“Don’t Worry, Be Happy”: Firing Up Repetitive Unpleasant Thoughts

The song title¹ of the headline covers both halves of the so-called "ironic effect,” and it is a common way people deal with adversity. The actual, well-documented outcome of such an approach to life, however, is more worry and sadness.

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What is the ironic effect and how does it work?

There two aspects of it.

First, it is well known that if you suppress unpleasant thoughts, not only will they become stronger but there is also a trampoline effect—they become much stronger.² We often joke about it, but it is a serious problem that disrupts your quality of life, drives fight-or-flight physiology, and causes many symptoms, illnesses, and diseases. “Don’t worry” invites thought suppression.

Second, and less well-known, setting high ideals and standards for yourself will take you down in the other direction. For example, if you strive for happiness, you will experience sadness. If you allow sadness, you will be happier.³ The higher your ideals and intentions, the greater your chances of being riddled by anxiety.

Why does this phenomenon occur? The answer lies in the massive impact of the unconscious survival-oriented brain compared with the limited power of the conscious brain. Your unconscious brain processes about 40 million bits of information per second compared to your conscious brain, dealing with about 40 per second.The unconscious brain is a million times stronger. Let’s look at the problem of “being happy.”

The pursuit of happiness

“Happy” is a conscious construct. The problem is that your conscious brain is no match for your survival reactions, which evolved to be so unpleasant as to compel you to take actions to survive. The data show that by trying to outrun or compensate for your stresses by pursuing pleasure, you’ll cause a highly inflammatory reaction. Your DNA dictates the production of destructive inflammatory cells called “warrior monocytes,” which attack your own tissue in addition to attacking bacteria, viruses, and other foreign invaders.⁴ The sensation generated by this inflammatory response is anxiety.

Another aspect of the ironic effect is that by pursuing happiness, you’ll worry about the ways you might not achieve it. You have set a largely unconscious standard of what "happy" is for you. As you monitor your happiness, you are in ongoing self-judgmental mode that wears you down.

"Happy" is also a label, which is a core cognitive distortion.⁵ What is it and how encompassing is it? What percent of the time do you have to be in a happy state to label yourself as “happy?” What activities and accomplishments are required to reach your criterion? How do you react when daily challenges interrupt this state of mind?

Philosophers and psychologists have viewed attachment as the root of suffering. Anthony DeMello has a concise definition of it.⁶ If something feels good, you want more, and if it is unpleasant, you want less. Being attached to “happy” will paradoxically increase your suffering. The most well-intentioned people are the most subject to the ironic effect in that the higher their ideals, the greater the chances they’ll be riddled with racing thoughts and anxiety.

“Don’t worry?”

We all know the problems that occur when you try not think about something. A classic paper published in 1987^2, "The Paradoxical Effects of Thought Suppression,” demonstrated that the effect of suppressing a thought leads to a preoccupation with the suppressed thought. Again, more well-intentioned people will suppress a higher percent of “unacceptable” thoughts and also give meaning to them. They are just thoughts, but they become even more powerful as they keep being interpreted as good or bad.

Repetitive unpleasant thoughts (RUTs) are universal. When you have a bizarre, even unspeakable, thought, of course you would suppress it. Why wouldn’t you? It has nothing to do with anything about you or your value system. As it arises again and again, it is instantly suppressed. Eventually, suppression becomes automatic, which is called repression. Seems pretty normal, right?

Except that what happens is that your nervous system inadvertently gives this random thought a tremendous amount of power. Every time the thought is suppressed/ repressed, a neurological circuit has been reinforced. Such circuits become stronger and more powerfully connected with more experiences.⁷ Eventually, you may end up using up a lot of mental energy dealing with the anxiety-producing, disruptive thought(s). As you feel trapped and frustrated, the circuits are driven even harder by the inflammatory response in your brain.

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These disruptive thoughts become your “demons.” They are not your demons. They are the opposite of who you are and who you are not.

My term for the irrational, nonresponsive neurological patterns is “robots”. You cannot deal with a robot. You cannot talk to it or reason with it. There is absolutely nothing that can be done from a rational standpoint to change an unresponsive neurological circuit. In fact, when you discuss your demons and try to figure out why they are there, you are firing up and adding even more complexity to the circuits. They become even stronger and you can’t unlearn the information they carry. How do you “unlearn” to ride a bike? You can’t. They really are RUTs.

Allow worry?

No one wants to talk about the existence of RUTs because they are so disruptive and often feel shameful. The initial step is to understand the nature of the problem and realize that such thoughts are emanating from your unconscious brain. You must separate your identity from them. They are just thoughts, having them is universal, and you don’t have to personally identify with them.

The unpleasant emotions connected with them are your body’s physiology responding to the perceived threats. Remember, they are actually the opposite of who you are as a well-meaning person.

Fortunately, there are solutions that have been known for centuries but don’t seem to be readily apparent in our modern world. The principles revolve around allowing yourself to be with your painful emotions, use strategies to calm down your threat physiology, and then choose joy. With repetition, you’ll reprogram your survival reactions into more pleasant alternatives. As emotional pain is processed in similar regions of the brain as physical pain, it hurts.⁸ Professional support and direction are often needed.

Choosing joy is different from positive thinking, which is another form of thought suppression. It entails having a positive outlook, “taking the hits,” and consistently making positive choices. But you can’t make the positive choices without knowing where you are in the moment. “What you can feel, you can heal.”⁹ As you learn to be with your mental pain instead of fighting it, the unpleasant circuits will become less active. It is similar to any skill that fades without practice.

Be with worry and choose happy. Learning skills to accomplish this allows you rise above your RUTs.