From: Discovery News
Negative Thoughts? Toss ’em
Discovery News:
If you’ve ever been told to imagine releasing negative thoughts, only to find the same thoughts popping into your head minutes later, quit imagining and start physically throwing those thoughts away, researchers recommend following a new study published in Psychological Science.
“At some level, it can sound silly,” study co-author Richard Petty of Ohio State University said in a press release. “But we found that it really works — by physically throwing away or protecting your thoughts, you influence how you end up using those thoughts. Merely imagining engaging in these actions has no effect.”
Researchers tested the theory with three separate experiments using high school and college students. When the students wrote down thoughts about body image, throwing them in the trash can seemed to free themselves of the thoughts, whereas those who kept the notes and studied them for editing mistakes rated their bodies in accordance to the thoughts.
Read the whole story: Discovery News
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