The commonly-held belief that attempting to suppress negative thoughts is bad for our mental health could be wrong, a new study suggests. Researchers trained 120 volunteers worldwide to suppress thoughts about negative events that worried them, and found that not only did these become less vivid, but that the participants' mental health also improved.
The commonly-held belief that attempting to suppress negative thoughts is bad for our mental health could be wrong, a new study from scientists at the University of Cambridge suggests.
When COVID-19 appeared in 2020, like many researchers, Professor Anderson wanted to see how his own research could be used to help people through the pandemic. His interest lay in a brain mechanism known as inhibitory control -- the ability to override our reflexive responses -- and how it might be applied to memory retrieval, and in particular to stopping the retrieval of negative thoughts when confronted with potent reminders to them.
Negative -- visiting one's parents at the hospital as a result of COVID-19, with the cue 'Hospital' and the detail 'Breathing'.Positive -- seeing one's sister get married, with the cue 'Wedding' and the detail 'Dress'. For Imagine trials, participants were given a cue word and asked to imagine the event as vividly as possible, thinking what it would be like and imagining how they would feel at the event. For ethical reasons, no participant was given a negative event to imagine, but only positive or neutral ones.
Suppressing thoughts even improved mental health amongst participants with likely post-traumatic stress disorder. Among participants with post-traumatic stress who suppressed negative thoughts, their negative mental health indices scores fell on average by 16% , whereas positive mental health indices scores increased by almost 10% .
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