How And Why You Should Be Complaining

 No, this is not a typo, nor did you read that wrong.

By Ramsay Banna

We are so often bombarded with self-help advice in the form of articles with snappy titles like ‘10 things to stop doing to be happier and more successful!’ . And 99% of the time you can bet that the suggestion to stop complaining will be on that article. I am sure, you, like me- a well meaning person who seeks self-improvement- have at some point in your life resolved to stop complaining. How has that panned out for you?

If you are anything like me, you have managed to go for a while without doing it, but found that yourself in a situation where- before you could stop yourself- you are spilling your deepest complaints and anxieties (think Harry Potter in Order of The Phoenix when he arrives in Grimmuald Place). Of course, because you are a Good Person, you then feel dissonance for having committed the crime of complaining (since other people have it worse!) and felt really bad about yourself. Has that ever happened to you?

What if I told you complaining was not only not bad but could, in some cases, be good for you?

In the seminal book ‘The Chimp Paradox’, psychiatrist Steve Peters outlines the importance of what he refers to as ‘exercising your chimp’, which is the process of letting out all your thoughts and feelings when you are in a bad place, without any censoring. He argues that while you have heightened emotion, you are in ‘Chimp Mode’ and cannot think constructively and rationally and therefore cannot find solutions to your problems. The first step would be to exercise your chimp until it is tired and THEN you will be in a rational place where you can find the solutions to your problems.

Now, what does ‘exercising your chimp’ as described above sound like? That’s right. Complaining.

Complaining in small doses when you have heightened anxiety, sadness, fear, stress, anger is a great reliever. It allows you to express your subconscious thoughts and by doing so, you may catch yourself (or the person listening may catch) points in which you may not be thinking rationally. Voicing your thoughts can help give you perspective on them and see them as more ridiculous than if they stayed in your head.

Has it ever happened to you that you say something and realise it sounded better in your head than out loud? Only once you have finished exercising your chimp you are then in a state to work on resolutions, because that rational part of your brain kicks in now you are no longer so clouded and ruled by emotion. You cannot think rationally when in heightened emotion, which makes sense from an evolutionary perspective. Can you imagine our ancestors seeing a tiger and thinking about all the possible solutions to get away? By the time they have thought it all through the tiger would be washing them down with some water from the lake. No, when you are in an emotional state, the primative part of your brain kicks in and you cannot learn, grow, rationalise etc until you are out of that emotional state. How do you get out? That’s right by ‘exercising your chimp’ (i.e. complaining).

Now that we have established that complaining can be good it is important to understand when and around whom to do it.

How often have you been in a situation where you are stressed and relieving your stress and the person next to you offers comfort and solutions which further angers you and makes you think ‘but aren't you supposed to be on my side??’.

In the book ‘Supercommunicators’, Charles Duhigg explains that there are three different types of conversations- practical, emotional, social. When you are complaining or venting (or exercising your chimp if we want to remove the negative connotations from the word ‘complaining’), you are engaging in an emotional conversation where you do not want a solution, you just want to be heard. And that is not only normal, but necessary.

Hence why the simple advice of ‘stop complaining’ never really sticks. We need to be heard and understood, told that we are okay in feeling the way we do, even if someone has it worse. Our problems are not any less legitimate simply because we aren’t (insert whatever example/country/disease people give you here to demonstrate you have nothing to complain about).

So when it comes to complaining it is helpful to set the expectations of the person you want to do it with in advance. Let them know you want to spend the next 5 minutes getting things off your chest without censoring yourself. Let them know you may say things that seem ridiculous. You are now having an emotional conversation and you don’t want solutions. You want to be heard. Ask them if that is okay with them (Steve Peters argues that you need to find the right audience for the nature of what you need to let off your chest). Once you have finished and you are in a calmer place, then you can begin to formulate solutions and rationalise your concerns.

If you want, you can stop referring it to complaining, since that word is laden with negative meaning. From now on, allow yourself to ‘Exercise Your Chimp’ to the right person and once you have finished, you can begin to look rationally at your problem and work on the solution.

For more information please contact Ramsay Banna