Think Like a Monk (Jay Shetty)

At the Bhaktivedanta Manor, the temple’s London outpost, there was one
monk who drove me crazy. If I asked him how he was in the morning, he’d tell me
about how badly he’d slept and whose fault it was. He complained that the food
was bad, and yet there was never enough. It was relentless verbal diarrhea, so
negative that I never wanted to be around him.
Then I found myself complaining about him to the other monks. And so I
became exactly what I was criticizing. Complaining is contagious, and he’d passed
it on to me.
Studies show that negativity like mine can increase aggression toward random,
uninvolved people, and that the more negative your attitude, the more likely you
are to have a negative attitude in the future. Studies also show that long-term
stress, like that generated by complaining, actually shrinks your hippocampus—
that’s the region of your brain that a ects reasoning and memory. Cortisol, the
same stress hormone that takes a toll on the hippocampus, also impairs your
immune system (and has loads of other harmful e ects). I’m not blaming every
illness on negativity, but if remaining positive can prevent even one of my winter
colds, I’m all for it.