Gyakuto
Senior Master
This is from Arnie’s Pump club. I have always suspected this to be true because I’ve known many people who have attended counselling for years and even decades without anything like ‘progress to normality’. Indeed weekly counselling sessions appear to ‘re-open old wounds’ and prolong suffering. The evolutionary-derived scheme to handle trauma appears to be to repression of the memories of the event. Naturally, counsellors and ‘therapists’ will push back against this idea, but then their livelihoods depend upon our suffering.
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We've all heard that suppressing negative thoughts is bad for mental health. But what if the opposite is true?
Research suggests that training your brain to suppress negative thoughts can improve mental health, reduce anxiety, and boost overall well-being
The worldwide study had participants focus on negative, neutral, and positive thoughts and then were trained to suppress them.
Contrary to long-held beliefs, suppressing negative thoughts didn’t backfire. Instead, it significantly improved participants' mental health. In fact, those who blocked out the bad experiences experienced a 50 percent decrease in depression and anxiety symptoms.
Even more surprising, those who trained their brains to suppress thoughts had better memory and cognitive control than those who didn’t.
The researchers believe that suppressing negative thoughts helps weaken their impact over time, reducing emotional distress and improving cognitive flexibility. This challenges the old psychological model that suppression leads to a "rebound effect" (where thoughts come back even stronger).
This does not mean that you should avoid all of your problems. But it does mean you should pick and choose your battles and that some stressors are made worse by obsessing about them.
If you're struggling with intrusive negative thoughts, actively practicing suppression—rather than engaging with or analyzing them—could help you feel better in the long run. Try setting aside time each day to practice letting go of unwanted thoughts rather than dwelling on them. You might find that they lose their grip on you over time, allowing for better mental clarity and emotional resilience.
—————————————-
We've all heard that suppressing negative thoughts is bad for mental health. But what if the opposite is true?
Research suggests that training your brain to suppress negative thoughts can improve mental health, reduce anxiety, and boost overall well-being
The worldwide study had participants focus on negative, neutral, and positive thoughts and then were trained to suppress them.
Contrary to long-held beliefs, suppressing negative thoughts didn’t backfire. Instead, it significantly improved participants' mental health. In fact, those who blocked out the bad experiences experienced a 50 percent decrease in depression and anxiety symptoms.
Even more surprising, those who trained their brains to suppress thoughts had better memory and cognitive control than those who didn’t.
The researchers believe that suppressing negative thoughts helps weaken their impact over time, reducing emotional distress and improving cognitive flexibility. This challenges the old psychological model that suppression leads to a "rebound effect" (where thoughts come back even stronger).
This does not mean that you should avoid all of your problems. But it does mean you should pick and choose your battles and that some stressors are made worse by obsessing about them.
If you're struggling with intrusive negative thoughts, actively practicing suppression—rather than engaging with or analyzing them—could help you feel better in the long run. Try setting aside time each day to practice letting go of unwanted thoughts rather than dwelling on them. You might find that they lose their grip on you over time, allowing for better mental clarity and emotional resilience.
You’re watching the news too, eh? 
