Changing Your Outraged Brain

I'm seldom a fan of the material found in Psychology Today magazine. But I noted an article this week about words and the physical effects words have on our brains and bodies.

Negative words flood the brain and body with chemicals and emotions and studies indicate the brain and body react to one negative word while a positive word has to be repeated to create similar impacts.

There are recent discussions about the apparent rise in what's being called the "Outrage Industry", as daily and hourly we see and hear stories and events which are meant to evoke powerful emotions. Some might say the public is addicted to outrage.

Way back in the mid-90s, I knew a fellow who listened every day to 6 or 7 hours of angry radio rantings from Boortz and Limbaugh and others. Day after day after day, he became sullen and angry and just plain mean. For him the world was an Us versus Them place locked in a holy war. I found it quite sad to watch him devolve into a hating machine. He became physically ill, and nearly died.

The article noted above indicates that while our brains react immediately to negative words to combat danger. A positive word, a Yes, does not do that. One researcher says a person needs 3 or 5 Yeses to equal the effects of one No.

It's very easy to drown in the oceans of outrage, some folks constantly bellow about The End of Everything.

And while negative commentary on our shared worlds can be found in abundance in the posts here on my blog, I've tried to balance that with the positive or humorous or even the silly.

So what follows is nothing less than an effort to add to the positive. Read the list of words below. You can even say them out loud and effect even more powerful change, and if others hear you, that change will spread. You can repeat this act every day too. Ready?

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.