6 Harmful Things That Are Extremely Damaging to Your Soul!
Remarkably, it's not the big things that make us happy, nor the small things that make us unhappy. As much as the happiness of small things can impact our well-being, their evil twin can easily destroy our happiness and ruin our lives. Clinging to bad habits can devastate us psychologically and even physically if we don't do something about it. We torment ourselves daily with so many useless and destructive little activities. The energy we waste on them could be invested so much better. On closer inspection it is almost 100% in our own hands how we feel and how happy our life may be. We do not have to do much for this. It's enough to simply cut out a few harmful habits. The following 6 things you should stop as soon as possible. They are pure poison for your peace of mind and your mental and physical well-being.
1. Constantly complaining and grumbling
You should think of every negative thought and every ugly comment as a poisonous arrow piercing your soul. Sounds drastic? It is a fact, even if it seems ridiculous and hard to imagine. However, for one day, consciously pay attention to how often you allow negativity to get the better of you. Every critical sentence, every complaint and every self-pitying session is more damaging to you than you can imagine. You are then your own worst enemy. If you want to remove the toxicity from your life, work on your mindset and choose your words wisely. Dark thoughts are harmful, but negative self-talk or constant complaining and grumbling form the thoughts into words and send them out into the world. Once spoken, they are reality. Words have great power over us, but they also have the unpleasant quality of being heard. So, with our pessimism and moodiness, we not only spoil our day for ourselves, but for our fellow human beings as well. The tragedy of this thoroughly bad habit is that it doesn't make us feel any better. Just because we externalize our sorrow, it does not lessen inside us. If anything, we multiply our unhappiness by speaking it out loud and dumping it on the world like a gigantic load of emotionally poisonous garbage. And we have to fear yet another unpleasant side effect if we don't stop grumbling and criticizing: People will avoid us like the plague, and right they are. Toxic people are highly contagious. In no time at all, they manage to spread their bad mood to their fellow human beings, regardless of the consequences.
2. Multitasking
What was the latest trend and all the rage in the colorful market of self-optimization tips until a few years ago is now officially frowned upon, thank goodness. The current definition of multitasking is: screwing up as many things as possible at the same time by every trick in the book. If you don't focus on a single thing, you'll never get it done to the best of your ability. If we're distracted or constantly thinking about something else, we'll never be able to do our best. What used to be seen as a practical solution to overwhelming employees or completely overworking people in ordinary everyday life has been exposed as an ideological hoax. Multitasking was and is nothing more than a cool euphemism for this. "If you can't do it, we'll find someone else to do it," or "If you can't get it done, you're just not good enough.'' Our modern, very fast-paced and demand-driven era at all levels would, of course, be the ideal stomping ground for pushing multitasking to its Olympic peak. However, few of us would probably survive this level of overkill. In the digital age, where everything happens in real time and we don't have a free minute left that we don't force out of our schedule, we wouldn't be able to multitask at all. Collapse would be inevitable. Our collapse and that of the entire system.
3. Selfies
Several studies have already shown the negative effects of selfies on our body image and mental health. Editing the ego shots with filters and all kinds of tools surprisingly doesn't make things better or more bearable for us. The constant facing of our outer appearance leads to a real mania, which in the best case ends in obsessive self-improvement. In the worst case, with frustration and depressive consequences. Moreover, this constant fixation and self-centeredness are a surefire path to social isolation. Those who crown themselves king and queen in their universe have no room left at their side for other people. As a result, there is a risk of loneliness and increased withdrawal into the digital illusionary world.
4. Making fun of yourself
If you often make fun of yourself, think and talk badly about yourself, and constantly make self-deprecating jokes at your own expense, at some point you create a highly distorted view of yourself. A part of us begins to believe that we are awkward, ugly, hard to love, or less than charming. We then begin to internalize this belittling and low self-esteem. By letting seemingly harmless jokes fly at our own expense, we affect our self-image without consciously realizing it. In doing so, we actually change our sense of identity. As a result, we can experience psychological stress and even depression. Not always taking oneself completely seriously can be beneficial and helpful sometimes. But the lines which lead to destructive self-harm are blurred.
5. Clutter
According to a 2017 study in the journal Coron Psychology, the tendency towards clutter and the accumulation of useless things has a lot to do with procrastination. Those who are surrounded by clutter tend to put off the inevitable tidying up. The problem with this is that the more clutter spreads, the more it overwhelms and paralyzes us. This vicious cycle leads to feelings of frustration, which has a direct impact on our mental health. Another study from the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in 2010 clearly showed that clutter also elevates our cortisol levels, which has been shown to trigger stress.
6. Poor posture
An extremely interesting study and its results were published in 2017. The participants were deliberately exposed to stressful and very demanding situations. Those with poor posture reacted with a clearly negative mood, quickly showed signs of stress and rapidly became tired. Those with good posture were able to maintain a significantly better mood and good self-esteem in the same difficult situations. They also lasted longer than the control group. So it does make a big difference whether we walk through life with our backs straight and our heads held high, or whether we let ourselves slouch in life, both literally and figuratively. With excellent posture during seated activities, we can enjoy improved concentration, increased productivity and more satisfaction with our tasks.
Today's Conclusion: Pay attention to the little things, because they sum up our lives.
Be mindful of your body and especially of your thoughts and words. We can control so much of everything that we experience on a daily basis. Make a conscious decision for a good life and you can have it. That's it for today. Thanks very much and see you soon.