Suppressing negative thoughts may be good for mental health after all

Suppressing negative thoughts is a fool’s errand. You can notice them, and react differently to them, but you can’t literally control the thoughts that arise in your consciousness. You’ll work yourself to death trying.

Serenity now

“Following training – both immediately and after three months – participants reported that suppressed events were less vivid and less fearful. They also found themselves thinking about these events less.”

“In general, people with worse mental health symptoms at the outset of the study improved more after suppression training, but only if they suppressed their fears. This finding directly contradicts the notion that suppression is a maladaptive coping process.

Suppressing negative thoughts did not lead to a ‘rebound’, where a participant recalled these events more vividly. Only one person out of 120 showed higher detail recall for suppressed items post-training, and just six of the 61 participants that suppressed fears reported increased vividness for No-Imagine items post-training, but this was in line with the baseline rate of vividness increases that occurred for events that were not suppressed at all.

“What we found runs counter to the accepted narrative,” said Professor Anderson. “Although more work will be needed to confirm the findings, it seems like it is possible and could even be potentially beneficial to actively suppress our fearful thoughts.””

I wonder if using the technique people succeeded in suppressing "negative" emotions but also in suppressing "positive" emotions. In other words, did they just feel less overall? More numb? Or did they somehow feel less "negative" emotions and the same or more "positive" emotions?

I would hypothesize that it made people feel less overall, more numb, or more indifferent, and for someone feeling a lot of anxiety or fear, I think feeling less overall might feel good.

If that's the mechanism, I don't know how adaptive that is in the medium- to long-term.

You can recognize them and tell yourself to not keep thinking about it. You may not be able to suppress the initial thoughts, but you can recognize your own distortions that negative thoughts lead to and not allow yourself to keep on the subject. It can help prevent future negative thoughts. It takes some work, but it's one of the strategies that cognitive behavioral therapy teaches you, and it really helps a lot of people!