets of OCD in which a person experiences intrusive “unacceptable thoughts” or obsessions about:

sex
violence
religion
the idea of causing something bad to happen if certain compulsive rituals aren’t carried out

Ego-dystonic OCD vs.

pure obsessional OCD

Ego-dystonic OCD often involves “unacceptable thoughts” about sex, violence, or religion, and accompanying compulsions to act against these thoughts or prevent them in some way.

The term “ego-dystonic OCD” means that the thoughts tend to go against a person’s personal belief system.

Obsessive thoughts about religion, in particular, may inspire more mental rituals and reassurance-seeking behaviors, according to a 2021 study.

Experiencing opposite thoughts with OCD is a form of intrusive thoughts. Some common signs of opposite thoughts can include:

They’re against your personal belief system. You might have intrusive thoughts about sex, violence, or religion.
You can’t tolerate them. Intrusive thoughts may be so unacceptable and intolerable to you, that you may feel like you need to “do something” to stop them.
A belief that something bad will happen. You might feel strongly that something bad will happen to you or others if you don’t give in to your intrusive thoughts.
They’re debilitating. Intrusive thoughts cause you so much distress and internal conflict that they become debilitating and disruptive to your life.

Related conditions

You may have a higher chance of experiencing opposite thoughts with OCD if you have other mental health conditions such as anxiety and depression.

The intensity and duration of opposite thoughts with OCD may wax and wane over time.

To be diagnosed with OCD, intrusive thoughts must consume more than an hour of your day and cause significant daily stress. Only a healthcare or mental health professional can formally diagnose OCD.

While opposite thoughts can be extremely distressing, you can learn to manage them. Here are two key strategies to consider.

Mindfulness

It may be beneficial for people with OCD to engage in some form of mindfulness practice such as:

meditation
breathing exercises
yoga

These techniques can help you refocus your mind when intrusive or opposite thoughts become active.

Relaxation

Over time you may find that relaxing helps you cope with intrusive or opposite thoughts related to OCD.

Managing OCD symptoms with the right treatment plan is often the best first step toward mitigating opposite thoughts.

Treatment for OCD often includes a combination of therapy and medication, though some mild cases may be treated through therapy alone, according to research from 2022.

Therapy

Behavioral and exposure therapy may be the most effective forms of psychotherapy for treating OCD.

Over time therapy can help restructure your mind to react differently to anxieties and triggers for obsessions and compulsions.

Medication

Certain medications may also be prescribed for OCD such as:

antidepressants, especially selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs)
D-cycloserine, including ketamine, though more research is currently needed
antipsychotics — such as aripiprazole (Abilify), risperidone (Risperdal), and haloperidol (Haldol) — may be prescribed for severe cases

Only a healthcare or mental health professional can prescribe medications. It’s important to follow your prescription’s guidelines when taking medication for OCD.

OCD is a common mental health condition, but symptoms can affect everyone differently.

The stress of OCD on both your brain and body can be significant, and experiencing opposite thoughts can be extremely distressing and disruptive to your life.

Treatment for OCD typically involves a combination of therapy and medication. Talking with a healthcare or mental health professional is the first step in seeking help.

If you’re looking for additional help, you can check out Psych Central’s hub for finding mental health support.

Perfectionist, hypersensitive, indifferent: why do we become like this

A student syndrome

The word "perfectionist" is most often used in a positive sense. Saying "I'm a perfectionist in everything!" or "He is a perfectionist at work", people want to emphasize their own or other people's merits, the desire to make everything perfect. In fact, if a person is really a perfectionist, then, most likely, in life he faces serious problems that can affect his mental and physical health.

"Perfectionism has several stages. The first, in which you can spend your whole life, is the desire to do everything in the best possible way, ideally, and there is nothing wrong with that, because it helps to achieve your goals, success," explains psychologist Mikhail Khors. "But a significant part of perfectionists goes to the next stage, when perfectionism already becomes a disease, turns into patho-perfectionism, a neurasthenic form, when the desire for perfection goes into all areas of life, at this stage suffering, pain appears if the ideal cannot be achieved. if there is a threat that he will be able to do the job in the best possible way, get angry, be afraid, worry, even if nothing has happened yet, experience unpleasant mental states, and they will take away his resources of strength, and there will not be enough strength to realize his aspirations.

