Dr. Arthur Brooks warns against numbing negative emotions with drugs, alcohol, or work. Instead, he recommends exercise, particularly lifting and running, which regulates stress hormones and reduces the intensity of negative feelings in ways people often can't fully explain.
Negative affect, intensity of negative emotion. There are some really bad ways to manage it and there's some really good ways to manage it. The single worst way for you to manage your negative affect is drugs and alcohol. If you're numbing yourself, you're getting have problems. The second worst way to lower your negative affect is workaholism. Just staying really, really distracted from your own feelings. Don't do that. You're going to ruin your relationships. You're going to lower your quality of life. What are the good ways to do it? Well, to begin with, go pick up heavy things and run around. That's a great way to manage negative affect. And here's the interesting point. I have found in my read research that people who can't stay in the gym and who hate exercise and find real trouble with the discipline to stay in the gym, they almost always have below average intensity of negative effect. They're not mad scientists. What they are is cheerleaders, generally speaking, and God love them. But that's what I find for the people who struggle with this. The people who say, yeah, love getting in the gym. I get in the gym every day. This is not hard for me. That's because they notice that they feel better even though they can't quite articulate what's happening with their bodies. This is actually happening. They're regulating stress hormones and they didn't know it. So if you struggle with it, congratulations. You probably don't have a high negative affect issue, but you still got to stay in the gym because it's good for you.
