The Most Dangerous Word in the WorldThis word can damage both the speakers and listeners brain!Published on July 31, 2012 byMark Waldman and Andrew Newberg, M.D.inWords Can Change Your BrainIf I were to put you into an fMRI scannera huge donut-shaped magnet that can take a video of theneuralchanges happening in your brainand flash the word NO for less than one second, youd see a sudden release of dozens of stress-producinghormonesand neurotransmitters. These chemicals immediately interrupt the normal functioning of your brain, impairing logic, reason, language processing, and communication.In fact, just seeing a list of negative words for a few seconds will make a highly anxious or depressed person feel worse, and the more you ruminate on them, the more you can actually damage key structures that regulate yourmemory, feelings, and emotions.[1]Youll disrupt yoursleep, yourappetite, and your ability to experience long-termhappinessand satisfaction.If you vocalize your negativity, or even slightly frown when you say no, morestresschemicals will be released, not only in your brain, but in the listeners brain as well.[2]The listener will experience increased anxiety and irritability, thus underminingcooperationand trust. In fact, just hanging around negative people will make you moreprejudicedtoward others![3]Any form of negative ruminationfor example, worrying about your financial future or healthwill stimulate the release of destructive neurochemicals. And the same holds true for children: the more negative thoughts they have, the more likely they are to experience emotional turmoil.[4] But if you teach them to think positively, you can turn their lives around.[5]Negative thinkingis also self perpetuating, and the more you engage in negative dialogueat home or at workthe more difficult it becomes to stop.[6]But negative words, spoken withanger, do even more damage. They send alarm messages through the brain, interfering with thedecision makingcenters in the frontal lobe, and this increases a persons propensity to act irrationally.Fear-provoking wordslike poverty, illness, and deathalso stimulate the brain in negative ways. And even if thesefearfulthoughts are not real, other parts of your brain (like the thalamus and amygdala) react to negativefantasiesas though they were actual threats occurring in the outside world. Curiously, we seem to be hardwired to worryperhaps an artifact of old memories carried over from ancestral times when there were countless threats to our survival.[7]In order to interrupt this natural propensity to worry, several steps can be taken. First, ask yourself this question: Is the situationreallya threat to my personal survival? Usually it isnt, and the faster you can interrupt the amygdalas reaction to an imagined threat, the quicker you can take action to solve the problem. Youll also reduce the possibility of burning a permanent negative memory into our brain.[8]After you have identified the negative thought (which often operates just below the level of everyday consciousness), your can reframe it by choosing to focus on positive words and images. The result: anxiety and depression decreases and the number ofunconsciousnegative thoughts decline.[9]The Power of YesWhen doctors and therapists teach patients to turn negative thoughts and worries into positive affirmations, the communication process improves and the patient regainsself-controland confidence.[10]But theres a problem: the brain barely responds to our positive words and thoughts.[11] Theyre not a threat to our survival, so the brain doesnt need to respond as rapidly as it does to negative thoughts and words. [12]To overcome this neural bias for negativity, we mustrepetitiously and consciouslygenerate as many positive thoughts as we can. Barbara Fredrickson, one of the founders ofPositive Psychology, discovered that if we need to generate at least three positive thoughts and feelings for each expression of negativity. If you express fewer than three, personal and business relationships are likely to fail. This finding correlates with Marcial Losadas research with corporate teams,[13] and John Gottmans research with marital couples.