A psychologist compares the state of a failed perfectionist to that of a drug addict. Life for him becomes gray, it seems wrong.

"Help teach them how to live right"

A situation when at work a person is demanding of himself and his staff, strives for an ideal, but in his personal life it is easy to get along with him, according to psychologists, is rare. Most often, problems extend to family and interpersonal relationships. Mikhail Gordeev claims that it is difficult for such people to create a couple and save a family.

“For them, the concept of “building a family” means not creating, but training, adjusting to oneself. And until a certain moment, the partner endures, because at first there is a bouquet period, love, emotions, children are born, and then there is no strength left.

Perfectionists often come to a psychologist with a request: "Help me teach them to live right. " And it can be a blow for them, they can even leave therapy when they realize that I won’t explain anything, that my task is not to find right or wrong, but to help them figure it out. At first, they have to be taken out of fighting stances

Perfectionists come to psychotherapy more often than phlegmatic people or people who are calm about their successes in order to cope with increased anxiety, panic attacks, and addictions.

"Panic attacks are the result of an overload of the nervous system," explains psychologist Mikhail Khors. cause.Unfortunately, the modern approaches of many of my colleagues are to work with the consequences, which are removed by pills, the same antidepressants.And they will not affect perfectionism in any way, they affect the symptom, and not the source of pain.And after a while, problems will return."

How do you become a perfectionist?

Psychiatrist of the Scientific Center for Personalized Medicine Nadezhda Solovieva believes that perfectionism can be congenital or acquired.

"A person has an endopsychic — something that is inherited, something that cannot be corrected, and an exopsychic — something that a person acquires during his life and with which you can work. Perfectionists and those who do not particularly worry about anything , there is both that and that component. If the genotype contains anxiety, if it is an endopsychic component, then a person is more likely to become a perfectionist. And then the environment and upbringing shape him. relaxed, phlegmatic, the child will adapt to him. But in adolescence, he himself will begin to choose."

Psychiatrist Mikhail Gordeev believes that the influence of parents on the formation of a perfectionist is stronger than heredity.

"It happens that perfectionist parents bring up perfectionists. And sometimes parents themselves could not achieve something in life, but they consider it very important and realize their desire through a child. In their opinion, their child should achieve this, he should be the best, despite the fact that the parent himself could not do this.

Mikhail Gordeev notes that perfectionists in childhood were subjected to moral punishment for failures, for example, a mother could not talk to a child for several days for bad behavior, a two or three, did not learn a lesson.

"Perfectionism is a condition that is brought up by the fear of punishment, and it's not just about physical punishment. Moral rejection can be much worse for a child than deprivation of sweets, a ban on walking and cartoons, even physical punishment. And when a perfectionist grows up, he he is afraid of rejection no longer of his mother, but of friends, colleagues, lover, for him the punishment is disrespect and rejection of others.

Perfectionists are not only afraid of being disrespected, they are afraid of being embarrassed. And these attitudes are also laid by close adults.

"These fears are social, they are normal for our life, the question is how strong they are," says Mikhail Khors. everyone looks, look, uncle thinks: "What a bad girl is crying in the store!" Or he says: “You disgrace me in front of other people, what relatives, neighbors, passers-by will say!”, “Go to the blackboard, the whole class will laugh that you don’t know anything”, “Disgrace yourself in front of the whole class”, “Disgrace the school”.

Perfectionists often hear phrases from their parents: "You must be the best", "You only need to study for A", "Four is a bad grade".

"There are a lot of such parents," the psychologist explains. , does not work? I'll work harder," but at some point he hits the bar, faces a situation where he doesn't succeed. Maybe he doesn't succeed now, but it will succeed in a year, but he needs it right now. And then his pain appears."

Children who are not required to be the best by their parents grow up to be more harmonious personalities, Khors believes.

"Such a parent does not have this feeling of inferiority, which he tries to satisfy at the expense of the child, he loves and appreciates the child, regardless of his success. He brings him up in a more realistic-philosophical atmosphere, more phlegmatic:" but if it doesn’t work out, it’s okay, you get up, dust yourself off and move on.”

