Chronic Complaing Shrinks Your Brain

Getting sympathy when we complain gives us a hit of feel-good brain chemicals even though the thing we are complaining about is still a problem.

This feel-good hit programs us to use this strategy to feel better in the future. It becomes a habit. 

But a 1996 Stanford study suggested that complaining, or being complained to, for 30 minutes a day reduces the size of the hippocampus, a part of the brain involved in memory and problem solving, the opposite of what we need to find constructive solutions.