It’s Science – Those Who Struggle in Life Are Blinded By Hate

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Our lives are a reflection of our habits.

In my book Change Your Habits Change Your Life, I provide the latest science on habits and habit change. I also highlight many of the daily habits that hold us back from living the life we deserve to live.

One prevalent daily habit that creates poverty and destroys lives is the Poor Habit of giving into negative emotions, like hate.

Here’s the science behind this Poor Habit.

The amygdala is part of the inner, middle portion of the brain known as the limbic system. It is rich in neuro-receptors for cortisol, a stress hormone. It is often considered the command and control center of the emotional part of the brain, primarily negative emotions. It controls the fight or flight response and is activated by negative emotions. Once activated, cortisol levels rise, which leads to stress. This short-term stress is a good thing. It forces us to be aware of potential dangers in our environment that could cause physical injury or death.

However, when we hold on to negative emotions like hate, anger, fear, envy or pessimism, those cortisol levels remain elevated, leading to a condition known as chronic stress.

Chronic stress has all sorts of adverse consequences such as: higher blood pressure, depressed immune system and diminished prefrontal cortex activity.

Elevated blood pressure can lead to heart disease or a stroke.

A chronically depressed immune system opens the door to all sorts of infections, viruses, respiratory disease, cardiovascular disease and even cancer.

Diminished prefrontal cortex activity impairs:

  • Learning
  • Decision-making
  • Planning
  • Social behavior
  • Impulse control
  • Short-term memory and
  • Long-term memory.

You turn on the amygdala, the subconscious part of your brain, when you give into negative emotions like hate, anger, fear, pessimism or envy.  When this happens, the conscious part of your brain, the prefrontal cortex, takes a back seat.

When the amygdala takes over, your focus and awareness becomes narrowed. As a result of this narrowed focus and awareness, your ability to learn new things is impaired, you become oblivious to solutions to problems and you are unable to see opportunities – opportunities that are all around you.

Those who hold onto hate, anger, fear, pessimism or envy, are literally operating with half a brain. As a result of this impaired cognitive functioning: they struggle financially, struggle at work, struggle with relationships, are unable to grow through learning and are unable to identify opportunities or solutions to problems.

The result? An unhappy, frustrated and unsuccessful life.

Your state of mind is critical to your success in life. Giving into negative emotions is a Poor Habit. This Poor Habit seeks out environmental triggers that give rise to negative emotions.

You can find fault in everything in life. There are plenty things and people to hate, plenty of things and people to be angry about, plenty of things and people to fear and plenty to envy. You are, everyday, bombarded with environmental triggers that can set off negative emotions. You have a two choices: #1 You can respond to those triggers or #2 You can ignore them.

The Rich Habit is to be constantly vigilant in maintaining a positive mental outlook, and to ignore environmental triggers that give rise to negative emotions. Don’t give negative emotions a foothold in your life. Stay positive and upbeat, always. Your success, health and happiness depends on it.

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Thomas C. Corley About Thomas C. Corley

Tom Corley is a bestselling author, speaker, and media contributor for Business Insider, CNBC and a few other national media outlets.

His Rich Habits research has been read, viewed or heard by over 50 million people in 25 countries around the world.

Besides being an author, Tom is also a CPA, CFP, holds a master’s degree in taxation and is President of Cerefice and Company, a CPA firm in New Jersey.
 
Phone Number: 732-382-3800 Ext. 103.
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Comments

  1. shripad joshi says:

    Thank you for sharing Tom ! Appreciate your help

  2. Thanks Tom. I appreciate the daily inspiration. One question I had though, would it be more accurate to say that “Those who are blinded by hate struggle in life”? After all, I imagine some people struggle in life for reasons other than hate… just a thought. Either way, I think we can all agree with Yoda, “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”

  3. Davene Meehan says:

    This certainly brings to mind one person in particular who has had so many problems. Today she was inundating me with complaints of another person–not the first time… How does one help such a person see a positive side of life?

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