An overwhelming number of whiners around is dangerous for you! We explain how to deal with those who are always dissatisfied with life.
Every person has encountered a whiner in their life. At first glance, a whiner may seem like an adequate and even quite pleasant person. But as soon as you get into his inner circle, you find yourself knee-deep in a swamp out of pity for him - and this swamp drags you in and out. There is only one piece of advice: fight whiners and don’t let them turn you into an eternal vest person.
First of all, let’s set the boundaries and try to clearly understand who can be called a whiner (and who you shouldn’t really feel sorry for) and who you can’t (and who really needs your support).
SO, WHO IS A WHINNER?
A real whiner is always a whiner, except for rare moments of enlightenment. He will always find a reason to lament the frailty of his existence and complain to you about another insoluble problem. Moreover, for him any problem will be insoluble! But here there are two options.
In the first case, a real whiner comes up with a problem for which there is simply no solution. He can cry for a week because he wants some kind of five-wheeled car to drive to work. But he doesn’t need a regular four-wheeler! And I don’t care that there are no five-wheeled cars, and I don’t care that, in general, there is no point in it. HE WANTS THIS CAR. So feel sorry for him, caress him, lament with him: his grandiose high dream has collapsed, and the rest of the stupid people don’t understand him.
In the second case, the more practical whiner complains about completely simple problems with a completely simple solution. But he seems to be working hard to NOT address the issue. He may whine about how much he hates his job. But at the same time, of course, he will not lift a finger to find a new one. He won't even write a resume! And if you offer him hundreds of wonderful vacancies, he will only sigh sadly and say that he hates his job more than anything else in the world, but he is not ready to spend 5 more minutes on the road to a new job. And he is not ready to work in the best company in the world, but receive 500 rubles less than now. And no, he is not ready to send his resume to this company, because it seems to him that he heard somewhere that once in 2005, wages were delayed by one day.
How whiners influence others
Empathy promotes negative thinking
It turns out that the ability to be compassionate and the ability to imagine oneself in someone else’s place can do a disservice. Listening to a whiner, we involuntarily experience his feelings: anger, despair, dissatisfaction. The more often we are around such people, the stronger the neural connections with negative emotions become. Simply put, the brain internalizes negative thinking.
Health problems begin
Being among those who constantly curse circumstances, people and the whole world is a considerable stress for the body. As mentioned above, the brain tries to adapt to the emotional state of the person who is complaining, so we also get angry, irritated, upset, and sad. This results in increased levels of cortisol, known as the stress hormone.
Simultaneously with cortisol, adrenaline is produced: thus the hypothalamus reacts to a possible threat. As the body prepares to “defend itself,” the heart rate increases and blood pressure rises. Blood rushes to the muscles, and the brain is tuned to decisive action. Sugar levels also rise, because we need energy.
If this is repeated regularly, the body learns a “stress pattern” and the risk of developing hypertension, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and obesity increases many times over.
Brain volume decreases
Regular stress not only worsens your overall health: your brain literally begins to dry out.
A report published by Stanford News Service describes the effects of stress hormones on rats and baboons. It has been discovered that animals respond to prolonged stress by actively releasing glucocorticoids, which leads to shrinkage of brain cells.
A similar conclusion was made based on MRI. Scientists compared brain images of people who were matched in age, gender, weight and education level, but differed in that some had long suffered from depression and others had not. The hippocampus of depressed participants was 15% smaller. The same study compared the results of Vietnam War veterans with and without a diagnosis of PTSD. It turned out that the hippocampus of the participants in the first group was 25% smaller.
The hippocampus is an important part of the brain that is responsible for memory, attention, learning, spatial navigation, goal-directed behavior and other functions. And if it is reduced, all processes fail.
In the cases described, the researchers were unable to either prove or disprove that it was glucocorticoids that caused the “shrinkage” of the brain. But since the phenomenon has been noted in patients with Cushing's syndrome, there is every reason to believe that the same thing happens in depression and PTSD. Cushing's syndrome is a severe neuroendocrine disorder caused by a tumor. It is accompanied by intense production of glucocorticoids. As it turned out, it is this reason that leads to the reduction of the hippocampus.
WHAT ARE WHINERS DANGEROUS?
