What causes some people to suffer from mental toxicity? How does one unhealthy thought lead to a toxic mind?
Caroline Leaf says mental toxicity occurs when you’re prone to unhealthy thinking patterns. To help people avoid mental toxicity, she outlines what causes bad thoughts and people who are prone to them.
Let’s explore two sources of unhealthy thinking and discuss how a single unhealthy thought can lead to mental toxicity.
Sources of Unhealthy Thinking
Leaf explains what causes bad thoughts and the reasons behind mental toxicity. The most common reason, according to Leaf, is that you’ve been exposed to some of life’s harsh realities—for example, you may have experienced a traumatic event like a natural disaster or grief following the loss of a loved one. This may have caused you to think unhealthy thoughts if you didn’t have access to resources—like a mental health professional or a trusted loved one—to help you process those experiences in a healthy way.
(Shortform note: In Hardwiring Happiness, neuropsychologist Rick Hanson explains why failing to process negative experiences can lead to poor mental health. According to Hanson, our brains have an innate negativity bias: We tend to focus on negative experiences because awareness of danger helped our ancestors survive. Processing our negative experiences helps us balance negative thoughts with positive thoughts—it allows us to embrace comfort and support from others and cultivate a healthier perspective on life. If we don’t achieve that balance, our negativity bias can become too firmly entrenched and distort our thinking patterns. We begin to think negatively when it’s not appropriate or helpful, leading to poor mental health.)
Additionally, says Leaf, many unhealthy thought patterns stem from a negative outlook on the future. Some of this can be tied to socioeconomic concerns: For instance, you may obsess over questions like “Do I fit in?” or “Do I make enough money?” Leaf says millennials may be particularly vulnerable to these sources of mental toxicity because they’ve faced unprecedented social and economic challenges, including the advent of social media, which facilitates social comparison, and growing wealth inequality.
(Shortform note: In Lost Connections, Johann Hari argues that you’re more likely to have a negative outlook if you feel you’re not in control of your life. He suggests that being in control of your life makes you feel more hopeful about the future, since you have a better chance of improving your situation—to demonstrate, he cites a study showing that First Nations people with greater self-determination (the right to govern their own lives) experience lower rates of suicide. Socioeconomic concerns, like the precarity and financial stress brought about by the gig economy, can have a similar effect, and social media can exacerbate negativity by feeding you distressing world news. This may help explain Leaf’s observation that millennials are prone to mental toxicity.)
How an Unhealthy Thought Leads to Mental Toxicity
Leaf says that unhealthy thoughts travel through three mental planes. These planes are the nonconscious mind, which stores information about your identity as well as thoughts and memories that shape your perspective of the world; the conscious mind, where you actively think and are aware of your thoughts; and the subconscious mind, which uses physical and emotional hints to bring nonconscious thoughts to the conscious mind.
(Shortform note: Leaf’s triplanar model of the mind is similar to Sigmund Freud’s model of the psyche. Freud believed that there are three levels of awareness: The unconscious mind contains thoughts that are integral to your identity even though you aren’t aware of them, like childhood memories and instinctual drives. The conscious mind encompasses thoughts you’re actively aware of. Finally, the preconscious mind holds information that can be brought into consciousness (Leaf says this happens via physical and emotional hints, but Freud was especially interested in the preconscious power of dreams). Freud’s model of the psyche was influential, but critics point out that it’s not scientifically verifiable and may be inaccurate.)
According to Leaf, unhealthy thoughts form in your nonconscious mind. Your subconscious mind likely alerts you to them, but you might ignore these hints (Leaf says many people have a tendency to avoid unhealthy thoughts because acknowledging and working through them is emotionally taxing). When you ignore such hints, you can’t bring an unhealthy thought into your conscious mind for processing. This allows the unhealthy thought to fester in your nonconscious mind: It becomes larger and more powerful because you continue to pour metaphysical energy into it. This pattern can become habitual, leading your nonconscious mind to become full of toxic energy (hence Leaf’s definition of mental toxicity).
To illustrate, say you make a mistake and form the nonconscious thought “I’m stupid.” According to Leaf, you’d likely become aware of that thought via physical or emotional hints provided by your subconscious; for example, your cheeks might flush with shame as you realize your mistake. You may ignore such hints if you don’t have enough emotional bandwidth to deal with them. As a result, the unhealthy thought begins to fester. The next time something happens to make you feel stupid, you pour more metaphysical energy into the thought “I’m stupid,” magnifying it. Over time, if this pattern of thinking becomes habitual, related thoughts like “I’m worthless” could accumulate and intensify, leading to mental toxicity.
| How Unhealthy Thoughts Build in Your Mind Leaf says that unhealthy thoughts become larger and more powerful when you fail to process them because you continue to pour metaphysical energy into them. Neuroscientists don’t describe this process in terms of metaphysical energy, but they do agree with Leaf that the more often you have a thought, the stronger the thought grows. This happens via a process called neuroplasticity, which we’ll discuss again later in this guide. Every time you think something, you strengthen the neural connections involved. Strong neural connections are faster than weak ones, so they fire first in new situations. This means that if you strengthen the neural connections that support unhealthy thoughts, you’ll be more likely to have unhealthy thoughts again in the future. Leaf also says that unhealthy thoughts form in your nonconscious mind and that your subconscious mind attempts to alert you to them using physical and emotional hints. Freudian psychologists agree that your nonconscious mind can contain unhealthy thoughts, but they argue that the only way to become conscious of and work through them is through psychoanalysis—a kind of therapy that aims to uncover and address unconscious thoughts and feelings. Other experts point out that you can become aware of and work through unhealthy thoughts using techniques like journaling and meditation. |