[14]Fredrickson, Losada, and Gottman realized that if you want your business and your personal relationships to really flourish, youll need to generate at least five positive messages for each negative utterance you make (for example, Im disappointed or Thats not what I had hoped for count as expressions of negativity, as does a facial frown or nod of the head).It doesnt even matter if your positive thoughts are irrational; theyll still enhance your sense of happiness, wellbeing, and life satisfaction.[15]In fact,positive thinkingcan help anyone to build a better and more optimistic attitude toward life.[16]Positive words and thoughts propel the motivational centers of the brain into action[17] and they help us buildresiliencewhen we are faced with lifes problems.[18]According to Sonja Lyubomirsky, one of the worlds leading researchers on happiness, if you want to develop lifelong satisfaction, you should regularly engage in positive thinking about yourself, share your happiest events with others, and savor every positive experience in your life.[19]Our advice: choose your words wisely and speak them slowly. This will allow you to interrupt the brains propensity to be negative, and as recent research has shown, the mere repetition of positive words like love, peace, and compassion will turn on specificgenesthat lower your physical and emotional stress[20]. Youll feel better, youll live longer, and youll build deeper and more trusting relationships with othersat home and at work.As Fredrickson and Losada point out, when you generate a minimum of five positive thoughts to each negative one, youll experience an optimal range of human functioning.[21] That is the power of YES.For more information on the effects of positive and negative speech, seeWords Can Change Your Brain(Newberg & Waldman, 2012, Hudson Street Press), and for strategies to reduce stress and improve communication, visitwww.MarkRobertWaldman.com._____________________________________[1] Some assessments of the amygdala role in suprahypothalamic neuroendocrine regulation: a minireview. Talarovicova A, Krskova L, Kiss A. Endocr Regul. 2007 Nov;41(4):155-62.[2]HaririAR, Tessitore A, Mattay VS, Fera F,Weinberger DR.. The amygdala response to emotional stimuli: a comparison of faces and scenes. Neuroimage. 2002 Sep;17(1):317-23.[3] Duhachek A, Zhang S, Krishnan S. Anticipated Group Interaction: Coping withValence Asymmetries in Attitude Shift. Journal OfConsumerResearch. Vol. 34. October 2007.[4] The Role of Repetitive Negative Thoughts in the Vulnerability for Emotional Problems in Non-Clinical Children. Broeren S, Muris P, Bouwmeester S, van der Heijden KB, Abee A. J Child Fam Stud. 2011 Apr;20(2):135-148.[5] Protocol for a randomised controlled trial of a school basedcognitivebehaviourtherapy(CBT) intervention to prevent depression in high risk adolescents (PROMISE). Stallard P, Montgomery AA, Araya R, Anderson R, Lewis G, Sayal K, Buck R, Millings A,Taylor JA. Trials. 2010 Nov 29;11:114.[6] What is in a word? No versus Yes differentially engage the lateral orbitofrontal cortex. Alia-Klein N, Goldstein RZ, Tomasi D, Zhang L, Fagin-Jones S, Telang F, Wang GJ, Fowler JS, Volkow ND. Emotion. 2007 Aug;7(3):649-59.[7] Wright, R. TheMoralAnimal: Why We Are, the Way We Are: The New Science ofEvolutionary Psychology. Vintage, 1995.[8] Erasing fear memories with extinction training. Quirk GJ, Par D, Richardson R, Herry C, Monfils MH, Schiller D, Vicentic A. J Neurosci. 2010 Nov 10;30(45):14993-7.[9] Generalized hypervigilance infibromyalgiapatients: an experimental analysis with the emotional Stroop paradigm. Gonzlez JL, Mercado F, Barjola P, Carretero I, Lpez-Lpez A, Bullones MA, Fernndez-Snchez M, Alonso M. J Psychosom Res. 2010 Sep;69(3):279-87.[10] [Negative and positive suggestions in anaesthesia : Improved communication with anxious surgical patients]. Hansen E, Bejenke C. Anaesthesist. 2010 Mar;59(3):199-202, 204-6, 208-9.[11] Kisley MA, Wood S, Burrows CL. Looking at the sunny side of life: age-related change in an event-related potential measure of the negativity bias. Psychol Sci. 2007 Sep;18(9):838-43.[12] May I have your attention, please: electrocortical responses to positive and negative stimuli. Smith NK, Cacioppo JT, Larsen JT, Chartrand TL. Neuropsychologia. 2003;41(2):171-83.