They are contagious! If you are constantly in the company of a whiner and all you do is listen to complaints of varying degrees of far-fetchedness, it will be either extremely difficult or even impossible for you to have fun and smile. You risk becoming a sad and depressed person while you listen from morning to evening about how unfair and cruel the world is.
Believe me, the whiner himself may not really care about his problems, about which he so desperately cries to you. But here is your approval, pity, patting him on the head and words about how wonderful he is, and everything will definitely be fine with him, until he, sobbing heavily and lowering his eyes, shakes his head and asks again, “so do you really think that I - the most beautiful person in the universe? - this is like sour cream for a cat.
Why are they doing that?
Whiners always need someone to vent to.
Let's start with the fact that the whiner tells you how bad everything is and expects to get a response, of course, the easiest way is to tell him “no”, alas, is not always suitable. Agree that the boss to whom you openly say something in the style of: “Viktor Ivanovich, maybe it’s time to stop whining, your whining is not at all interesting to me...” can cause you a lot of trouble later.
HOW TO FIGHT THEM?
In the fight against whiners, everyone goes through several initial stages: 1) denial that the person is a whiner and quarrels with all the insensitive cudgels who call him a whiner; 2) pity for the whiner and naive but noble attempts to help him; 3) the realization that came a few months later that the person really just whines and does nothing to solve his “problems”; 4) the desire to rip his head off every time he opens his mouth.
In order not to rip anyone's head off, after you realize that you can no longer endure it all, show the person that you are not going to become his eternal vest.
1. Try to firmly, but not rudely, advise the person to go to a psychologist
: For the next complaint, hand over the specialist’s business card. Make it clear that you no longer want to listen to his whining, but you still want to help. A real whiner will not go to a psychologist, because he doesn’t really need help, but pity. So there is a chance that the person will take the hint and simply switch to someone other than you.
2. Don't give a whiner the opportunity to whine. Try not to be alone with him.
Then you and the other interlocutor can translate each of his dull sentences into a positive direction. When the whiner tries to insert his pessimistic 5 cents several times in the conversation, and you continue the cheerful conversation, he will give up.
3. If for some reason you cannot exclude communication with a whiner, turn on white noise.
For example, your work colleague with whom you sometimes have lunch may be a whiner. Let him chatter about his grievances and hardships, while you chew your salad, nod periodically and think about unicorns and rainbows.
4. Play a cruel joke on the whiner. When you meet him, start... whining!
And he moaned all day, not letting him get a word in. Let him feel how it feels for you. Maybe this will make him look at his behavior from a different perspective.
5.
Whining is a way of life.
It is almost impossible to correct a whiner. Therefore, if possible, just try to protect yourself from communicating with such people as soon as possible
, before you are dragged headlong into this dull swamp.
Someone else's soul - darkness
I will not condemn these people - this is their way of relieving tension, but not everyone is ready to take such a shower and, having shaken themselves up, move on in a good mood.
So learn to say no. And first of all for yourself. Tell yourself: “I am not a handkerchief, not a rag with which you can wipe up the slop and throw it away, I am not a thing!” This is where we will begin our little training - how not to turn into an “emotional toilet” for your interlocutor. Suppose you have already come to the realization that such conversations are unpleasant for you, and there are several techniques on how to prevent a whiner from entering your soul.
Invite them to solve the problem
Some complainants may enter the director's office with ready-made proposals for how to resolve a particular situation. If a person is truly interested in change, then he may have good ideas about it. Unfortunately, most often whiners criticize without offering anything in return. In such a situation, the manager can ask the following questions: “How would you handle this task?” and “You suggest doing something differently. How exactly?" It is possible that employees will be able to independently find a way out of a difficult situation and quickly solve the problem.
Offer to look at the problem from a different angle
In some cases, whiners need to be helped to reframe their situation, according to Center for Leading Organizations managing partner Robert Galford. To do this, the manager can invite the employee to look from a different angle at the problem that the subordinate often points out. “Let’s imagine that your colleague constantly criticizes company policies. In this case, you can explain to him in detail its essence and benefits,” notes Galford. According to him, it is important to move the conversation with the complainant in a constructive direction. To achieve this, you can use phrases like “I suggest you look at this from a different perspective” or “Let’s figure out what the reason for your complaints is.” Sometimes a person needs to look at a problem from a different perspective in order to change his attitude towards it.
