The Most Dangerous Word in the World

This word can damage both the speakers and listeners brain!
Published on July 31, 2012 by Mark Waldman and Andrew Newberg,
M.D. in Words Can Change Your Brain
If I were to put you into an fMRI scannera huge donut-shaped magnet that
can take a video of the neural changes happening in your brainand flash
the word NO for less than one second, youd see a sudden release of
dozens

of

stress-producing hormones and

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

your sleep,

your appetite, and your ability to experience long-termhappiness and

satisfaction.
If you vocalize your negativity, or even slightly frown when you say no,
more stress chemicals 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 undermining cooperation and trust. In fact, just
hanging around negative people will make you more prejudicedtoward
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 thinking is 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 with anger, do even more damage.
They send alarm messages through the brain, interfering with the decision
making centers 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 thesefearful thoughts are not real,
other parts of your brain (like the thalamus and amygdala) react to
negative fantasiesas 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 situation really a 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 of unconscious negative thoughts decline.[9]
The Power of Yes
When doctors and therapists teach patients to turn negative thoughts and
worries into positive affirmations, the communication process improves and
the patient regains self-control and 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 must repetitiously and
consciously generate as many positive thoughts as we can. Barbara
Fredrickson, one of the founders of Positive 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 thinking can 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 buildresilience when 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 specific genes that 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,
see Words Can Change Your Brain(Newberg & Waldman, 2012,
Hudson Street Press), and for strategies to reduce stress and
improve communication, visit www.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

Of Consumer Research. 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

randomised

controlled

trial

of

school

based cognitive behaviour therapy (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, FaginJones S, Telang F, Wang GJ, Fowler JS, Volkow ND. Emotion. 2007
Aug;7(3):649-59.
[7] Wright, R. The Moral Animal: Why We Are, the Way We Are: The New
Science of Evolutionary 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 in fibromyalgia patients: 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: agerelated 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.