Suppressing negative thoughts maybe be good for mental health
University of Cambridge researchers have made the discovery
Last updated 21st Sep 2023
Suppressing negative thoughts might be good for your mental health after all, according to academics at Cambridge University.
University of Cambridge researchers at the Medical Research Council (MRC) Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit trained 120 volunteers worldwide to suppress thoughts about negative events that worried them.
They found that not only did these become less vivid, but that the mental health of those in the study also improved.
The findings contradict the commonly-held belief that ignoring these thoughts means they stay in our unconscious mind, influencing our behaviour and wellbeing.
Professor Michael Anderson said: "We're all familiar with the Freudian idea that if we suppress our feelings or thoughts, then these thoughts remain in our unconscious, influencing our behaviour and wellbeing perniciously.
"In more recent years, we've been told that suppressing thoughts is intrinsically ineffective and that it actually causes people to think the thought more - it's the classic idea of 'don't think about a pink elephant'."
When Covid-19 appeared in 2020, like many researchers, Prof Anderson wanted to see how his own research could be used to help people through the pandemic.
Dr Zulkayda Mamat - at the time a PhD student in Prof Anderson's lab and at Trinity College, Cambridge - said: "Because of the pandemic, we were seeing a need in the community to help people cope with surging anxiety.
"So with that backdrop, we decided to see if we could help people cope better."
In the study, each person was asked to think of a number of scenarios that might occur in their lives over the next two years - 20 negative fears and worries they were afraid might happen, and 20 positive hopes and dreams.
For each scenario, they were to provide a cue word and a key detail.
Each event was rated on a number of points, vividness, likelihood of occurrence, distance in the future, level of anxiety or joy about the event, frequency of thought, degree of current concern, long-term impact, and emotional intensity.
The volunteers also completed questionnaires to assess their mental health.