Apr 1, 2026 · 2 hr 11 min · 18 segments
We pulled over 2,600 studies and ranked 19 of the most common self-improvement techniques across three dimensions: research quality, consistency of results, and actual effect size. Then we sorted them…
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Mark MansonHostDrew BirnieHost
We're gonna start with number 19, the worst of all of the practices that we examined is...
You could call this, if you want to be uncharitable, you could call this, like, the hardcore version of positive thinking, which positive thinking often does get interpreted in this way, is that people hear that, "Hey, I should think positive," and they immediately assume, like, "Oh, if I have a negative thought or emotion, I sh- I should just push it away-
So take us through [laughs] why is suppressing negative emotions a bad thing, Drew?
The biggest piece of evidence we have against suppressing thoughts and emotions is what they call the ironic process, um, which is basically if I tell you not to think about something, you're going to think more about it, right?
So if you have some negative or traumatic event or something like that in your life, and I tell you, "Okay, here's all these ways we can go about not thinking about this," then when that thing pops up, you start thinking, "How do I not think about this?" And it just amplifies it in your mind.
Right? It just makes you focus on it more, and it pushes out all the other good or neutral things that are going on-
... like PTSD or something like that, in certain very limited structured situations-
... where they need to avoid that triggering event or that thought, under very close, careful supervision, that can maybe work-
We're gonna start with number 19, the worst of all of the practices that we examined is...
You could call this, if you want to be uncharitable, you could call this, like, the hardcore version of positive thinking, which positive thinking often does get interpreted in this way, is that people hear that, "Hey, I should think positive," and they immediately assume, like, "Oh, if I have a negative thought or emotion, I sh- I should just push it away-
So take us through [laughs] why is suppressing negative emotions a bad thing, Drew?
The biggest piece of evidence we have against suppressing thoughts and emotions is what they call the ironic process, um, which is basically if I tell you not to think about something, you're going to think more about it, right?
So if you have some negative or traumatic event or something like that in your life, and I tell you, "Okay, here's all these ways we can go about not thinking about this," then when that thing pops up, you start thinking, "How do I not think about this?" And it just amplifies it in your mind.
Right? It just makes you focus on it more, and it pushes out all the other good or neutral things that are going on-
... like PTSD or something like that, in certain very limited structured situations-
... where they need to avoid that triggering event or that thought, under very close, careful supervision, that can maybe work-
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