Listen to them
Some employees become chronic whiners because they feel like others aren't listening to them. For this reason, they may keep repeating the same complaint until someone responds to it properly. Business coach Erica Latrice recommends getting out of this situation in the following way: “If you find yourself frequently communicating with such people, use a similar phrase in your dialogue with them: “If I were in your shoes, I would feel the same way.” Thanks to it, the employee will understand that he has been heard and that the other person shares his opinion. Perhaps this awareness will be enough for the employee to stop complaining.
Why do people whine and complain?
There are several reasons that motivate a person to complain:
Insuring yourself against misfortunes.
It seems to another whiner: if you admit that you are worthless, you will appease the villainous fate. She doesn’t like proud people, she patronizes the quiet and weak. In this way you can relieve anxiety for a while. But there is a risk of convincing yourself that you are a chronic loser. This is a great way to say in case of failure “I knew it!”
Dependent attitude towards one's neighbor.
Whining people are infantile, like small children. They believe that someone stronger and smarter should hear their groans and rush to the rescue, abandoning all their affairs. They constantly need words of support, approval, and sympathy. However, if a person constantly whines, the patience of benefactors can quickly run out. After all, they didn’t take a job as a nanny for a whiner, and they have plenty of their own things to do.
The need for reflection.
In the process of outlining the impasse, the complainant hopes to find a way out. He needs a listener to better understand his feelings, to separate fears and illusions from reasonable arguments. In rare cases, this is a really working tool. But such practice, which is normal, deprives the development of independent analysis skills.
Each of the listed behavior patterns is not vicious if you do not resort to it too often. The principle of communication based on the refusal of personal responsibility for one’s destiny is harmful.
Whiner people are divided into 2 types:
Chronic complainer
Such a person no longer notices that he is constantly whining. He is always “not enough”, “cold”, “dark”, “scary”, “bored”... He is consistently “the worst of all”. Such a mourner has long seen the world in gloomy tones. He’s lost the habit of being happy, and he’s afraid: what if life punishes him for this?
Therefore, all he does is look for shortcomings. Even where they are not. In any situation he will see the catch. They brought a present - they are counting on something. They didn’t give anything - they were misers. Someone always owes him. People at first sympathize with him, and then begin to diligently avoid him.
Boast for an hour.
Whining people of this type are not always seeking pity. Sometimes they become desperate imagineers, delighted with their own success. But their fanfare is not enough for long; soon they return to their usual whining.
Such fluctuations are caused by a lack of internal support and self-control. Moreover, both boasting and complaints from such people take exaggerated forms. When these people whine, they become like beaten dogs. And when they brag, they look like funny peacocks. In both cases, they cannot do without the support of others. They have no self-esteem.
Each of these two types is looking for a second half who could replace the complainant's caring mother.
Next method
- Another rather time-consuming option is to seize the initiative
.
It would be very good to abstract from your own words.
The whiner, who caught you for moral relief, does not expect that he himself will be used as a toilet. Here again, pressure, and perseverance, and a burning gaze, and pathetic speech, and the wind in our hair are important... However, this requires a certain skill. And here I will tell you one thing, if you are not ready to make efforts, you will become an easy prey. If you are ready to endure and become the same whiner, catch your colleagues by the button and tell them how a sea of emotional feces was thrown out on you, go for it. The choice is always yours, to use or to be used. One way or another, both the victim and the predator are needed by society; all you have to do is occupy your niche.
Video on the topic “How to escape from a whiner”
But we digress, and this is not an article in a textbook or a training manual for the first course, so I will give only a few tips, and you will only have to apply them or refuse.
Parting words
As I already mentioned, there are a lot of methods, choose or invent, everything is only in your hands, and an unpleasant person, with the right approach, can turn out to be a necessary and interesting person, sometimes you need to “pick off” his shell in order to enjoy the delicious taste.
In any case, you need to “educate” your environment. By creating a reputation for yourself as a person who should not be disturbed by small things, you will win yourself a lot of points and will be able to improve relationships with anyone. Remember that communication is important, it changes the world, builds our society and plays a fundamental role in our lives. Let's change the world for the better! All the best to you and interesting interlocutors!
Tsygvintseva Anastasia · 28 Jul, 2015