Antipode of the perfectionist

The opposite of perfectionism is relaxed, phlegmatic individuals who do not suffer from failure. They are not particularly worried that their boss scolded them at work, that they cannot buy a dream car, they will not worry about rudeness in public transport, get angry at their family for scattered socks and toys. But it is also wrong to consider them indifferent, devoid of empathy and goals in life, Mikhail Gordeev believes.

"Like for a perfectionist, for such a person in life something is more important, something is less important.

Freedom can be their highest value. So it was with the hippies, who went to live in nature, gave up achievements, careers, because for them it was most important to live freely, not to bind themselves with frames. This was their ideal. And to some extent, they can also be called perfectionists

According to Gordeev, a student who is not at all worried about bad grades at school, who is not successful in school, can later achieve great success in the field of creativity.

“Perhaps from childhood he clearly knew that he needed something else,” explains Mikhail Gordeev. “If a person does not worry about failure at work, in school, he may have another area of interest. classic Manilov, who thinks about something all the time, dreams, while doing nothing? It's hard to say, you can call him a dreamer. It's just that his ideals are not recognized by society."

Antipodes of perfectionists can also become clients of a psychotherapist, despite a more relaxed attitude towards others and their own mistakes, says psychiatrist Nadezhda Solovieva.

"If we talk about neurosis, minor psychiatry, about overcoming some kind of disorder, anxiety, panic attacks, then both come. For pronounced perfectionists, the problem is anxiety. sociopathy. And inside such people can feel their inadequacy and suffer from it. And in fact, both perfectionism and indifference are two defensive reactions of the psyche that say that a person has problems. "

Skinless people

Perfectionists are often very sensitive people. But sensitive individuals are not always perfectionists. They are called people "without skin", when a rude word, a dismissive look can hurt, and betrayal or separation unsettles them for a long time and becomes a tragedy.

Sensitivity can also be biologically determined when a person is born with a very delicate, receptive nervous system, believes Mikhail Khors. But sometimes such a feature speaks of a "God complex."

"Such a person does not necessarily strive for success, he may not have good grades in school or higher education, he may not have a prestigious job, salary, recognition of colleagues, but at the same time he has a complex of an omnipotent and omniscient being who knows exactly how it should be, how the world should be. And if it is arranged differently than he imagined, then it is a bad world. It hurts such people to live in a world that is not organized according to their laws. In religion, this is called the word " pride." Pride is the sin that is the mother of all other sins."

Nadezhda Solovieva believes that in this case it is not about perfectionism, but rather about intolerance.

"You can't put an equal sign between intolerance and perfectionism. There are intolerant people who are not perfectionists, and vice versa."

A psychotherapist will help you deal with the "God complex". Hypersensitive people can also improve the quality of life in therapy sessions and learn to react less painfully to traumatic situations and events.

Do opposites attract?

Families built by people with different temperaments and characters are considered stronger. A classic example of such an alliance is the heroes of Vera Alentova and Alexei Batalov in the film "Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears", Natasha Rostova and Pierre Bezukhov in Tolstoy's novel "War and Peace". But not in cinema or book, but in a real couple created by a perfectionist and his antipode, according to psychiatrist Mikhail Gordeev, serious problems will arise.

"It is unlikely that they will get along. And even great love will quickly go out, because they are different in their perception of the world. Indeed, in a couple, a person often sets criteria for a partner. And a perfectionist can set criteria in terms of productivity, punctuality, beauty. He can be the ideal of beauty, and he, say, will like a beautiful woman, but in the morning she will still wake up with a wrinkled face, and this is already a violation of the ideal.

See also

When is it time for couples? Modern family in graphs and figures

Such different people will be able to build relationships and families only if both recognize their shortcomings and are ready to make concessions to each other.

"They can get along, the question is whether they strive for this," says psychologist Mikhail Khors. that if suddenly something is wrong in a relationship, then you need to leave and look for where it will work out in an ideal way. If people in a relationship value something else besides their ego, they will most likely try to take steps towards each other " .

Psychiatrist Nadezhda Solovieva is more optimistic about the prospects of the family of a perfectionist and his opposite: in her opinion, the main condition for success in such a couple is the absence of categoricalness in both.

