When You "Can't Complain"

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⏰ IN A RUSH?

Today’s 30-Second Summary

If you don’t have time to read the whole email today, here are some key takeaways:

• Today we’re flipping the script on gratitude practice, and tackling it from the other end!

  • Complaining is inversely correlated with happiness (shocking, we know) even when other factors are accounted for. All-cause happiness, in turn, is inversely correlated with all-cause mortality.

  • Today’s main feature explores how to quit complaining, while still standing up for what you believe is right, and also not telling your doctor/therapist “I’m fine thanks; how are you?”

• Omega-3 fatty acids have a lot of health benefits—including for joints and for the brain—but not all sources are created equal

  • Today's sponsor, NativePath, are offering a convenient, sustainable, and highly bioavailable form—far better than cod liver oil!

Read on to learn more about these things, or click here to visit our archive

💡 ANSWER TO YESTERDAY’S BRAINTEASER

We asked you…

Jack is looking at Anne but Anne is looking at George. Jack is married, but George is not. Is a married person looking at an unmarried person? 

The correct answer was “Yes”!

If you selected “It’s impossible to know from only the above information”, then don’t worry, so did almost everyone else who tried it. However, the “looking” looks like this:

Jack (married) → Anne (mysterious) → George (unmarried)

Anne is either married or unmarried. We can’t know which, but we can know…

• If Anne is married, then a married person (Anne) is looking at an unmarried person (George)

• If Anne is unmarried, then a married person (George) is looking at an unmarried person (Anne)

So either way, a married person is looking at an unmarried person; all that changes is who it is.

Whatever answer you went for, what matters most is that your brain was teased, so consider that a win!

👀 WATCH AND LEARN

Understanding Psychosis (6:41)

If you see someone ranting at thin air, chances are they are just someone having a much worse day than yours:

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Want to watch it, but not right now? Bookmark it for later 🔖

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Let The Good Times Roll

What wants to stab you thousands of times, but is good for your health?

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🙃 MAIN FEATURE

A Bone To Pick… Up And Then Put Back Where We Found It

In today’s Psychology Sunday feature, we’re going to be flipping the narrative on gratitude, by tackling it from the other end.

We have, by the way, written previously about gratitude, and what mistakes to avoid, in one of our pieces on positive psychology:

How To Get Your Brain On A More Positive Track (Without Toxic Positivity)

“Can’t complain”

Your mission, should you choose to accept it (and come on, who doesn’t like a challenge?) is to go 21 days without complaining (to anyone, including yourself, about anything). If you break your streak, that’s ok, just start again!

Why?

Complaining is (unsurprisingly) inversely correlated with happiness, in a self-perpetuating cycle:

Pet Peeves and Happiness: How Do Happy People Complain?

And if a stronger motivation is required, there’s a considerable inverse correlation between all-cause happiness and all-cause mortality, even when potential confounding factors (e.g., chronic health conditions, socioeconomic status, etc) are controlled for, and especially as we get older:

Investing in Happiness: The Gerontological Perspective

How?

You have already formulated some objections by this point, for example:

• Am I supposed to tell my doctor/therapist “I’m fine thanks; how are you?”

• Some things are worthy of complaint; should I be silent?

But both of these issues (communication, and righteousness) have answers:

On communication:

There is a difference between complaining, and giving the necessary information in answer to a question—or even volunteering such information.

For example, when our site went down yesterday, some of you wrote to us to let us know the links weren’t working. There is a substantive difference (semantic, ontological, and teleological) between:

• ❝The content was great but the links in "you may have missed" did not work.❞ ← a genuine piece of feedback we received (thank you!)

• ❝Wasted my time, couldn’t read your articles! Unsubscribing, and I hope your socks get wet tomorrow!❞ ← nobody said this; our subscribers are lovely (thank you)

• Note that the former wasn’t a complaint, it was genuinely helpful feedback, without which we might not have noticed the problem and fixed it.

• The latter was a complaint, and also (like many complaints) didn’t even address the actual problem usefully.

What makes it a complaint or not is not the information conveyed, but the tone and intention. So for example:

“You’ve only done half the job I asked you to!” → “Thank you for doing the first half of this job, could you please do the other half now?”

On righteousness:

Indeed, some things are very worthy of complaint. But are you able to effect a solution by complaining? If not, then it’s just hot air. And venting isn’t without its own merits (we touched on the benefits of emotional catharsis recently), but that should be a mindful choice when you choose to do that, not a matter of reactivity.

Complaining is a subset of criticizing, and criticizing can be done without the feeling and intent of complaining. However, it too should definitely be measured and considered, responsive, not reactive. This itself could be the topic for another main feature, but for now, here’s a Psychology Today article that at least explains the distinction in more words than we have room for here:

React vs Respond: What's the difference? 

This, by the way, also goes the same for engaging in social and political discourse. It’s easy to get angry and reactive, but it’s good to take a moment to pick your battles, and by all means fight for what you believe in, and/but also do so responsively rather than reactively.

Not only will your health thank you, but you’re also more likely to “win friends and influence people” and all that!

What gets measured, gets done

Find a way of tracking your streak. There are apps for that, like this one, or you could find a low-tech method you prefer.

Bonus tip: if you do mess up and complain, and you realize as you’re doing it, take a moment to take a breath and correct yourself in the moment.

Take care!

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📖 ONE-MINUTE BOOK REVIEW

It's Not A Bloody Trend: Understanding Life as an ADHD Adult – by Kat Brown

This one’s not a clinical book, and the author is not a clinician. However, it’s not just a personal account, either. Kat Brown is an award-winning journalist (with ADHD) and has approached this journalistically.

Not just in terms of investigative journalism, either. Rather, also with her knowledge and understanding of the industry, doing for us some meta-journalism and explaining why the press have gone for many misleading headlines.

Which in this case means for example it’s not newsworthy to say that people have gone undiagnosed and untreated for years and that many continue to go unseen; we know this also about such things as endometriosis, adenomyosis, and PCOS. But some more reactionary headlines will always get attention, e.g. “look at these malingering attention-seekers”.

She also digs into the common comorbidities of various conditions, the differences it makes to friendships, families, relationships, work, self-esteem, parenting, and more.

This isn’t a “how to” book, but there’s a lot of value here if a) you have ADHD, and/or b) you spend any amount of time with someone who does.

Bottom line: if you’d like to understand “what all the fuss is about” in one book, this is the one for ADHD.

Click here to check out It’s Not A Bloody Trend, and discover a whole world of things that might have passed you by!

Wishing you a peaceful Sunday that gives you no cause for complaint,

The 10almonds Team