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Comment by thinkfurther | Hacker News Reader

> We found that people who habitually accept their negative emotions experience fewer negative emotions

and

> those who generally allow such bleak feelings as sadness, disappointment and resentment to run their course reported fewer mood disorder symptoms than those who critique them or push them away, even after six months

Yet the comments so far are mostly about "controlling your thoughts", rather than accepting negative emotions (and maybe looking at what they're trying to tell you rather than killing the messengers).

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this mirrors my experience after going through a bout of anxiety disorder during my time in college.

Just a few sessions with a psychologist who suggested 'mindful' behaviour (defined as observing your own emotions and not judging yourself rather than being involved in them) helped a pretty great deal.

As most people who have dealt with this probably know, trying to surpress anxiety symptoms does not help at all and mostly makes the attacks worse.

I think recognizing why we feel a certain way is important but a little different than what the article is discussing at face value. A lot of what the article discussed seemed to describe people feeling added emotional stress because of a reluctance to believe that the negative emotions afflicting them were okay (for lack of a better term). It's like the difference between struggling to swim out of a powerful current versus simply letting it carry you and waiting for the lifeguard because you know you're already caught. Granted, you should probably signal the lifeguard but that breaks the metaphor.

How about the waterfall metaphor - If you get washed over a waterfall (or a wier) you'll stick in the eddies below, your instinct will be to swim up and try to keep your head above water. But, doing this will ensure you keep getting washed back under the waterfall. Instead, a better approach is to swim down, then away downstream.

Point is directly fighting against something can keep you trapped by it. Rolling with it and working yourself into a better position without resistance can, eventually, take you away from the problem.

I'd say that the "control" part here would be teaching yourself to stop denying that you're thinking/feeling something. A bear 5 ft away isn't going to be "controlled" by you closing your eyes and plugging your ears.

How can you change something if you're still denying it?

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