"There is a concept of harmony in a couple. If a perfectionist knows his shortcomings, but cannot fight them, he will appreciate the qualities he lacks in a partner. It will also be useful for his antipode to learn something from a perfectionist. And a perfectionist can become close to his more relaxed partner. If categoricalness is not mixed with the perfectionism and indifference of both, if both are not rigid, flexible, the couple can turn out to be wonderful, complementary, one will level the weaknesses of the other. "

Rigidity, in other words, rigidity, resistance to change. They can happen to a perfectionist during his life under the influence of psychotherapy or some important event. It happens that a perfectionist even refuses to achieve, abandons his career and becomes a downshifter, devotes himself to his family, but such a sharp change often happens after certain events.

"In order for something to change quickly, a catastrophe must happen. Some kind of big shock in life," says Mikhail Gordeev.

But the opposite situation, when an indifferent and relaxed person turns into a perfectionist, happens much less frequently.

“I have never seen anything like this,” says Mikhail Khors. “If this is an adult whose personality has already been established, he is unlikely to slip into perfectionism. any of his demands are fulfilled at the snap of his fingers, and then he loses this power, then yes, he can suffer.

According to Nadezhda Solovieva, a similar transformation can still be observed in adolescents who, at a transitional age, do not understand what they want, and then take up their heads.

"This can happen if a person in adolescence protested, but in fact he was not indifferent to his successes and deeds. It happens that in adolescence children abandon their studies, college, and then grow up and change dramatically. In this case their protest is just a reaction to the environment, fashion, and not indifference and phlegm." BBC Future tried to find out why a smile is not always the key to success in life.

On the screen he is an incredibly charming man with unruly hair. However, behind the scenes, he needs too much personal space, to put it mildly.

He hates his fame. He hates his acting profession. In conversations with friends, his ex-girlfriend Elizabeth Hurley called him none other than "Grumpelstiltskin"

Everyone knows that Hugh Grant has a bad temper and is not easy to work with. But maybe it was his gloomy nature that made him successful?

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Modern society is obsessed with maintaining a positive attitude. Cultural trends have turned our lives into an endless pursuit of happiness. People buy a lot of books on the subject, attend self-improvement workshops and post a lot of inspirational quotes on the Internet.

Today, you can hire a happiness expert, learn different mental practices, or find inner fulfillment using a mobile app.

More than a million US military personnel are currently taking positive psychology courses, and optimism is being taught in UK schools.

Moreover, along with GDP, the well-being of citizens is now measured by the "happiness index".

The truth is that there are clear benefits to expecting the worst. Pessimists may be more successful in negotiations and be more far-sighted in decision making. In addition, they are less likely to suffer from heart attacks.

Cynics tend to have more stable marriages, higher salaries, and longer lives - though of course they expect the exact opposite.

But there is a significant risk associated with a good mood: it reduces motivation, dims attention to detail and makes a person both gullible and selfish.

It is also known that optimists are more prone to alcohol abuse, overeating and unsafe sex.

So why is this happening? The fact is that all our feelings have a specific purpose.

Image copyright Rex Features

Image caption

Hugh Grant hates his films even though they made him $80 million

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Anger, sadness and pessimism are not the product of divine cruelty or banal bad luck. These traits evolved to perform useful functions and help us survive.

Take anger, for example. So, for example, Newton was extremely touchy and vindictive, and Beethoven often made scandals, sometimes with fights.

It seems that genius is often associated with a temper. Many examples of this can be found in Silicon Valley.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is known for his temper tantrums and offensive remarks like "I'm sorry, did I take my stupidity pills today"? However, this did not stop him from creating a company worth 300 billion dollars.

For many years this relationship remained a mystery, until in 2009 Matthijs Baas of the University of Amsterdam decided to investigate the issue.

He recruited a group of student volunteers and made it his mission to piss them off in the name of science. He asked half of them to remember something annoying and write an essay about it.

"That pissed them off a bit, although it didn't get to the point of real temper tantrums," he says. The second group was to grieve.

Both groups then took part in a game designed to test the creativity of the participants. In 16 minutes, they had to come up with as many ways as possible to improve teaching in the psychology department.

As Baath expected, the angry students had more ideas, and that was just the beginning.

The methods they proposed were also more original, and their agreement with the proposals of other participants was less than 1%.

Crucially, the angry volunteers were able to perform well in moments of "spontaneous innovation," or so-called unstructured thinking.

