How to get rid of bad thoughts? Throw them in the trash!

Psychologists have confirmed that you can get rid of bad thoughts by writing them on paper and then throw them in the trash. Sounds silly, but according to researchers from Ohio State University (USA) and the Autonomous University of Madrid (Spain), the method works. Generally speaking, the various trainings is recommended to use this technique to fight bad thoughts, but nobody has checked with scientific methods if that works. In the journal Psychological Science published the results of that study. The experiment involved several dozen Spanish students. They were asked to rate their own appearance on three criteria: the "good / bad", "attractive / unattractive", "I like it / I do not like." Everyone was asked to write a thought to your own body, what it likes and dislikes, I was upset or happy. Then some of the participants had more time to reflect on the recorded thought, and then throw the note in the trash to get rid of it. Others, on the contrary, had to correct grammatical and syntactical errors in the text. Then test again asked to rate their own appearance on the same parameters. It was found that those students who corrected their mistakes, or simply read your notes again started to treat my body better or worse, depending on who wrote the paper. At those who threw the note would change. This means that they seem to stop thinking about it, without being dependent on writing. In another study involving some 300 people - they have to think about that many people considered good and useful Mediterranean diet. Good and bad thoughts that should be written on paper or on the board, and if you had to write a paper, it was then ejected, hidden in a pocket, bag, purse, etc.. After some time, the same people were asked to relate back to that diet. It turned out that those who wrote their ideas on the board, reinforced his opinion more - unlike those written on paper thrown in the trash. In this sense, the results confirm the first attempt. Those who held the note with them, later responded to the Mediterranean diet more rapidly than those who left comments on the board. So those who like it, like it began more and those who doubted it finally stopped and trust.      In other words, the materialization of thought makes it more tangible, more important, it more strongly influences human, but at the same time such it was not possible to simply get rid and dispose of it. But how important is a physical act - how crumpled paper and throw it in the trash? To test this, psychologists have made the third experiment where the same thing is repeated in the form of electronic text. Some of the participants dragged their thoughts with the "mouse" to trash the monitor and the other record them on another disk. It turned out that towage manual manipulation of the file helps to deal with negative thoughts better than the performance of operations "save as" and "send". Moreover, as emphasized by psychologists, not about imagination - if you just think throwing away an imaginary piece of paper in the bin imaginary, evil thoughts you leave. Of course, in the case of bin beside the desk, in the case of trash on the desktop is still able to recover the document. This technique should not be regarded as a magic wand that can eradicate negative thoughts from your head: if the problem is real, of course he will not forsake you. However, "discarding" bad thoughts allows for some time to loosen their intrusiveness, resulting in depression, and ultimately to give a clear account if it is worth their attention. In Materials Association for Psychological Science.