Imagine that you are asked to come up with several uses for a brick. A logical thinker would name ten different kinds of buildings, while a less structured approach would open up entirely new uses for bricks, such as weapons.

Image copyright, Getty Images

Image caption,

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is known for his trademark sayings like "If I hear this again, I'll have to commit suicide"

The essence of creativity is how easily you can change the way you think. In a critical situation, becoming a "mad genius" can even save your life.

"Anger really prepares the body to mobilize resources - it tells you that you are in a difficult situation and gives you the strength to get out of it," says Baas.

To understand how this works, we first need to understand what is going on in our brain.

Like most emotions, anger originates in the amygdala, a special area of the brain responsible for detecting a threat to a person's life.

The mechanism of its work is very effective: it raises the alarm long before a person realizes the danger.

To cause anger, the brain sends chemical signals to the body. The body is filled with adrenaline, and within a few minutes a person feels an incredible surge of energy.

His breathing and pulse quicken, and his blood pressure goes off scale. The blood rushes to the limbs and to the face, due to which it turns red, and the veins swell on the forehead. This is what an angry person looks like.

This physiological response is thought to have evolved primarily to prepare the body for physical aggression, but it has other benefits as well. For example, it increases motivation and gives determination.

Photo credit, Shizhao/Wikimedia Commons

Photo caption,

Beethoven easily lost his temper and threw things at his servants

All these physiological changes are very useful, but only if you have the opportunity to vent your anger , for example, fighting a lion or yelling at colleagues.

You may ruin your relationship with someone, but your blood pressure will return to normal. But if you constantly keep negative emotions in yourself, everything can be much worse.

The idea that restraining feelings can be harmful to health dates back to antiquity. The Greek philosopher Aristotle believed in catharsis (he coined the term we still use today).

He believed that watching a tragic play allows a person to experience such emotions as anger, sadness and guilt, while controlling them. Throwing these feelings out, a person can be freed from them all at once.

Later, his ideas were adopted by Sigmund Freud, who believed that catharsis could be achieved through psychotherapy sessions.

And in 2010, a group of scientists decided to look deeper into this issue. For their study, they recruited a group of 644 people suffering from coronary insufficiency.

In order to determine the level of anger, as well as repressed anger and a tendency to worry, scientists followed the subjects for a period of five to ten years.

During this time, 20% of them experienced a serious heart attack, and 9% died. Initially, both anger and repressed anger seemed to increase the likelihood of a heart attack.

However, taking into account other factors, the researchers found that anger did not affect this, while suppressing it almost tripled the likelihood of acute heart failure.

The reasons for this are still unknown, but other studies have shown that suppressing anger can lead to chronic high blood pressure.

In addition, not all of the benefits of free expression are related to health. For example, they can help in negotiations.

Image copyright, Getty Images

Image caption,

Notoriously irritable Bill Gates donated $28 billion to charity

Aggression can be triggered when someone doesn't value your interests highly enough. In order for this person to see his mistake, it is necessary to show him that you can harm him physically, or deprive him of any advantages - favor, friendship or money.

This theory is confirmed by the expression on our face when we are angry. Research shows that it is not at all accidental, but is specifically aimed at exaggerating our physical strength in the eyes of the opponent.

If done right, aggression can help you get your way and raise your status - this way of negotiating has been known for ages.

What's more, scientists are increasingly discovering that grouchiness can have a beneficial effect on various social skills, making us more eloquent and persuasive, as well as improving memory.

"Bad mood indicates that we are in a new and difficult situation, and requires us to be more attentive, thoughtful and observant," says Joseph Forgas, a scientist who has studied the influence of emotions on human behavior for about forty years.

In addition, studies have shown that when a person is slightly upset, he perceives social cues better.

It is a curious fact that in such a mood people also tend to be more (rather than less) fair to others.

Tough but fair

Happiness is often associated with charity, but in practice this is not the case. Scientists conducted an experiment by having several volunteers feel disgust, sadness, anger, fear, happiness, surprise, or neutral emotions, and then play an ultimatum game.

According to the rules of this game, the first player is given a certain amount of money and asked how he would divide it between himself and another player. Then the second player decides whether to accept the offered amount or not.

If they come to an agreement, the money is divided as suggested by the first player. If not, none of them get anything.

This game is often used to test the sense of justice: it shows whether a person is ready to share the benefits equally or cares only about his own benefit.

An interesting fact is that all negative emotions sharpen the sense of justice and the need for equality.

However, if the rules are changed, it turns out that it is not just a matter of envy or resentment.

There is also a Dictator game with the same rules, but with one exception: nothing depends on the second participant at all, and he simply gets what the first one gives him.

It turned out that happy participants were more likely to keep a larger amount of the prize, while sad participants were much more generous.

"A person who is slightly upset pays more attention to social norms and expectations, and therefore treats others more fairly," says Forgas.

Image copyright, Getty Images

Image caption,

Optimistic newspaper articles seem to anticipate weak economic performance in the coming weeks - and thus much bleaker headlines

In some situations, happiness comes with far greater risks. It is associated with the cuddling hormone oxytocin, which, according to many studies, negatively affects the ability to recognize threats.

In prehistoric times, happiness would have made our ancestors easy prey for predators, but in modern life it makes us underestimate the dangers of alcohol abuse, overeating and unprotected sex.

"Happiness works as a signal that we are safe and that we don't need to pay too much attention to our environment," he says.

A person blinded by happiness may miss important facts. Instead, he relies on the knowledge he already has, which can lead him to serious errors in judgment.

In one experiment, Forgas and his colleagues from the University of New South Wales (Australia) in their laboratory showed volunteers films designed to make them feel happy or sad.

They were then asked to determine how true urban myths are, such as that power lines can cause leukemia, or that the CIA was involved in the assassination of President Kennedy.

Those who were in a good mood were less skeptical and much more trusting.

Forgas then used a first-person shooter computer game to test how people in a good mood tend to believe stereotypes.

As he predicted, subjects in good spirits were more likely to shoot characters in turbans.

Among all the positive emotions, optimism about the future can have very paradoxical consequences.

Like happiness, positive fantasies about the future can demotivate a person.

"People feel fulfilled, they relax and do not make enough efforts to fulfill their positive fantasies and dreams," says Gabriel Oettingen from New York University.

Through many experiments, Oettingen proved that the more we dream, the less likely it is that our desires will come true.

Graduates who spend their time fantasizing about a good job tend to earn less. Patients who only think about getting better recover more slowly.

"People say dream and your dreams will come true, but that's far from reality," she says.

Optimistic thoughts can prevent an overweight person from losing weight, and a smoker from giving up this bad habit.

Pessimism as a defense mechanism

One of the worries, according to Oettingen, is that these risks can also operate at the societal level.

Comparing articles in USA Today with economic data a week or a month after the story was published, she found that the more optimistic the newspaper's forecasts were, the worse the subsequent performance was.

She then analyzed presidential inauguration speeches and found that the most positive speeches ended up with higher unemployment and lower GDP while those who delivered them were in office.

Add to these disappointing conclusions the tendency of people to believe that bad things happen only to others - and we have a serious reason to think about the dangers that lie in wait for us.

Perhaps we should finally take off our rose-colored glasses and stop thinking that the glass is half full.

The use of pessimism as a defense mechanism is closely related to the application of Murphy's Law, which states that if something bad can happen, it will.

Expecting the worst, you will be ready when it happens.

It works like this. Imagine that you need to make a speech. All you have to do is think about the worst things that could happen.

For example, you might trip on your way to the stage, lose the memory card on which your presentation is stored, your computer might crash, you might be asked the wrong question (experienced pessimists can come up with a thousand more options).

Just make a list of them and then find a solution for each one.

Psychologist Julie Norem of Wellesley College, Massachusetts, is an expert on pessimism.

"I'm a bit clumsy, especially when I'm nervous, so I'll make sure to wear low heels if that's the case. I'll be there early to check for wires or other things on stage to trip over.

I usually create a few back-up copies of my presentation. [I am so prepared that] if necessary, I can give a speech without it. Moreover, I send a copy to the organizers, have a memory card with me with another copy, and bring my own laptop."

As they say, only the paranoid survive.

So the next time someone says "up your nose!" to you, why not tell them about how you use a pessimistic view of things to cultivate a sense of justice in yourself, reduce unemployment in the country and save the world economy ?

You will have the last laugh, even if it is a forced grin of a cynic.

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